Cannes 2026: 10 of the festival’s best movies, from Fjord to Minotaur and All of a Sudden

The 79th Cannes Film Festival may yet be a watershed moment. Hollywood stayed away, with not a sniff of a blockbuster hitting the red carpet, confirming that the studios now see the platform offered by a legacy movie marathon like Cannes as irrelevant in the influencer age.

That did not stop film stars – John Travolta, Rami Malek, Penelope Cruz and more – from attending, however, and the oxygen usually taken up by studio fare meant more indie films had room to breathe.

Whether there will be a breakout film like last year’s Sentimental Value, though, remains to be seen, with some critics calling it “Cannes ordinaire”. But there were still outstanding films across the entire selection.

Here are 10 of the best films we have seen at Cannes this year.

1. I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning

Clio Barnard, the director of The Selfish Giant, returned with the only British film in Cannes this year, a stirring tale of 30-something friendship that, quite rightly, took the audience award after playing in the Directors’ Fortnight strand.

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