79th edition of Cannes Film Festival rolls out the iconic red carpet
- Last updated: May 13, 2026 | 08:25
The red carpet has been rolled out at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in the South of France. The French Riviera festival beginning on Tuesday will include 12 days of nonstop world premieres before culminating May 23 with the presentation of the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top honour and one of the film industry’s most prestigious awards.
The festivities kick off with the opening-night film, “The Electric Kiss,” a French period-comedy, and the awarding of an honorary Palme d’Or to the “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson. What isn’t at Cannes has been as buzzed about as much as what is. Hollywood is largely absent this year.
While blockbusters like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Elvis” have touched down at previous incarnations, studio films this year have been either scared away by the possibility of a rocky reception or by the high cost of flying in A-listers to the Cote d’Azur. The closest thing in Cannes’ slate is an anniversary celebration for “Fast & Furious.”
Speaking to members of the press Monday, Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux said Hollywood “is reshaping” in the midst of Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. “I hope the studio films will come back,” Frémaux said.
Cannes has become better known for its lengthy standing ovations than its boos. This year, a long list of big-name filmmakers will have centre stage. Among the filmmakers set to unveil new movies are Pedro Almodóvar (“Bitter Christmas”), James Gray (“Paper Tiger”), Na Hong-jin (“Hope”), Pawel Pawlikowski (“Fatherland”) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“All of a Sudden”). If Cannes has waned as a global launchpad for studio releases, it has grown as a breeding ground for Oscar contenders.
Two years ago, Sean Baker’s “Anora” won the Palme in Cannes before winning best picture. Last year, Cannes selections like “Sentimental Value,” “The Secret Agent” and “It Was Just an Accident” went on to play prominent roles in awards season.
More often than not, the specialty distributor Neon has been at the forefront of the Cannes-to-Oscars pipeline. Neon has backed the past six Palme d’Or winners, an unprecedented streak that it may be poised to extend. Neon is attached to more than a quarter of the 22 films in competition for the Palme d’Or. On Tuesday, the jury deciding that award and others held a news conference before beginning their sequestered movie watching. South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook is serving as president of the nine-member panel, along with Demi Moore, Chloé Zhao, Stellan Skarsgård and others.
How much any of this will serve as backdrop for “The White Lotus” remains to be seen. The fourth season of Mike White’s acclaimed HBO series is based around a trip to Cannes. Last month, the show began shooting on the French Riviera. While Cannes may be light on big Hollywood movies, it isn’t lacking in stars. Set to appear over the next two weeks are Kristen Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Adam Driver, Javier Bardem, Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Rami Malek, Sebastian Stan, Sandra Hüller and many others.
Meanwhile, “The Lord of the Rings” maestro Peter Jackson — received a lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday — has wowed the world with his big-screen epics and delivered a tourism bonanza to his native New Zealand. With his unkempt hair and a predilection for going barefoot on set, the 64-year-old Oscar winner has taken on a string of cinematic challenges armed with an eye for detail and dazzling special effects.
“He has permanently transformed Hollywood cinema and its conception of the spectacle,” said Thierry Fremaux, director of the Cannes Festival, as he announced the honorary Palme D’Or prize for Jackson in March.
“But Jackson is not only a great technician; he is above all a tremendous storyteller.”
An only child born in the small town of Pukerua Bay near the New Zealand capital Wellington, he was captivated at the age of eight when the 1933 version of “King Kong” appeared on the family’s black-and-white television.
“Ask me today what I think of King Kong and I will tell you that it is one of the most perfect pieces of cinematic escapism,” Jackson said in a 2006 biography. His first film, as an eight-year-old, was a war movie shot with schoolmates in the back garden with his parents’ Super Eight camera. He poked holes in the celluloid to simulate gunfire.
While working as an apprentice photographic engraver on Wellington’s Evening Post newspaper aged about 18, Jackson bought a copy of “The Lord of the Rings” to read on a long train trip.
“I kept saying to myself: ‘This book could make a really great movie.’”
Within a few years, he took a first step into the industry. In his early 20s, the director bought a Bolex 16-millimetre camera and made a low-budget horror, “Bad Taste”, which was shown at Cannes, praised by critics and sold in 30 countries.
Jackson met his life partner Fran Walsh at a screening of the movie, and she would go on to collaborate in his films, including the blockbuster “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. They have two children. The director won international renown with the 1994 drama thriller “Heavenly Creatures”, also premiered at Cannes, starring Kate Winslet and based on the true story of two schoolgirls who murder one of their mothers. In 1998, he secured financial backing to put “The Lord of the Rings” on the big screen.
New Line Cinema committed to the three films of Tolkien’s tale with Jackson as director and New Zealand as the majestic location -- a choice that the country would tap as a major tourism draw.
He devoted the next seven years to the hobbits, elves and Ringwraiths of Middle Earth, lending his storytelling and technical skills to a film trilogy lasting more than nine hours that was bestowed with multiple Oscars. In 2004, after years of talks, he began filming a successful remake of “King Kong”, the story of a giant gorilla captured from the fictional Skull Island, and its demise on New York’s Empire State Building.
Jackson returned to Tolkien’s world in 2012 with three box office hits based on “The Hobbit”. The bearded director was praised by the Cannes Film Festival also for his “colossal” 2018 documentary series “They Shall Not Grow Old”, which restored original World War I footage to recreate the lives of soldiers on the Western Front.
Agencies