Cannes Film Festival announces its full line-up for this year's 76th edition

Cannes Festival Director Thierry Frémaux and Festival Director Iris Knobloch announce the 2023 Cannes line-up - Copyright France TV - YouTube

By David Mouriquand

Published on 13/04/2023 - 12:20•Updated 14/04/2023 - 08:06

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The Cannes Film Festival has announced this year's full official line-up competing the 2023 Palme d'Or. This year’s festival will run from 16-27 May.

The Cannes Film Festival has announced the official line-up for its 76th edition.

Festival director Thierry Frémaux and Iris Knobloch, the former WarnerMedia France and Germany boss who has succeeded Pierre Lescure as Cannes Film Festival President, announced the full line-up of films competing for the coveted Palme d’Or. (Scroll down for the complete selection.)

Knobloch namechecked Lescure at the start of the conference before the line-up, stating that the festival was a veritable “gamechanger” for films and highlighting the importance of seeing films in theatres. Frémaux stated that they had seen over 2000 films prior to making this year’s selection, which is a "wider selection" following the pandemic years.

This year's selection will be another starry one, with the likes of Harrison Ford, Margot Robbie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Tom hanks, Scarlett Johansson and Sandra Huller gracing the red carpet.

It is also worth noting that the 2023 Competition selection, which is an eclectic mix of young voices and veterans, has beaten the record number of women for Cannes: six female filmmakers will compete for the Palme d'Or, compared to last year's five - which was already then a record.

There has been pressure on film festivals like Cannes and Venice to be more inclusive in its competition selections, especially since the Berlinale is racing ahead with almost 50/50 parity. The topic of quotas at film festivals and awards shows, and gender equality in the arts in general, is a heated debate.

Frémaux previously admitted that the late great Agnes Varda told him: “I’m not a female director. I am a woman, and I’m a director.” Fremaux added: “She said to me, 'Please, never pick up a film because it’s directed by a woman. Pick up a film because it’s a good film'.”

Six feels like baby steps, but at least there's progress.

This year’s festival will run from 16-27 May, and we already knew the opening film: Johnny Depp’s comeback movie Jeanne du Barry. Directed by Maïwenn, who also stars, the French-language film’s world premiere will take place on 16 May. Depp portrays King Louis XV and speaks French in the film, which takes inspiration from the life of Jeanne du Barry, Louis XV’s last royal mistress at the Court of Versailles.

Other hot tickets had already been confirmed for the Croisette, including Martin Scorsese’s latest Killers of the Flower Moon(for Apple TV), Lucasfilms’ Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, the latest edition in the long-running Indiana Jones film series starring Harrison Ford, Wes Anderson's Asteroid City, as well as Pedro Almodóvar's new short film Strange Way of Life, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal.

Swedish director and two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Square, Triangle of Sadness) will preside over this year’s Competition jury. Östlund’s jury duty falls exactly 50 years after late his compatriot Ingrid Bergman served in the role of jury president in 1973.

The full line-up is as follows:

COMPETITION

Club Zero, Jessica Hausner
The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer
Fallen Leaves, Aki Kaurismaki
Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania
Asteroid City, Wes Anderson
Anatomie d’Une Chute, Justine Triet
Monster, Hiokazu Kore-eda
Il Sol dell’Avvenire, Nanni Moretti
La Chimera, Alice Rohrwacher
L’Eté Dernier, Catherine Breillat
La Passion De Dodin Bouffant, Tran Anh Hung
About Dry Grasses, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
May December, Todd Haynes
Rapito, Marco Bellocchio
Firebrand, Karim Ainouz
The Old Oak, Ken Loach
Banel et Adama, Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Perfect Days, Wim Wenders
Jeunesse, Wang Bing

** Some additions will be incoming in the coming days, according to Thierry Frémaux - including the return of a documentary film in Competition, the first time since 2004 with Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which won the Palme d’Or. **

(Title in bold denotes first films eligible for the Camera d’Or)

OUT OF COMPETITION