This year, The Cannes International Film Festival opens on May 15th with a bombastically modern retelling of the Roaring Twenties and closes on May 26th with a South African-set crime thriller on the heels of apartheid. Everything in between looks amazing.
The lineup boasts new Winding Refn, Chandor, Sofia Coppola, Miike, Denis, Coen Brothers and what looks like a nice symmetrical career send off for Steven Soderbergh, who’s bringing Behind the Candelabra there 24 years after winning the festival’s top prize with sex, lies and videotape. That means Soderbergh has an opportunity to join the elite group of multiple Palme d’Or winners, and the Coens and Roman Polanski have that potential as well. All others in competition have never won before.
Plus, the non-competition films look equally fantastic. Read the full field, wipe that drool away and check to see what kind of deals you can get on plane tickets to France for May.
In Competition at the Théâtre Lumière
The Great Gatsby, Baz Lurhmann (Opening Film, Not in Competition)
Un Chateau En Italie, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
Inside Llewyn Davis, Ethan and Joel Coen
Michael Kohlhaas, Arnaud Despallieres
Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian), Arnaud Desplechin
Heli, Amat Escalante
Le Passe (The Past), Asghar Farhadi
The Immigrant, James Gray
Grisgris, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Tian Zhu Ding (A Touch of Sin), Zhangke Jia
Soshite Chichi Ni Naru (Like Father, Like Son), Hirokazu Kore-Eda
La Vie d’Adele, Abdellatif Kechiche
Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw), Takashi Miike
Jeune et Jolie, Francois Ozon
Nebraska, Alexander Payne
La Venus a la Fourrure (Venus in Furs), Roman Polanski
Behind the Candelabra, Steven Soderbergh
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), Paolo Sorrentino
Borgman, Alex Van Warmerdam
Only God Forgives, Nicholas Winding Refn
Zulu, Jerome Salle (Closing Film, Not in Competition)
Un Certain Regard at the Salle Debussy
The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola (Opening Film)
Omar, Hany Abu-Assad
Death March, Adolfo Alix Jr.
Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler
Les Salauds, Claire Denis
Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan (Norte, The End of History), Lav Diaz
As I Lay Dying, James Franco
Miele, Valeria Golino
L’Inconnu Du Lac, Alain Guiraudie
Bends, Flora Lau
L’Image Manquante, Rithy Panh
La Jaula De Oro, Diego Quemada-Diez
Anonymous, Mohammad Rasoulof
Sarah Prefere La Course (Sarah Would Rather Run), Chloe Robichaud
Grand Central, Rebecca Zlotowski
Out of Competition at the Théâtre Lumière
All Is Lost, J.C. Chandor
Blood Ties, Guillaume Canet
Midnight Screenings
Monsoon Shootout, Amit Kumar
Blind Detective, Johnnie To
Jerry Lewis Tribute
Max Rose, Daniel Noah
Special Screenings
Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, Stephen Frears
Stop the Pounding Heart, Roberto Minervini
Week End of a Champion, Roman Polanski
Seduced and Abandoned, James Toback
Otdat Konci (Bite the Dust), Taisia Igumentseva
Gala Screening, Tribute to India
Bombay Talkies, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, Karan Joha
As you can see, Polanski has two films playing at Cannes. So does HBO (Behind the Candelabra, Muhammed Ali’s Greatest Fight). All in all, it’s a formidable year, but even if you can’t be there in person, we’ll be on the ground keeping an eye on what movies astound and which fall flat in the sand.
And there’s nothing that says you can’t sit on your couch in a bikini or board shorts reading the site, or that you can’t hire someone to yell French obscenities at you while you do it.
It’ll be just like a vacation. See you then!