It’s that time of year again! Just when you think awards season is wrapped up and put to bed, forcing your annoying film friends to shut up, the Cannes Film Festival is back, bringing with it the first crop of excellent arthouse movies for the year ahead.
2023 looks like a bumper edition already: Pedro Almodóvar is bringing his queer western Strange Way of Life to the festival, joining Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated Killers of the Flower Moon. Then, there’s the good news that The Idol’s world premiere will take place at the festival after all.
There’s also the announcement of the sidebar strands, including Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight, the latter of which is bringing both Jacob Elordi and the new movie from the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to the Croisette.
But before the festival kicks off on 16 May, and we hear what films live up to the hype, here’s our pick of the most intriguing-looking projects from the line-up, featuring everyone from Wes Anderson to Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
Two years after The French Dispatch brought Wes back to Cannes, his next film – the sci-fi- comedy caper Asteroid City – is set to have its world premiere at the very same festival. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Maya Hawke, Adrien Brody and about two dozen others, the 50s-era film is set at a stargazing convention interrupted by “world-changing” events. It gets a wide release on 23 June.
How to Have Sex (Molly Manning Walker)
British director Molly Manning Walker brings her feature length directorial debut to Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. It follows a group of English teenage girls on a party holiday in Mallorca, encountering the vivid, terrifying environment in which the high-pressure rite-of-passage takes place. She’s inspired by the visuals of Martin Parr, so expect something touching, colourful and perceptive.
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
Following on from her brilliant fable Happy as Lazzaro, director Alice Rohrwacher delves into an equally mysterious world with Josh O’Connor as a lead star. In La Chimera, Josh plays a British archaeologist embroiled in a secret smuggling of Etruscan artefacts in 80s Italy.
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Another respected talent returning after a decade-long silence is Under the Skin director Jonathan Glazer. His A24-produced latest, The Zone of Interest, is based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis. It tells the story of a Nazi officer falling in love with the wife of the commander of Auschwitz.
Club Zero (Jessica Hausner)
Last seen at the festival in 2019 with her Kit Connor-starring Little Joe, Austria’s Jessica Hausner has been the subject of industry chatter thanks to her new film Club Zero. It stars Mia Wasikowska as a boarding school teacher who starts to preach about a practice known as ‘conscious eating’. As part of the curriculum, her students start to reduce how much they consume until things take a terrifying turn.
Shanghai Youth (Wang Bing)
Documentary filmmaker Wang Bing, known for his lengthy documentaries indicting his home state of China, returns with, well, just that. Clocking in at a rumoured six hours in length, this film portrays the journey taken by young people from China’s rural provinces to Shanghai, the largest city in the country.
Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Kore-eda is on a prolific streak, having bowed his last film Broker at Cannes just a year ago. Now, he’s making a film about the relationship between a student and teacher. It will be released in Japan shortly after its world premiere at the festival.
May December (Todd Haynes)
After bowing Carol at the festival in 2015, and his documentary on The Velvet Underground in 2021, Todd Haynes’ highly anticipated latest project makes the cut at this year’s festival. May/December follows a famous, tabloid-friendly couple who, after 20 years together, are forced to confront their relationship when a journalist arrives to write about their past. Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman star.
In Flames (Zarrar Khan)
Horror fans need not fear – after the main selection looked scarce on the scary front, the Director’s Fortnight will introduce a new talent in Zarrar Khan. His debut, a Pakistani-Canadian co-production, tells the story of a mother-daughter duo whose lives implode after the death of the family patriarch.
Cobweb (Kim Jee-woon)
A filmmaker obsessively pores over the ending of a 70s movie he thinks he could make better, in this new project from the director of the thrilling and dark I Saw the Devil (2010). Parasite’s Song Kang-ho and K-pop idol Krystal will both star.
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (Joanna Arnow)
Joanna Arnow directs and stars in her debut film, premiering as part of the Director’s Fortnight. In it, she plays a woman in a long-term and low-energy BDSM relationship and a mundane corporate job. As to what happens beyond that? We’ll have to wait and see, but Sean Baker of The Florida Project is behind it as a producer.
The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams)
The cinematographer of the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time makes his directorial debut with this film about a young woman crossing America, chasing the cults and sects that shape it. Talia Ryder of Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always plays the lead role; Jacob Elordi, Simon Rex and Jeremy O. Harris co-star.
Riddle of Fire (Weston Razooli)
We don’t know a huge amount about Weston Razooli’s directorial debut, but he seems like quite the character. His odd-ball short films are strange and stylish, and his first feature-length film has been dubbed a “neo-fairytale” by the festival’s programming team. The hype is high for this one.
The Book of Solutions (Michel Gondry)
The famed director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind makes his first film in eight years: this existentialist comedy, rumoured to be about a filmmaker trying to overcome his creative demons.
Occupied City (Steve McQueen)
In between art projects and Blitz, a fictional WWII movie for Apple, director Steve McQueen debuts his latest effort as a special screening at Cannes this year. Occupied City, set in Amsterdam during the Second World War, has A24 behind it and (apparently) a four-hour runtime.
This piece has been updated and republished with new information.