All eyes are on the Croisette for the start of the Cannes Film Festival. Running May 16 through May 27, the 76th edition of France's premiere festival boasts one of the most anticipated lineups in years, including the latest works by auteurs filmmakers Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, and Steve McQueen, and a record seven films directed by women in competition.
Not to be outdone by last year's starry slate — which included eventual Best Picture nominees like Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick and Triangle of Sadness — this year's festival includes a number of already hotly-anticipated titles: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Ford's final outing as Indy, will world premiere out of competition at Cannes, as will Disney and Pixar's Elemental. Martin Scorsese, who won the Palme d'Or in 1976 with Taxi Driver, returns with Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Scorsese regulars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
Arguably the highlight of the fest is not a feature at all, but Pedro Almodóvar's 30-minute short movie Extraña Forma de Vida (aka Strange Way of Life), a queer Western starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke.
Below, A.frame has rounded up 10 of our most anticipated films playing during this year's Festival de Cannes. Scroll on to see the full lineup of films in and out of competition, Un Certain Regard, and more.
Asteroid City
Like with his last film, 2020's The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson has opted to debut his latest at Cannes. Asteroid City is set in a fictional desert town in 1955 and revolves around the attendees of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention. The cast is stacked even by Anderson's usual standards, including much of his regular troupe (Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, and so on) as well as new collaborators like Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks.
La Chimera
Filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher (whose short film Le Pupille was nominated at this year's Oscars) returns to Cannes with the third entry in her Italian-set trilogy, which began with 2014's The Wonders and continued in 2018's Happy as Lazzaro. Set in the 1980s, La Chimera stars Josh O'Connor as a tomb robber in search of a special prize: A mythological door to the afterlife that would reunite him with his lost love.
Close Your Eyes
More than 30 years have passed since Víctor Erice, the Spanish filmmaker behind classics such as The Spirit of the Beehive and El Sur, released his last feature, 1992's Dream of Light. At long last, he's back with Cerrar los ojos (Close Your Eyes), which is programmed as a Cannes Premiere, a crime drama about an actor who disappears during the making of a movie. Years later, the case is reopened by a TV film crew.
Club Zero
Austrian writer-director Jessica Hausner has been a staple of Un Certain Regard since 2001's Lovely Rita, before segueing into competition with 2019's Little Joe — which won the festival's award for best actress for Emily Beecham. In Club Zero, Mia Wasikowska plays a new teacher at an international boarding school, brought in to lead a conscious eating course — which she instructs in insidious fashion. By the time the other teachers and parents notice, it may be too late.
How to Have Sex
British cinematographer and filmmaker Molly Manning Walker's first feature will debut in Un Certain Regard and boasts perhaps the most titillating title of the entire festival. According to the official synopsis, How to Have Sex follows three teenage girls on a "rites-of-passage holiday — drinking, clubbing and hooking up — in what should be the best summer of their lives." Which perhaps sounds more foreboding than raucous.
May December
Todd Haynes was last at Cannes with the 2021 documentary, The Velvet Underground, but now returns with his latest scripted feature — and latest collaboration with Safe, Far From Heaven and Wonderstruck star Julianne Moore. Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yu, a teacher whose tabloid romance with a student (played by Charles Melton) gripped the nation. Twenty years later, the couple's life is put back under the microscope when an actress (Natalie Portman) comes to their home to research Gracie before playing her in a film.
Monster (Kaibutsu)
The last film Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda shot in his home country was 2018's Shoplifters, which won the Palme d'Or. After shooting two movies abroad — including Broker, which debuted at Cannes last year — he returned to Japan for Kaibutsu (Monster), about a mother (played by Shoplifters breakout Sakura Ando) who begins to believe that something is wrong with her son. Of note, Monster also features a score by the late Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Occupied City
Steve McQueen (director and producer of Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave) will debut his first feature documentary as a Special Screening at Cannes. In collaboration with his wife — Dutch journalist and filmmaker Bianca Stigter — the four-hour documentary juxtaposes present day Amsterdam with its past, and the atrocities committed under Nazi occupation during World War II. "Living in Amsterdam for me is like living with ghosts," McQueen says. "It feels there are always two or three parallel narratives unfolding at once. The past is always present."
Perfect Days
German filmmaker Wim Wenders has debuted 12 of his films at Cannes — including the Palme d'Or-winning Paris, Texas — and this year, he returns with two more: Perfect Days will premiere in competition, starring Kōji Yakusho as a toilet cleaner living a deceptively simple life in Tokyo. Elsewhere, Wenders' Anselm - Das Rauschen der Zeit, a 3D documentary about painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer, will debut as a Special Screening.
The Zone of Interest
It has been 10 years since Sexy Beast and Birth director Jonathan Glazer's last film: The mesmerizing sci-fi masterwork Under the Skin. Returning with something completely different, The Zone of Interest adapts Martin Amis' novel about a Nazi officer who falls for his commander's wife — although the official synopsis frames his adaptation as such: "The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp."
