2024 Cannes Film Festival Lineup Revealed: Oliver Stone Joins Paul Schrader, Andrea Arnold, and David Cronenberg

Ryan Lattanzio
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The 2024 Cannes Film Festival lineup was finally revealed at the sliver of dawn (stateside, anyway) on Thursday, April 11. Festival director Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch unveiled this year’s crop of films across the many sections, from the Competition to Un Certain Regard, during a press conference beginning at 5 a.m. ET. See the full lineup below.

The 77th edition of Cannes comes to the Côte d’Azur May 14 through 25, and a few titles were already confirmed to be in the mix. There’s Francis Ford Coppola’s self-funded epic “Megalopolis,” which has already screened for a rarified few in the United States to much awe and speculation over what distributor might take on Coppola’s experimental vision. For his first feature since 2011’s “Twixt,” Coppola gathered a cast including Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, and Jason Schwartzman for a sci-fi vision of a ruined NYC-like metropolis. Coppola previously won Palme d’Or honors for “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now,” and it was already confirmed prior to Thursday’s lineup announcement that “Megalopolis” will receive a Competition premiere, making Coppola eligible for the Palme again. Coppola’s friend George Lucas will receive the Honorary Palme d’Or at the festival’s closing ceremony.

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Frémaux overall announced 19 films in competition so far, promising there will be 22, with more announcements to come: Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrea Arnold, David Cronenberg, Ali Abbasi, Sean Baker, Jia Zhangke, Paul Schrader, and Paolo Sorrentino are among this year’s competition filmmakers.

Also headed to the festival Out of Competition is George Miller’s “Furiosa,” his prequel to 2015 Cannes premiere “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The film will bring stars like Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth to the Grand Théâtre Lumière for some flashy red-carpet moments.

And bringing star wattage to Cannes is Kevin Costner with his two-part directorial effort “Horizon: An America Saga,” premiering Out of Competition before the two films hit theaters this summer. Idiosyncratic French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux’s star-studded comedy “The Second Act” will open the festival, bringing Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel, and Raphaël Quenard to the Croisette. The film is also debuting Out of Competition.

On April 22, the festival, as promised, added an array of new titles across its sections, including “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from Mohammad Rasoulof, now in Competition. The Iranian filmmaker was banned from leaving his home country to attend Cannes last year as an Un Certain Regard jury member due to his anti-establishment political views. It’s unclear whether he’ll be able to attend in person. For speaking out against government-led violence against protesters in 2022, he was sentenced to a two-year ban from leaving Iran in 2023. This is Rasoulof’s first time in the main Competition; his films generally screen in Un Certain Regard or premiere in Berlin.

In the Special Screenings, Oliver Stone will premiere his documentary “Lula,” about Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was incarcerated in 2018 before later returning to power. The Workers’ Party member has served as president since 2023. The film could potentially mark Stone’s return to celebrating a true leftist figure; in 2017, he controversially directed the four-hour documentary series “The Putin Interviews,” giving a platform to the much-maligned Russian leader that, while critical, also humanized Putin in a manner that divided critics and audiences.

Cannes regular Arnaud Desplechin also joins the Special Screenings section with “Spectateurs.” A Desplechin film at Cannes is always an inevitability, though his last film, 2022’s “Brother and Sister,” premiered in the official Competition.

As previously announced, Greta Gerwig serves as president of the Competition jury.

[*Editor’s Note: Films asterisked were added to the lineup on April 22.]

Opening Night

“The Second Act” (dir. Quentin Dupieux; Out of Competition)

Out of Competition

“Furiosa” (dir. George Miller)
“Horizon: An America Saga” (dir. Kevin Costner)
“She’s Got No Name” (dir. Peter Ho-sun Chan)
“Rumours” (dir. Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson)
*”Le Comte de Monte-Cristo” (dir. Alexandre De La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte)

In Competition

“Megalopolis” (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
“The Apprentice” (dir. Ali Abbasi)
“Motel Destino” (dir. Karim Aïnouz)
“Bird” (dir. Andrea Arnold)
“Emilia Perez” (dir. Jacques Audiard)
“Anora” (dir. Sean Baker)
“The Shrouds” (dir. David Cronenberg)
“The Substance” (dir. Coralie Fargeat)
“Grand Tour” (dir. Miguel Gomes)
“Marcello Mio” (dir. Christophe Honoré)
“Caught by the Tides” (dir. Jia Zhangke)
“All We Imagine as Light” (dir. Payal Kapadia)
“Kinds of Kindness” (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
“Beating Hearts” (dir. Gilles Lellouche)
“Wild Diamond” (dir. Agathe Riedinger)
“Oh, Canada” (dir. Paul Schrader)
“Limonov” (dir. Kirill Serebrennikov)
“Parthenope” (dir. Paolo Sorrentino)
“The Girl with the Needle” (dir. Magnus von Horn)
*”The Most Precious of Cargoes” (dir. Michel Hazanavicius)
*”Three Kilometers Until the End of the World” (dir. Emanuel Parvu)
*”The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (dir. Mohammad Rasoulof)

Un Certain Regard

“The Shameless” (dir. Konstantin Bojanov)
“Norah” (dir. Tawfik Alzaidi)
“Le Royaume” (dir. Julien Colonna)
“Vingt Dieux” (dir. Louise Courvoisier)
“Le Proces du Chien” (dir. Laetitia Dosch)
“The Village Next to Paradise” (dir. Mo Harawe)
“Black Dog” (dir. Guan Hu)
“September Says” (dir. Ariane Labed)
“The Damned” (dir. Roberto Minervini)
“L’Histoire de Souleymane” (dir. Boris Lojkine)
“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” (dir. Rungano Nyoni)
“My Sunshine” (dir. Hiroshi Okuyama)
“Viet and Nam” (dir. Minh Quý Trương)
“Santosh” (dir. Sandhya Suri)
*”When the Light Breaks” (dir. Rúnar Rúnarsson)
*”Niki” (dir. Céline Sallette)
“Flow” (dir. Gints Zilbalodis)

Special Screenings

“La Belle de Gaza” (dir. Yolande Zauberman)
“Apprendre” (dir. Claire Simon) 
“The Invasion” (dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
“Ernest Cole, Lost and Found” (dir. Raoul Peck)
“Le Fil” (dir. Daniel Auteuil)
*”Spectateurs” (dir. Arnaud Desplechin)
*”Nasty” (dir. Tudor Giurgiu)
*”Lula” (dir. Oliver Stone)
*”An Unfinished Film” (dir. Lou Ye)

Cannes Premiere

“Miséricorde” (dir. Alain Guiraudie)
“C’est Pas Moi” (dir. Leos Carax)
“Everybody Loves Touda” (dir. Nabil Ayouch)
“The Marching Band” (dir. Emmanuel Courcol)
“Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot” (dir. Rithy Panh)
“Le Roman de Jim” (dirs. Arnaud Larrieu, Jean-Marie Larrieu)
*”Vivre, Mourir, Renaitre” (dir. Gaël Morel)
*”Maria” (dir. Jessica Palud)

Midnight

“Twilight of the Warrior” (dir. Cheang Pou-soi)
“I, the Executioner” (dir. Ryoo Seung-wan)
“The Surfer” (dir. Lorcan Finnegan)
“The Balconettes” (dir. Noemie Merlant)

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