Un festival with little America, much East and Middle East, a lot of Europe. The rumors about the films that may have seduced the jury led by Korean Park chan-wook who will award the prizes for this event on Saturday evening 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival 2026 they focus on a few titles.
Who wins the Cannes Film Festival 2026: predictions and favorites awards and Palme d’Or
La bola negra, Fatherland, Minotaur
Hard to imagine that Spain is not present in the Palmarès, considering that he has 3 films in the major competition. The black bola directed by the two Javiers (Calvo and Ambrossi) received much acclaim. The film is inspired by the unfinished work of the same name by Federico García Lorca and the comedy by Alberto Conejero The dark stone. The cast is amazing: Lola Dueñas, Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close, and there is also the Italian Lorenzo Zurzolo.
Not to be excluded among the favorites of this Cannes Film Festival 2026 also by Fatherland by Pawel Pawlikowski, with Sandra Hüller, also predicated for the award for best actress, In 1949, the German writer Thomas Mann who had left Germany with his family after Hitler’s rise to powerreturns home, and finds a country still strongly marked by war. With him on the journey that will take him to both sides of the Wall to collect two prizes and give two speeches, is his daughter Erika.
And also Minotaur of the escaped Russian Andreï Zviaguintsev it could be the answer to our present anxieties. We are in 2022. Gleb lives with his wife and son in a provincial town. Successfully runs a business. With the invasion of Ukraine his balance collapses: he loses employees who emigrate to the West and a government order forces him to mobilize 14 men for the “special military operation”.
The rule is that the host country should not be excluded from the award ceremony. The enthusiasm with which French critics welcomed it Our regards by Emmanuel Marre which tells the story of the grandfather of the Vichy collaborationist directoris certainly a clue. But also Fjord by Cristian Mungiu, the Romanian director’s first film shot abroad (with the excellent Renate Reinsve) he is an important candidate. The Gheorghiu family, Romanian father and Norwegian mother, move to a remote Norwegian village, and make friends with the neighbors. But when the new arrivals are suspected of disturbing behavior towards their children, their lives are turned upside down.
Victoria Luengo on the right in “Amarga Navidad”.
Cannes Film Festival 2026: the awards to the actors
The actors who are currently in pole position for an award are Virginie Efira (for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film, Soudain, more than for the film by Iranian Asghar Farhadi), Sandra Hüller And Victoria Luengo (more for El ser querido by Rodrigo Sorogoyen who for Amarga Navidad by Pedro Almodóvarwhere he does not have the leading role). Of course Scarlett Johansson who, according to her, just couldn’t make it to Cannes, she is divine as a backcombed housewife Paper Tiger by James Gray.
Rami Malek is “The Man I love”.
For the men’s cup, Javier Bardem in patriarchal mode for Sorogoyen, has all it takes to aspire to a prize, like Sebastian Stan, co-star of Fjord And the two brothers of Paper Tiger, Adam Driver and Miles Teller, brothers caught in a gear bigger than them in search of their American dream. Rami Malek in Ira Sachs’ film, The Man I love (one of the two Americans in competition) instead risks being in the running for the (unofficial) scult of the festival.
Un certain regard, the candidates
Not to be overlooked Un certain regard, second section of the Official Selection of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, which this year presented very interesting films. Club Kida first film written, directed and starring Jordan Firstmanstarring Cara Delevingne and Diego Calva, rocked and was the subject of a last-dollar auction by several studios including Mubi, Focus Features, Searchlight Pictures, A24 and Black Bear Pictures. A24 ultimately won worldwide distribution rights for $17 million.
Jordan Firstman in “Club Kid”.
Personally we loved it a lot Always be your maternal animal by Valentina Maurel, story of a return home to Costa Rica, after years of studies in Europe, of a young woman. And the fantastic opening film, Teenage Sex and Death in Camp Miasma written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun and starring Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. A queer director is hired to direct a new chapter in a successful slasher saga.
The meeting with the protagonist of the original now grown up (Anderson, fabulous) it plunges the protagonist and the audience into a frenzy that the author has well described as “a sleepover classic”.