Find the full lineup for the 2023 Cannes Film Festival below.
Opening Night
JEANNE DU BARRY by Maïwenn (Out of Competition)
In Competition
CLUB ZERO by Jessica Hausner
THE ZONE OF INTEREST by Jonathan Glazer
KUOLLEET LEHDET (FALLEN LEAVES) by Aki Kaurismäki
LES FILLES D'OLFA (FOUR DAUGHTERS) by Kaouther Ben Hania
ASTEROID CITY by Wes Anderson
ANATOMIE D'UNE CHUTE (ANATOMY OF A FALL) by Justine Triet
KAIBUTSU (MONSTER) by Kore-eda Hirokazu
IL SOL DELL' AVVENIRE (A BRIGHTER TOMORROW) by Nanni Moretti
L'ÉTÉ DERNIER (LAST SUMMER) by Catherine Breillat
KURU OTLAR USTUNE (ABOUT DRY GRASSES) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
LA CHIMERA by Alice Rohrwacher
LA PASSION DE DODIN BOUFFANT (THE POT–AU–FEU) by Trần Anh Hùng
RAPITO (KIDNAPPED) by Marco Bellocchio
MAY DECEMBER by Todd Haynes
QING CHUN (YOUTH) by Wang Bing
THE OLD OAK by Ken Loach
BANEL E ADAMA by Ramata-Toulaye Sy
PERFECT DAYS by Wim Wenders
FIREBRAND by Karim Aïnouz
BLACK FLIES by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
LE RETOUR (HOMECOMING) by Catherine Corsini
Un Certain Regard
LE RÈGNE ANIMAL by Thomas Cailley (Opening Film)
LOS DELINCUENTES (THE DELINQUENTS) by Rodrigo Moreno
HOW TO HAVE SEX by Molly Manning Walker
GOODBYE JULIA by Mohamed Kordofani
KADIB ABYAD (THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES) by Asmae El Moudir
SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN (THE NATURE OF LOVE) by Monia Chokri
CROWRÃ (THE BURITI FLOWER) by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora
LOS COLONOS (THE SETTLERS) by Felipe Gálvez
OMEN (AUGURE) by Baloji
RAN DONG (THE BREAKING ICE) by Anthony Chen
ROSALIE by Stéphanie Di Giusto
THE NEW BOY by Warwick Thornton
IF ONLY I COULD HIBERNATE by Zoljargal Purevdash
HWA–RAN (HOPELESS) by Kim Chang-hoon
AYEH HAYE ZAMINI (TERRESTRIAL VERSES) by Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami
RIEN À PERDRE by Delphine Deloget
LES MEUTES (HOUNDS) by Kamal Lazraq
HE BIAN DE CUO WU (ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS) by Wei Shujun
SALEM by Jean-Bernard Marlin
UNE NUIT (STRANGERS BY NIGHT) by Alex Lutz (Closing Film Out of Competition)
Out of Competition
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY by James Mangold
GEO–MI–JIP (COBWEB) by Kim Jee-woon
THE IDOL by Sam Levinson
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON by Martin Scorsese
L’ABBÉ PIERRE – UNE VIE DE COMBATS by Frédéric Tellier
Midnight Screenings
KENNEDY by Anurag Kashyap
OMAR LA FRAISE (THE KING OF ALGIERS) by Elias Belkeddar
ACID by Just Philippot
HYPNOTIC by Robert Rodriguez
PROJECT SILENCE by Kim Tae-gon
Cannes Premieres
KUBI by Takeshi Kitano
BONNARD, PIERRE AND MARTHE by Martin Provost
CERRAR LOS OJOS (CLOSE YOUR EYES) Víctor Erice LE TEMPS D’AIMER (ALONG CAME LOVE) by Katell Quillévéré PERDIDOS EN LA NOCHE (LOST IN THE NIGHT) by Amat Escalante
L'AMOUR ET LES FORÊTS (JUST THE TWO OF US) by Valérie Donzelli
EUREKA by Lisandro Alonso
Special Screenings
MAN IN BLACK by Wang Bing
OCCUPIED CITY by Steve McQueen
ANSELM - DAS RAUSCHEN DER ZEIT by Wim Wenders RETRATOS FANTASMAS (PICTURES OF GHOSTS) by Kleber Mendonça Filho
LITTLE GIRL BLUE by Mona Achache
BREAD AND ROSES by Sahra Mani
LE THÉORÈME DE MARGUERITE (MARGUERITE'S THEOREM) by Anna Novion
AS FILHAS DO FOGO (THE DAUGHTERS OF FIRE) by Pedro Costa (Short)
EXTRANA FORMA DE VIDA (STRANGE WAY OF LIFE) by Pedro Almodóvar (Short)
Closing Night
ELEMENTAL by Peter Sohn (Out of Competition)
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2023 Cannes Film Festival: Everything to Know
