There will be many disagreements in the months ahead over which films and winners from the 2026 Cannes Film Festival get into the Oscars. But no one disagrees that the Best Picture lineup will include something from the Cannes field, as it has in the past seven years that the Cannes Film Festival has been held. However, the real burning question might be whether more than one Cannes film makes Best Picture this year, which isn’t as much of a guarantee as it has been lately. Excluding 2020, when the pandemic canceled Cannes, each of the last seven years has had a Cannes world premiere film make it into the Best Picture lineup, and in most years, more than one Cannes world premiere film.
2018: “BlacKkKlansman”
2019: “Parasite” and “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood”
2021: “Drive My Car”
2022: “Triangle of Sadness” and “Elvis”
2023: “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Zone of Interest,” and “Killers of the Flower Moon”
2024: “Anora,” “Emilia Pérez,” and “The Substance”
2025: “Sentimental Value” and “The Secret Agent”
In the last four years, either two or three Cannes premieres have gone on to reach Best Picture, with the last exception being the 2021 pandemic year. Going back further, Cannes films haven’t been shut out of Best Picture altogether since 2017. So despite some grumblings and mixed reviews over the 2026 Cannes lineup, it is hard to imagine it was so weak that not even one film will make it into Best Picture this year – but whether two make it is another matter.
Given that 2025 was the first time since 2022 that only two Cannes films made Best Picture instead of three, despite the best efforts to get Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just an Accident” in, maybe the next logical step in this recent decline is for only one Best Picture nominee this year. Then again, “It Was Just an Accident” missed in part because it was a NEON film, much like fellow Cannes premieres “Sentimental Value” and “The Secret Agent,” as Oscar voters usually won’t let one studio get three Best Picture nominations in a single year.
That doesn’t seem likely to be a problem this year, since NEON only had two big winners at Cannes in its latest Palme champion “Fjord,” and “All of a Sudden” with Best Actress winners Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto. In truth, MUBI had the most honored lineup in this year’s festival, between Grand Prix winner “Minotaur,” Best Director co-winner “Fatherland,” Best Actor co-winner “Coward,” and Queer Palm winner “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.” Regardless, few, if any, of these films had the critical acclaim and high ratings of the 2025 winners, let alone those from 2024 or 2023.
These films are still the best bets to cross over into the Oscars, since no Cannes competition film in this era has gotten a Best Picture nomination without first winning a major prize. There have been films that opened out of competition like “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” “Elvis,” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and still got Best Picture recognition, while “Hell or High Water” got in after premiering in Cannes’ Certain Regard lineup in 2016.
But with no studio sending a “Killers of the Flower Moon” or “Elvis” like film to open out of competition this year, and with only possibly niche films like “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” and “Club Kid” breaking out in Certain Regard, nothing outside of the Palme competitors is a projected Best Picture hopeful so far. And since competition films like “Paper Tiger,” “The Man I Love,” and “Gentle Monster” didn’t win a single prize, history suggests they are out of Best Picture consideration as well, even if they could still have other nominations elsewhere.
Therefore, only Palme competition winners like “Fjord,” “All of a Sudden,” “Minotaur,” “Fatherland,” “The Black Ball,” “The Dreamed Adventure,” “Coward,” and “A Man of His Time” have to be regarded for Best Picture right now. It is all but certain that one film from this group will make it, regardless of which one is the most likely to do so. But if this truly is one of the weaker batches of Cannes winners in recent years, will that make it the first Cannes since 2021 only to get one Best Picture nomination?
It is easy to suggest that “All of a Sudden” would be the one and only future nominee, since it is made by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the director of the sole 2021 Cannes nominee “Drive My Car.” While “Drive My Car” didn’t win the Palme that year, it still leaped over Palme winner “Titane” for Oscar contention, just as “All of a Sudden” could easily leap over this year’s less praised Palme winner “Fjord.” Or perhaps both could get in and give NEON two Cannes winners turned Best Picture nominees for the second year running.
However, “Drive My Car” benefited from being perhaps the most acclaimed film of 2021, in a year that was fairly short on universally acclaimed Oscar contenders. “All of a Sudden” may be just short of a “Drive My Car” level of praise, at least at Cannes, and might struggle to stand out if the rest of the 2026 Oscar field is stronger than in 2021. But “Fjord” is struggling against the shadows and higher ratings of past Palme winners so far as well, even with very recent Oscar nominees Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve headlining and now two-time Palme winner Cristian Mungiu as director.
Some would argue that neither NEON film has the best shot at the Oscars, after Netflix acquired the late-breaking hit and co-Best Director winner “The Black Ball.” Now that Netflix has the clear No. 1 Oscar season priority it was lacking before Cannes, and is only two years removed from guiding the much more maligned “Emilia Pérez” from Cannes to the Oscars, “The Black Ball” may have the most resources of any Cannes film to go all the way. Then again, if “The Black Ball” faces more backlash later or if Netflix finds another top priority by fall, it could fade away as fast as it rose in Cannes’ last days.
MUBI can’t be counted out, since it took “The Substance” from unlikely Cannes hit to even more unlikely Oscar contender just two years ago. “Fatherland” would appear to be its clearest and best option, since it is from “Cold War” Best Director nominee, Pawel Pawlikowski. Yet since that film didn’t reach Best Picture in 2018, it is hard to imagine the less praised “Fatherland” doing that much better.
“Coward” might be broad and crowd-pleasing enough for a better shot, though it might only have a small critical push by comparison, while “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” had bigger raves but needs to break out beyond arthouse audiences in late summer. As for Grand Prix winner “Minotaur,” it may have needed to win the Palme and break NEON’s winning streak to escape from being under the radar.
All of these Cannes winners, including Jury Prize winner “The Dreamed Adventure” and Best Screenplay winner “A Man of His Time,” seem to have some drawbacks going against them. Without a film so far that has buzz or passion on the high levels of “Parasite,” “Anora,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Zone of Interest,” “Sentimental Value,” “The Secret Agent” and other recent Cannes breakouts, it is hard to project the kind of future Oscar success past Cannes fields had – or perhaps the same amount of future nominees.
This could all be made moot, in one way or another, by how the rest of 2026 and the fall festivals play out. If Venice, Telluride, and TIFF have considerably larger breakouts and Oscar contenders, and if summer and winter have a few awards-worthy films outside of the festival circuit, Best Picture could be so crowded that only one Cannes film is needed to round it out. But if the fall festivals have the same mixed reviews as Cannes and even bigger disappointments, voters may wind up needing an extra Cannes film just to get to ten after all.
So far this year, there’s one very likely spring nominee in “Project Hail Mary,” at least one probable slot for a Cannes film no matter what it is, one easy summer nominee in “The Odyssey” unless it is a massive letdown, and likely either four or five nominees from the Venice/Telluride/TIFF/NYFF festival gauntlet. That would leave room for one or two late-breaking fall films outside the festivals, and a second Cannes nominee if there is still space after that.
In a group of “Fjord,” “All of a Sudden,” “Minotaur,” “Fatherland,” “The Black Ball,,” “The Dreamed Adventure,” “Coward,” “A Man of His Time,” and maybe “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” and “Club Kid” with some extra luck, at least one future Best Picture nominee will emerge – but it will take a lot to prove that this group can yield two of them.
How many eventual Best Picture nominees do you think had their world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival? Which films do you believe they are? 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
