10 Best Movies at Cannes 2026

By David Fear

David Fear

We came we say, we Cannes-quered. After seeing three dozen or so movies over the past two weeks, we’re ready to call it for the 79th edition of the prestigious film festival. And while the consensus — or rather, the Cannes-sensus; this list is now officially a punning Stan account — had been that this year’s festival has been a bit of a lackaidaisacal year and a letdown, characterized by a lot of brand-name auteurs shooting bricks and fumbled follow-ups from promising, up-and-coming cineastes. Yet there were still plenty of films at the fest, which concluded on May 23rd, that left us jazzed, moved, reeling, and in a few special cases, all three at once. From a gorgeous restoration of a blasphemous and banned classic to a masterful character study about the humanity of caretaking and a buzzy debut set in NYC queer club culture, these were the 10 best things we saw at Cannes 2026. (Honorable mentions go to: Bitter Christmas, La Bola Negra, Fjord, The Man I Love, Moulin, The Station, and Titanic Ocean.)

• ‘All of a Sudden’

  

  Anyone who caught Happy Hour (2015) and the Oscar-winner Drive My Car (2021) will tell you that Ryusuke Hamaguchi is one of the most brilliant filmmakers to come out of Japan in recent years. Not even those complex, moving works can prepare you for this three-hour–plus story of the bond between a French healthcare administrator (Virginie Efira) and a Japanese playwright (Tao Okamoto) dying of cancer. It’s both an intimate dual character study about two souls connecting — not for nothing did Efira and Okamoto jointly win the Best Actress prize — and an extended plea for a more dignified humane approach to treating the sick and the elderly. Once again, Hamaguchi reminds you that few things are more engaging than watching people communicating on a deep level; you also wouldn’t think that a 20-minute sequence involving a whiteboard and an impromptu lecture on capitalism would be one of the most compelling thing you’d seen in ages, and yet! It’s the type of marathon-length film that you actually wish was longer, and the fact that it didn’t win the Palme d’Or feels like a major slight. (No offense, actual Palme winner Fjord.) Easily the best thing we saw at this year’s fest, hands down.