If you've read this column for a while, you know the drill: I spitball Cannes every month from now until April, updating the latest intel and trying to figure out what will be in competition, vying for the Palme d'Or.
It all starts with a long list in November. This year I have just over 50 titles to work from. I've been tracking most of these productions all year — the shoot dates, the wraps, etc— and a few of them I've been following for the better part of a decade. Some will inevitably slip to Venice, or show up a few months earlier in Berlin instead. For the record, last year's first spitball, published in November, had 17 of the 20 films that ended up in Cannes competition. Not bad for a list put together six months out.
If we're lucky, the 80th edition of Cannes will be loaded. Ruben Östlund, who skipped this year's festival to keep editing "The Entertainment System is Down," should finally be ready, and a win would make him the first filmmaker to take home three consecutive Palmes.
Bong Joon Ho's "Ally" opens in France on July 14, less than two months after the festival wraps, which makes a Croisette premiere for his first animated film look vert tidy. Martin Scorsese shot "What Happens at Night" in Prague this spring, Damien Chazelle wrapped his prison drama in Athens in June, and Albert Serra says "Out of This World" — the film Cannes reportedly told him to shorten last spring — should be done by the end of the year.
And Terrence Malick? "The Way of the Wind" missed yet another Cannes in May. It was shot in 2019. I'm including it anyway, because at this point leaving it off feels like bad luck. The man might never finish it, or he might just surprise us all and come up with his own definition of a “final cut” for May.
Cannes is six months away, but it's never too early to speculate. Half the fun is piecing together the breadcrumbs.
MAJOR CONTENDERS
What Happens at Night (Martin Scorsese)
The Way of the Wind (Terrence Malick)
The Entertainment System is Down (Ruben Östlund)
Ally (Bong Joon Ho)
Sacrifice (Damien Chazelle)
Jenjira's Magnificent Dream (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
King Snake (Jeff Nichols)
Somewhere Out There (Alexander Payne)
Out of This World (Albert Serra)
If Love Should Die (Mia Hansen Love)
Pale Sun (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Three Incestuous Sisters (Alice Rohrwacher)
De Noche (Todd Haynes)
Gold Mountain (Ang Lee)
Fonda (Justine Triet)
Falcon (Marco Bellocchio)
Savagery (Miguel Gomes)
The Costume (Corneliu Porumboiu)
Santo Subito! (Bertrand Bonello)
On Land and Sea (Hlynur Pálmason)
Mimesis (Kaouther Ben Hania)
Dream Come True (Juho Kuosmanen)
Red Snow (Diao Yinan)
Mamma Dunhuang (Jia Zhangke)
White Lies (Oliver Stone)
Last Dance (Karim Aïnouz)
Flesh of the Gods (Panos Cosmatos)
The Bookie and the Bruiser (S. Craig Zahler)
Cry to Heaven (Tom Ford)
Bitcoin: Killing Satoshi (Doug Liman)
The Masque of the Red Death (Charlie Polinger)
Untitled (Cristi Puiu)
Savagery (Miguel Gomes)
Every year, anywhere between four and six competition films hail from France. For 2027, I've identified 11 potential titles — two of them in English (Triet's and Bonello's) — of which only a handful will be selected to compete for the Palme d'Or.
The Thing That Hurts (Arnaud Desplechin)
La Troisième Main (Michel Hazanavicius)
Les Petites Peurs (Michel Gondry)
La Vie obstinée (Carine Tardieu)
Dr. Albertini's Office (Emmanuel Mouret)
La Foudre (Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu)
Dumas: Black Devil (Ladj Ly)
Untitled (Monia Chokri)
Triet's "Fonda," her first since winning the Palme for "Anatomy of a Fall," wrapped in June with Mia Goth and Andrew Scott — that's about as safe a bet as it gets. Ladj Ly's "Dumas: Black Devil" has a French release set for October 13, 2027, through Pathé, which leaves plenty of room for a May bow.
As for American titles, it's very hard to tell. Neon picked up Jeff Nichols' "King Snake" in May, and it would surprise no one if the distributor that has held U.S. rights to the last seven Palme d'Or winners brings it to the Croisette. It helps thar the French, much like James Gray, adore Jeff Nichols, much more so than Americans. Chazelle's film is a Paramount production, and studios can be skittish about Cannes, but Chazelle has never premiered a film there and a splashy launch instead of Venice is slightly possible.
Alexander Payne's Danish-language "Somewhere Out There" for Searchlight has a scheduled completion date of early 2027, which is tight. Brady Corbet's "The Origin of the World" only started shooting in September and is reportedly running four hours; Venice 2027 seems more realistic. Pablo Larraín's "Once" is a Netflix film, and his last five features all went to Venice. Oliver Stone wrapped "White Lies," his first narrative feature since 2016's "Snowden," in June, and that one could truly go anywhere. We can also sadly forget about Joel Coen’s “Jack of Spades,” it was just acquired by Netflix, which is a no-no for Cannes.
This is all Rothman’s idea, by the way. He’s going to pour millions into this campaign because he believes “Brand New Day” is a great movie.