The 9 Best Films of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival
With the festival officially over. we spotlight the films we think will continue to generate buzz as the year continues.
The Cannes Film Festival wrapped over the weekend, and the jury, comprising Jury President Park Chan-wook alongside members Ruth Negga, Demi Moore, Stellan Skarsgård, Chloé Zhao, Isaach de Bankolé, and others, selected a crop of films that is sure to be the talk of the town leading all the way into Oscar season. Fjord took home the top prize, Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid was the big acquisition title, and films like La Bola Negra and In Waves also found their studio homes. For the seventh year in a row, Neon was the studio that shepherded in this year’s Palme d’Or winner. The jury selections are so varied, but Neon simply finds a way every single year to snatch all of the best films and therefore be the natural choice to win the Palme d’Or.
And that consistency at the French festival is definitely one worth bragging about, even if the people they keep dominating seem to get more salty about it with each passing year. There were, of course, the honorary awards for John Travolta, Peter Jackson, and Barbra Streisand. Elsewhere, Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro gave master classes about their craft, and we were there to see it all and check out this year’s crop of films, finding more than a few favorites.
For the full list of films that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and their scores, be sure to check out our scorecard and get caught up on all the eye-catching fashion with our festival red carpet gallery. But first, let’s take a peek at the 9 best films we saw at the Cannes Film Festival.
THE BELOVED
A film that feels very much in conversation with one of the most well-received entries of last year’s festival, The Beloved has inspired comparisons to Sentimental Value. Like the latter, The Beloved centers on an acclaimed film director who has a somewhat volatile relationship with his daughter but offers her a role under the pretext of helping her out, as well as maybe rekindling their closeness after a long estrangement. This is another film you seem absolutely destined to fall in love with if you love the process of movie-making, with Philip de Semlyen of Time Out writing that The Beloved “is a fabulous film about filmmaking and an astute, hard-hitting one about family dynamics.” Bardem, who was one of the biggest stars on the Croisette this past weekend, is already getting tons of Oscar buzz for delivering yet another jaw-dropping performance.
CLARISSA
Next, from the Directors’ Fortnight section, we have Clarissa, a modern-day reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway set in Lagos and starring some of Hollywood’s most talked-about stars. The film, like the book, centers on Clarissa on the morning of a party, as visions of her childhood lead her to question the decisions she made about whom she married when confronted with old ghosts and modern disappointments. Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter praised Clarissa for acknowledging and subverting the colonial history of Virginia Woolf’s writing, adding, “The change in setting and the removal of some of the colonialist framework Virginia Woolf employed are a sly achievement, acknowledging history while upending it.” The praise was heaped on the entire cast, but veteran actress and Hollywood it-girl Ayo Edebiri is a particular standout.
MINOTAUR
One of the more surprising entries on our list was the Russian thriller that was the talk of the festival’s latter half. Set against the backdrop of the beginning of Russia’s war with Ukraine, Minotaur centers on a man finding out that his wife is having an affair, but quickly morphs into a clever crime drama full of intrigue, murder, and subplots. It manages this by also serving as an incredibly powerful allegory for modern-day Russia and the way most Russians have to mentally separate themselves from their nation’s actions. Leslie Felperin from The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a rigorously well-made, gripping work that is also the most openly critical commentary on the motherland’s current political, spiritual, and moral malaise.”
COLONY
We doubt many would expect Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho to top the brilliance of his zombie invasion-on-a-train movie with a zombie invasion-in-a-building movie, but we, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the attempt. Colony, which has somewhat divided critics with its mixed reception, is also wowing the Korean box office, as, despite the early reviews, early ticket sales are already making noise. Currently with the highest first-day ticket sales of any Korean film released this year, Colony is already one of the most successful Korean films to ever premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s gripping and hilarious, with all the touches that made Train to Busan a favorite, with Espinof’s Juan Luis Caviaro writing that “it’s fun and wild, and it has everything it takes to be another hit in Korean genre cinema.”
