The Cannes International Film Festival will showcase new films from major filmmakers including Jonathan Glazer, Ken Loach and Hirokazu Kore-eda as part of its 2023 official selection.
Festival general delegate Thierry Frémaux, together with incoming president Iris Knobloch, announced the 2023 line-up at a press conference in Paris on Thursday, 13 April. The selection features an impressive roster of established auteurs and rising voices alike, with notable entries from Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson and Wim Wenders among the films set to screen this year.
A record number of films directed by women will compete this year: six female directors have work in the main competition, marking a new festival milestone. The competition slate includes films from previously Palme d’Or–nominated filmmakers such as Alice Rohrwacher, director of Happy as Lazzaro, and Jessica Hausner, known for Little Joe, as well as other internationally respected directors.
The festival will open with Jeanne du Barry, a historical drama written and directed by French actress-director Maïwenn, which centers on the life of the last official mistress of Louis XV. The film will screen out of competition as part of the festival’s opening night program.
Other high-profile out-of-competition presentations include Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb, Sam Levinson’s The Idol, and James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. These screenings add commercial and critical weight to the festival’s public and press programming.
A special screening will feature Occupied City, British director Steve McQueen’s documentary about life in Amsterdam under Nazi occupation during World War II. McQueen, acclaimed for films such as 12 Years a Slave, brings a rigorous documentary approach to this historical subject, and the screening will draw considerable attention from international critics and audiences.
Jonathan Glazer returns to feature filmmaking with his adaptation of Martin Amis’s novel The Zone of Interest. This marks Glazer’s first feature since the highly regarded Under the Skin (2013). The Zone of Interest explores a chilling and intimate premise—a Nazi officer who becomes entangled with the wife of the Auschwitz camp commander—and features a performance by Sandra Hüller. Given Glazer’s distinctive visual and narrative style, the film is expected to be one of the more provocative works in competition.
Veteran British director Ken Loach will also return to Cannes with The Old Oak, his first new film since his 2019 work. Loach, known for socially conscious films such as Kes, The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, reunites with screenwriter Paul Laverty to examine tensions between immigrants and residents in a small village in northeast England. Loach’s long-standing commitment to realist storytelling and social commentary makes his entry a key part of the festival’s political and humanitarian conversations.
Hirokazu Kore-eda, a former Palme d’Or winner and frequent Cannes presence, will bring Monster, a project currently being kept under wraps. Kore-eda, who won the Palme d’Or with Shoplifters and has been nominated multiple times, reunites with actor Sakura Ando for this new film. Expectations are high for Kore-eda’s latest work given his record of intimate, humane storytelling.
Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, another Palme d’Or laureate whose Winter Sleep received the festival’s top prize in 2014, also returns with a new film. Ceylan’s presence adds to the strong showing of internationally acclaimed auteurs on this year’s roster, reinforcing Cannes’s reputation as the premier global showcase for art-house and auteur cinema.
The official line-up for the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival is as follows:
In Competition
CLUB ZERO — Jessica Hausner
THE ZONE OF INTEREST — Jonathan Glazer
FALLEN LEAVES — Aki Kaurismäki
LES FILLES D’OLFA — Kaouther Ben Hania
ASTEROID CITY — Wes Anderson
ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE — Justine Triet
MONSTER — Hirokazu Kore-eda
IL SOL DELL’AVVENIRE — Nanni Moretti
L’ÉTÉ DERNIER — Catherine Breillat
KURU OTLAR USTUNE — Nuri Bilge Ceylan
LA CHIMERA — Alice Rohrwacher
LA PASSION DE DODIN BOUFFANT — Tran Anh Hùng
RAPITO — Marco Bellocchio
MAY DECEMBER — Todd Haynes
JEUNESSE — Wang Bing
THE OLD OAK — Ken Loach
BANEL E ADAMA — Ramata-Toulaye Sy
PERFECT DAYS — Wim Wenders
FIREBRAND — Karim Aïnouz
Un Certain Regard
LOS DELINCUENTES — Rodrigo Moreno
HOW TO HAVE SEX — Molly Manning Walker
GOODBYE JULIA — Mohamed Kordofani
KADIB ABYAD — Asmae El Moudir
SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN — Monia Chokri
CROWRÃ — João Salaviza; Renée Nader Messora
LOS COLONOS — Felipe Gálvez
OMEN — Baloji Tshiani
THE BREAKING ICE — Anthony Chen
ROSALIE — Stéphanie Di Giusto
THE NEW BOY — Warwick Thornton
IF ONLY I COULD HIBERNATE — Zoljargal PurevDash
HOPELESS — Kim Chang-hoon
TERRESTRIAL VERSES — Ali Asgari; Alireza Khatami
RIEN À PERDRE — Delphine Deloget
LES MEUTES — Kamal Lazraq
Out of Competition
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY — James Mangold
COBWEB — Kim Jee-woon
THE IDOL — Sam Levinson
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON — Martin Scorsese
Midnight Screenings
KENNEDY — Anurag Kashyap
OMAR LA FRAISE — Elias Belkeddar
ACIDE — Just Philippot
Cannes Premiere
KUBI — Takeshi Kitano
BONNARD, PIERRE ET MARTHE — Martin Provost
CERRAR LOS OJOS — Víctor Erice
LE TEMPS D’AIMER — Katell Quillévéré
Special Screenings
MAN IN BLACK — Wang Bing
OCCUPIED CITY — Steve McQueen
ANSELM (DAS RAUSCHEN DER ZEIT) — Wim Wenders
RETRATOS FANTASMAS — Kleber Mendonça Filho
The 2023 Cannes International Film Festival is scheduled to take place from 16 to 27 May 2023. This selection underscores Cannes’s continued role as a global platform for auteur cinema, presenting films that span genres, geographies and filmmaking traditions while highlighting a notable increase in female-directed works in the competition.