The Cannes Film Festival always commands The Media Eye team's full attention - from updating every premiere and screening, tracking all the jury photocalls and junkets, taking odds on this year's Palme d'Or winner, and ensuring every party, gala and crazy beachfront photo opportunity is covered - who wouldn't get excited?!
Steeped in history, the global film gathering was founded to champion artistic freedom amid political pressure, growing from a war-torn 1939 project to its official 1946 debut. The festival's many seminal moments include director Delbert Mann’s romantic drama Marty receiving the first ever Palme d’Or in 1955; Jean-Luc Godard getting pied by Belgian pastry activist Noel Godin in 1985; and Jane Campion becoming the first female Palme d’Or winner with The Piano in 1993.
Following in the footsteps of previous jury presidents Greta Gerwig, Steven Spielberg, Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Ingrid Bergman and Jean Cocteau, influential South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook presides over this year's jury. Park has just announced his anticipated new film, the English-language western The Brigands Of Rattlecreek, starring Matthew McConaughey, Pedro Pascal, Austin Butler and Tang We, which he's bringing to Cannes Marché.
Cannes never fails to dominate headlines - from 2010's Lindsay Lohan drama (the Parent Trap star was stranded in Cannes after an arrest warrant was issued in Beverly Hills), to Jerry Seinfeld flying over the Croisette in a bee costume promoting The Bee Movie in 2007, Nicole Kidman smoking cigarettes at the Dogville press conference in 2003, and Sacha Baron Cohen in his iconic Borat lime green mankini... and with the cast of White Lotus S4 in town filming during the festival (Vincent Cassel, Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Laura Dern in what was Helena Bonham Carter's role), this year is unlikely to disappoint.
The 2026 programme has already raised eyebrows, with its markedly art-house heavy line-up and a notable absence of major studio premieres. On the programming, and wider film industry in general, festival director Thierry Frémaux commented 'The history of cinema is made up of cycles.... New generations will arrive soon; I’m convinced of it. We’ll have to let them blossom'. With Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver's Paper Tiger packing some big studio punch, John Travolta's directorial debut Propeller One-Way Night Coach, and Rami Malek playing the lead in director Ira Sachs's musical fantasy The Man I Love, the programme is nothing if not diverse.
On the parties and galas front, brands including Chopard, Kering and L’Oréal continue to lead the way, with amfAR (whose first Cannes fundraiser was co-chaired by Elizabeth Taylor in 1993), Magnum and Graydon Carter also back in town to host their ubiquitous red-carpet Cannes highlights. This year former Vanity Fair Editor and AirMail founder Carter co-hosts with CAA partner Bryan Lourd, and Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei, so expect a seriously VIP affair (last year's guests included Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily-Rose Depp, Scarlett Johansson, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Ted Sarandos).
So, on the eve of this 79th Cannes Film Festival (May 12-23), our planning diary is already packed with hundreds of premieres, all the parties, galas and opportunities, and an impressive talent presence led by Barbra Streisand, John Travolta, Demi Moore, Kristen Stewart, Catherine Deneuve, Woody Harrelson, Glenn Close, Penélope Cruz, Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, Seth Rogen, Robbie Williams, Jane Fonda, Gong Li and Monica Bellucci.
Now, that's entertainment!