This Film Is Predicted to Win 2026 Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or
The competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival is incredibly close, with twenty-two movies vying for this year’s Palme d’Or. The prestigious event, which begins on May 12 and lasts until May 23, will reveal the winner of the top prize during its closing ceremony. With Hollywood largely skipping the festival entirely, only two films from the United States are in the main competition: James Grey’s Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, and Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Surprisingly, though, neither of these movies are the frontrunners for the 2026 Palme d’Or.
The race for the 2026 Palme d’Or is tight
The Korean sci-fi thriller Hope, directed by Na Hong-jin, is the early favorite to win the Palme d’Or at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, based on an early bet on Kalshi (as of May 12).
At the time of writing, however, the full results reveal that it has a very thin lead over Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland (previously titled “1949”) and Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord.
- Hope (Na Hong-jin) – 19%
- Fatherland (Pawel Pawlikowski) – 15%
- Fjord (Cristian Mungiu) – 12%
- Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev) – 10%
- All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) – 9%
- Amarga Navidad (Pedro Almodóvar) – 9%
- Paper Tiger (James Gray) – 9%
- Coward (Lukas Dhont) – 8%
- El Ser Querido (Rodrigo Sorogoyen) – 7%*
- Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi) – 7%
- Sheep in the Box (Hirokazu Kore-eda) – 5%
- The Unknown (Arthur Harari) – 4%*
- La Bola Negra (Javier Calvo & Javier Ambrossi) – Less than 1%
- Das Geträumte Abenteuer (Valeska Grisebach) – Less than 1%
- Another Day (Jeanne Herry) – Less than 1%
- A Woman’s Life (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet) – Less than 1%
- The Birthday Party (Léa Mysius) – Less than 1%
- Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer) – Less than 1%
- The Man I Love (Ira Sachs) – Less than 1%
- Moulin (László Nemes) – Less than 1%
- Nagi Notes (Koji Fukada) – Less than 1%
- Notre Salut (Emmanuel Marre) – Less than 1%
[The asterisk notes that the site shows “–%” instead of a number, so the percentage shown is based on the option’s current trade graph.]
Fatherland held an early lead on the bet, which started on April 10, before Hope took over the lead by the end of the month. Meanwhile, Fjord, Minotaur, and Paper Tiger have been nipping at their heels. Because of how close the race is, about 2% think that there will be a tie for the Palme d’Or winner. While The Man I Love doesn’t rank high in this list, it has the chance to win the Queer Palm award against Nagi Notes, Bitter Christmas, The Black Ball, Coward, and A Woman’s Life.
Actress Demi Moore is one of nine jury members for the main competition, after actor Jacob Elordi reportedly had to drop out due to an injury.
Potential 2027 Oscar nominee Na Hong-jin previously featured his 2010 film The Yellow Sea at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival as part of its Un Certain Regard competition, which is typically held for films with innovative styles and non-traditional stories. For this year’s installment, this section will feature two additional movies from the US: Jane Schoenbrun’s slasher film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma with actresses Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, and Jordan Firstman’s comedy-drama film Club Kid.
Other notable screenings during the festival include Ron Howard’s documentary Avedon that’s based on the life of photographer Richard Avedon, John Travolta’s family adventure film Propeller One-Way Night Coach that adapts his 1997 children’s novel of the same name, and Steven Soderbergh’s documentary John Lennon: The Last Interview.
Hollywood’s absence at the 2026 Cannes Festival shows a shift in trends for US studios premiering blockbusters at the event. As noted by Variety, this pullback comes from them not wanting to take the risk of featuring a film at the festival that “could potentially get panned by critics before they open in theaters” despite the potential for early award buzz. Universal Pictures decided not to premiere Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day at the festival, while Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger with Tom Cruise is expected to appear at the Venice Film Festival later in September.
Source: Comingsoon.net