2026 Cannes Movie Reviews List

The 2026 Cannes Film Festival is underway with French filmmaker Pierre Salvadori’s The Electric Kiss serving as the opening-night pic.

Among the headline filmmakers debuting new works on the Croisette this year are previous Palme d’Or winners Cristian Mungiu and Hirokazu Kore-eda, two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi and American indie veteran Ira Sachs.

The Electric Kiss is joined by new films from stalwart auteurs including Pedro Almodóvar, Cristian Mungiu, Guillaume Canet, Nicolas Winding Refn and Paweł Pawlikowski

Read all of Deadline’s takes below throughout the festival, which runs May 12-23. Click on the title to read the full review (some films will be reviewed only on this page) and keep checking back as we update the list.

Ashes

‘Ashes’

Cannes Film Festival

Section: Special Screenings
Director: Diego Luna
Cast: Anna Díaz, Adriana Paz, Luisa Huertas, Teresa Lozano, Guillermo Ríos, Adriana Jacomé, Sergio Bautista, Benny Emmanuel, Irene Escolar, Anna Alarcón, Dailyn Valdivieso, Charlie Rowe, Laura Gómez
Synopsis: Set in Mexico and Spain, Ashes (Ceniza en la Boca) tells the story of Lucila (Anna Diaz), a young Mexican woman looking for a better life in Spain where she takes her younger brother, Diego (Sergio Bautista), to reunite with their mother (Adriana Paz) who had left them eight years earlier to find a new life and, she says, eventually discover a way to bring her family back together. The ensuing difficulties, tragedy and unexpected obstacles find Lucila in an unforgiving world she doesn’t know and must try to navigate to simply survive.
Deadline’s take: With strong guidance from Diego Luna returning to the director’s chair to tell a very personal story of family, the experience of leaving and being left, of racism, immigration, and finding new life in a foreign country, Ashes is a powerful and moving motion picture. It is also unique in dealing directly with the hot-button topic of immigration, but surprisingly in two countries that speak the same language. This separates it from the usual stories we have been seeing in America where Mexicans try to assimilate themselves in the U.S. and run into a government dead set on keeping them out. In this case though it is Spain, and Luna and his co-writers show that a shared language is not the antidote to hatred and being welcomed in a new land.

The opening of the film, shot in darkness and shadows, shows us a mother tearfully saying goodbye to her sleeping children. This is just the beginning of the long emotional journey for Lucila and Diego as they will find a way to reunite with their mother. Diaz as Lucila is a revelation and the heart and soul of Ashes, which is based on the book by Brenda Navarro. Paz is also effective as the mother who felt she was out of choices and made a fateful decision, one that has tragic consequences. Ashes becomes a rich, and undeniably timely, addition to film depictions of the experiences of immigrants in both heartbreaking and humane ways. — PH

‘Butterfly Jam’

Cannes Film Festival

Section: Directors’ Fortnight
Director-screenwriter: Kantemir Balagov
Cast: Barry Keoghan, Talha Akdogan, Riley Keough, Harry Melling, Jaliyah Richards
Deadline’s takeaway: The machine has yet to be invented that can tie up all the loose ends in this puzzling family drama about a fragile father-son relationship that touches on familiar issues of masculinity in crisis but doesn’t take them anywhere new. Barry Keoghan tries his best with the material, but there’s not really much he can do with it. — DW

‘The Electric Kiss’

Cannes Film Festival

Section: Out of Competition
Director: Pierre Salvadori
Screenwriters: Benjamin Charbit, Benoit Graffin, Pierre Salvadori
Cast: Pio Marmaï , Anais Demoustier, Gilles Lellouche, Vimala Pons, Gustave Kervern, Madeleine Baudot
Deadline’s takeaway: Pierre Salvadori’s charming and very French rom-com touches on loss, grief, deception and renewed love of life and art. With subtle comedy and perfectly cast actors, it’s a crowd-pleaser that could work nicely for audiences seeking escapism. — PH

‘Nagi Notes’

Momo Film Co

Section: Competition
Director-screenwriter: Kōji Fukada
Cast: Takako Matsu, Shizuka Ishibashi, Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Waku Kawaguchi, Kiyora Fujiwara, Sawako Fujima
Deadline’s takeaway: Nagi Notes could fittingly be described as scenic cinema; slow for sure but revealing in the same way a slow train can really open up the passing landscape. LGTB+-positive in a most unexpected and human way, it’s a modest film that charms by stealth and understatement. — DW

‘A Woman’s Life’

Cannes Film Festival

Section: Competition
Director: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
Cast: Léa Drucker, Mélanie Thierry, Charles Berling, Laurent Capelluto, Marie-Christine Barrault
Deadline’s takeaway: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s solid female-centric drama is not what you might call thrilling cinema, but it is worthwhile, and in Léa Drucker’s hands we have a character who is something special to behold. — PH

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