There seems to be less suspense than usual before the Cannes Film Festival, at least in terms of the race for the Palme d’Or. Ideally, it should be a nail-biter over whether NEON can win its seventh consecutive Palme – yet like last year, NEON bought or made every spare presumed favorite it could find to corner the market and assure it will win with something. Between the likes of Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan’s “Fjord,“ Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden,“Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Sheep in a Box,“ Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown,“ Na Hong-jin’s “Hope,“ and James Gray reteaming Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver in “Paper Tiger,“ there appears to be no way around voting for one NEON film or another to preserve NEON’s Cannes reign.
Nonetheless, if the 2026 Cannes Film Festival is NEON vs the field, like seemingly always in this era, then the field still has to show up at least, if there is something else that can overthrow NEON at Cannes for the first time since 2018’s “Shoplifters,“ then these are the biggest potential players going in…
“Fatherland”
If “Fjord“ is NEON’s most likely early Cannes favorite due to its two recent Oscar-nominated stars, then “Fatherland“ is its main competition on resume alone. As the first film from Pawel Pawlikowski since his Best Director Oscar nomination for “Cold War“ – months after he won Best Director at Cannes – and as the first Cannes film starring Sandra Huller after her famed 2023 doubleheader of “Anatomy of a Fall“ and “The Zone of Interest,” “Fatherland“ would appear tailor-made for the Cannes audience and jury.
There is no need to worry about NEON buying up “Fatherland“ after it screens, because it is already being distributed by MUBI, which aims to recapture the magic of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival when “The Substance“ began its unlikely awards-season run there. However, MUBI already failed to do that when it bought “Die, My Love“ after the 2025 festival and got nowhere with it, so “Fatherland“ is more of a chance at redemption – and a chance to prove MUBI isn’t a one-hit wonder at Cannes and at Oscar time after all.
“Minotaur”
If “Fatherland” represents MUBI’s best hope of dethroning NEON, then “Minotaur” may well be its wildcard. The long-awaited return of Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose previous films “Leviathan” won Best Screenplay at Cannes in 2014 before “Loveless” took the Jury Prize in 2017, is easily one of the most anticipated films in Competition on pedigree alone. Co-written with Simon Liashenko, it is a political thriller set in a provincial Russian small town in 2022, a backdrop that needs no further elaboration for anyone paying attention to the world nowadays. Business executive Gleb, on the verge of laying off his employees, discovers his wife is having an affair, and what follows promises the kind of slow-burning moral suffocation that has long been Zvyagintsev’s trademark.
The question is whether Cannes juries in 2026 have the appetite for a film that implicates Russia so directly, and whether that context works in the film’s favor or becomes a complication for Park Chan-wook’s jury, recently announced for Cannes. Given how the festival received Rasoulof and Panahi in recent years, political courage has hardly been a disqualifier. Zvyagintsev has never won the Palme, and with a resume that arguably deserves one, “Minotaur” could be the film that finally changes that. That MUBI is distributing means they are placing a considerable bet on two horses this festival, which either signals remarkable confidence or a quietly desperate attempt to ensure they leave the Croisette with something.
“The Man I Love”
One of the big mysteries at Cannes is “The Man I Love,“ and not just because neither NEON, MUBI, nor any other studio has bought it yet. It is the biggest and one of the only films in competition from an American director, as “Passages“ and “Peter Hujar’s Day“ writer/director Ira Sachs returns to Cannes competition for the first time since 2019’s “Frankie.“ It also has Rami Malek starring in his biggest stretch by far since winning the Oscar for “Bohemian Rhapsody,“ as a 1980s actor with “a life-threatening illness“ starring in perhaps his final role.
If all goes well, Sachs could have his moment to leap from indie darling to major awards contender, just as Cannes provided for Sean Baker in 2024 and the likes of Joachim Trier and Kleber Mendonca Filho in 2025 – and having a potential comeback narrative of sorts for Malek may not hurt either. In that scenario, if a few of NEON’s contenders fall short, if “Fatherland“ is too cold for some audiences and if “The Man I Love“ is emotional and tear-jerking enough for others, it might have the simplest path towards the Palme.
“Parallel Tales”
In the last two years, a master filmmaker from Iran went to incredible lengths to make and release a film at Cannes, like Mohammad Rasoulof’s 2024 Prix Special winner “The Seed of the Sacred Fig“ and Jafar Panahi’s 2025 Palme winner “It Was Just an Accident.“ Yet unlike those films, the new film from former Cannes Screenplay and Grand Prix winner Asghar Farhadi isn’t set or filmed in Iran; it is made in France and stars Isabelle Huppert as an author upended by her new, mysterious assistant.
Nonetheless, the distinguished histories of both Farhadi and Huppert at Cannes make them each someone to watch, regardless of where and when their collaboration is set. And as a past Cannes award winner who still hasn’t won the Palme, perhaps Farhadi is no longer considered “overdue“ at this festival.
“Bitter Christmas”
Someone who is no longer considered overdue, at least in certain contexts, is Pedro Almodóvar, whose last film, “The Room Next Door,“ won the 2024 Venice Golden Lion. However, since that movie barely got raves anywhere else and barely made a blip the rest of that awards season, Almodovar’s high status in Venice got most of the credit for that victory. Yet he also has a decorated history at Cannes, as a past Best Director and Best Screenplay winner who launched future Oscar-nominated performances from Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas.
Like Farhadi, Almodovar has won major prizes at Cannes but not the Palme, so the kind of die-hards who powered his upset win at Venice might want to put him over the top at Cannes, too, finally. But “Bitter Christmas” isn’t a Cannes world premiere, as it already screened in Spain and has garnered a few mixed reviews there, which can’t possibly be a good sign. Still, if rave reviews on the level of Almodovar’s past classics weren’t required for “The Room Next Door,“ they may not be a dealbreaker at Cannes either.
“Coward”
Writer/director Lukas Dhont doesn’t have the kind of long career and cinephile cache of Almodovar, Farhadi, Sachs, or Pawlikowski. Yet he has his own notable track record at Cannes, as his debut film “Girl“ won the 2018 Camera d’Or and Queer Palme, and his second film “Close“ went further in 2022, winning the Cannes Grand Prix and becoming a Best International Film Oscar nominee.
Now, Dhont looks to take another step forward at Cannes with “Coward,“ in which a straightlaced World War I Belgian soldier teams with a more flamboyant comrade to put on a show in the trenches. Given the trajectory of Dhont’s career and the potential for this to be a bigger, broader next step, the most logical outcome might just be a Palme d’Or win to complete his personal Cannes trilogy.
There may well be other competition films outside the NEON lineup that contend out of nowhere, such as “The Beloved“with Javier Bardem, the multi-generational-spanning “The Black Ball“ co-starring Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close, or “Gentle Monster“ led by “The Unknown’s” Lea Seydoux. But by and large, the expectation is NEON will either sweep to another Palme by sheer force of volume alone, or only one of a very select few hyped-up films outside of NEON’s lineup will upset them, or NEON will just acquire one of those select few challengers before the final vote anyway.
From 2021 to 2025, and in 2019 as well, the same story, with a few variations, has been told at Cannes over and over. On the off chance Cannes wants to return to a more original or just long ignored formula, or whether it settles on the next “It Was Just an Accident,” “Anora,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Triangle of Sadness, “Titane,“ or “Parasite“ after all, the outcome will be screened between May 12th and the closing ceremonies on May 23rd.
Are you excited for the 2026 Cannes Film Festival? Do you think NEON will win the Palme d’Or for a record-breaking seventh time in a row or will something else defeat them? If so, what do you think that film would be? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
