Last year's Cannes Film Festival bowed three eventual Best Picture nominees in Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick and Triangle of Sadness, the latter of which was awarded the festival's coveted Palme d'Or. (Additional prizes were presented to Close and EO, which also went on to receive Oscar nominations.)
The 76th edition boasts a similarly illustrious slate, as some of cinema's most beloved auteurs descend upon the Croisette to unveil their latest works alongside world premieres for the year's most-anticipated blockbusters. (At long last, Indiana Jones is making his return to the Festival de Cannes.) Below, A.frame has the answers to all of your questions about this year's Cannes Film Festival, with one exception: Who will win the Palme d'Or this year?
For that answer, stay tuned. Until then, read on for everything else you need to know.
When and where is this year's festival?
The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival runs from May 16 to May 27 at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, the traditional home of the festival on the French Riviera.
Which films are screening at Cannes?
The festival's Official Selection comprises those In Competition and Un Certain Regard (the sidebar focused on up-and-coming filmmakers), as well as Out of Competition premieres, Special Screenings, Midnight Screenings, and heritage works screened as part of Cannes Classics and the Cinéma de la Plage.
The festival will open with the world premiere of French writer-director-actress Maïwenn's Jeanne du Barry at the Grand Théâtre Lumière. The historical drama stars Johnny Depp as King Louis XV, with Maïwenn as the titular maîtresse-en-titre.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will premiere out of competition at Cannes, 15 years after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did the same. Directed by James Mangold, Dial of Destiny marks Harrison Ford's final outing as the legendary hero archaeologist, with Cannes also paying a special tribute to the iconic actor for his career.
Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon will also debut out of competition. (The filmmaker's last Cannes selection was 1986's After Hours.) Set in 1920s Oklahoma, the drama centers on a string of Osage Nation murders and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, and Jesse Plemons.
Meanwhile, Pedro Almodóvar will unveil his new short film, Strange Way of Life, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. The 30-minute Western reunites two former gunslingers after 25 years. "I must say no more so as not to give away all the surprises of the script," Almodóvar says.
Disney and Pixar's new animated film, Elemental, will close out of the festival on May 27. (The studio previously premiered Up, Inside Out and Soul on the Croisette.) "It was created for audiences to experience on the big screen and I love that it'll make its world premiere at Cannes," says Pixar's Pete Docter.
MORE: 10 Must-See Movies at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival
Below, here are the 21 films screening In Competition for the Palme d'Or:
Club Zero by Jessica Hausner
The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer
Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismaki
Four Daughters by Kaouther Ben Hania
Asteroid City by Wes Anderson
Anatomie d’Une Chute by Justine Triet
Monster by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Il Sol dell’Avvenire by Nanni Moretti
La Chimera by Alice Rohrwacher
L'été dernier by Catherine Breillat La Passion De Dodin Bouffant by Tran Anh Hung
About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
May December by Todd Haynes
Rapito by Marco Bellocchio
Firebrand by Karim Ainouz
The Old Oak by Ken Loach
Banel et Adama by Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Perfect Days by Wim Wenders
Jeunesse by Wang Bing
Black Flies by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
Le Retour by Catherine Corsini
MORE: See this year's full Cannes Film Festival lineup
Who is on this year's Cannes Jury?
Ruben Östlund, the Swedish filmmaker who has won the Palme d'Or not once but twice — with 2017's The Square and last year's Triangle of Sadness — has been chosen to be President of the Jury.
He is joined by Oscar winner Brie Larson, Paul Dano, Moroccan director Maryam Touzani, French actor Denis Ménochet, British-Zambian filmmaker Rungano Nyoni, Afghan filmmaker Atiq Rahimi, Argentinian filmmaker Damián Szifrón and French director Julia Ducournau.
"Nowhere in the film world is the anticipation as strong as when the curtain rises on the films in Competition at the festival. It is a privilege to be part of it, together with the Cannes audience of connoisseurs," Östlund said. "I am sincere when I say that cinema culture is in its most important period ever. The cinema has a unique aspect — there, we watch together, and it demands more on what is shown and increases the intensity of the experience. It makes us reflect in a different way than when we dopamine scroll in front of the individual screens."
About This Year's Poster
The official poster of the 76th Festival de Cannes (above) features a photo of Catherine Deneuve behind the scenes of 1968's La Chamade. Here is what Cannes says of the artwork:
"Actress Catherine Deneuve is standing on Pampelonne beach, near Saint-Tropez, for the shooting of La Chamade by Alain Cavalier, adapted from the novel by Françoise Sagan. She plays Lucile, who leads a worldly and superficial life, tinged with ease and a taste for luxury. Her heart beats frantically, hurriedly, passionately. Like the heart of cinema that the Festival de Cannes celebrates every year: its lively and embodied pulse can be heard everywhere. The heart of the 7th Art – of its artists, professionals, amateurs, press – beats like a drum, to the rhythm of the urgency that its eternal nature imposes...
"Joyful, bold-faced and romantic, a young woman with long blond hair smiles, confidently, at her future. It is a certain form of magic that Catherine Deneuve embodies – pure, incandescent and sometimes transgressive. It is this unspeakable magic that the 76th International Film Festival conveys with this timeless poster. To reiterate the glorious present of cinema and to envisage its future full of promise. Catherine Deneuve stands for what cinema should never stop being: elusive, daring, irreverent. Something self-evident: a necessity."
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