FATHERLAND
Paweł Pawlikowski is a director who can guide you to the depths of grief and navigate the wreckage of the human condition, and yet he never dares to trespass on your time for more than 90 minutes. Set against the backdrop of the first day in Germany after the war, Fatherland follows acclaimed writer Thomas Mann and his daughter, actress and artist Erica Mann, as they travel back. So that we also don’t trespass on your eyes much more than we need to, we’ll just tell you how incredible it was to screen this masterful film at Cannes. Pawlikowski continues to be one of the most exciting directors of our generation, with a careful eye for judicious storytelling that any tired cinephile can cheer about. The New Yorker’s Justin Chang seemed to agree with us when he wrote, “Somberness has seldom looked more suave or felt more disciplined.”
FJORD
This is definitely the title that people will be talking about for years to come. Renate Reinsve, who has almost as impressive a run at Cannes as studio/streamer Neon, returns with her A Different Man co-star Sebastian Stan, to take home the top prize at Cannes yet again with Fjord. The Palme d’Or winner was absolutely well worth singling out in our preview, as the film, which follows a devout Romanian-Norwegian couple who settle in a village, only to be confronted with child abuse claims when bruises are discovered on one of their children, is a careful examination of prejudices, religious fervor, and how we never truly know who our neighbors are.
Almost universal praise was given to both Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, as well as the two-time Palme d’Or-winning director Cristian Mungiu. It earned an overwhelmingly positive reception, and Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com wrote that Fjord “is a movie that challenges viewers with a question that seems harder to answer than it should be: Would you protect the rights of someone with whom you fundamentally disagree?”
LA BOLA NEGRA
We have quite possibly one of our first Cannes film premiere with a true RuPaul’s Drag Race connection. La Bola Negra tells the story of three men who fall in and out of love, come together, and reconnect in 1932, 1937, and 2017. It’s a passionate, over-the-top, decades-spanning love story, with Rafa Sales Ross of Little White Lies calling it “an odyssey as impressive as it is moving, grabbing the visceral nature of Lorca’s gender-bending work into a mold that makes its staggering vocal cinematic equivalent.” And what’s the RuPaul’s Drag Race connection? One of the film’s directors, both of whom took home the Best Director prize this year, is among the permanent judges on Drag Race España, the Spanish iteration of RuPaul’s Drag Race. La Bola Negra is brash, loud, and campy, and it hearkens back to the early work of filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar; and like early Almodóvar, it also has Penelope Cruz, and she has never looked better.
CLUB KID
If there was a popular kid at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it would absolutely be Club Kid, and similarly to its subject matter, in 10 years folks will probably be saying Club Kid is likely so over, but not likely. The biggest and splashiest acquisition of the festival, Jordan Firstman’s film is a heartfelt tearjerker that had Cannes wrapped around its fingers from the moment it premiered. Firstman is an internet personality that many folks seemed to have opinions about before they came to the festival, but the consensus leaving it was that Firstman is an undeniable talent, and Club Kid is going to be one of the most iconic A24 releases. With an aging party boy who suddenly finds out that he is the father of an equally incredible but slightly damaged kid, the film was dubbed the gay Big Daddy, with Hannah Strong of Little White Lies writing that “the acerbic humor is sharply tempered with warmth and sweetness,” just like the film that it was likely inspired by.
ATONEMENT
Another surprise watch from us at the festival, Atonement is an absolutely incredible piece of work, especially for a first-time director. Based on a 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning article, Atonement is inspired by the actual events around the US invasion of Iraq. The film centers on a US Marine’s search for forgiveness after his unit mistakenly killed an Iraqi family at a Baghdad checkpoint. Boyd Holbrook plays the grief-ridden soldier to heartbreaking highs, but unlike some stories, it is not just the Americans’ perspective that is carefully considered, as Hiam Abbass gives an equally powerful performance representing the reality of the people these terrible accidents affected the most.
