For decades, Cannes has been the place where Hollywood goes to remind everyone it is glamorous. Grace Kelly on the Croisette. Tarantino and Thurman at Pulp Fiction. Julia Roberts walking barefoot on the red carpet. Tom Cruise buzzing the Riviera with fighter jets. But the 2026 festival, opening Tuesday and running until 23 May, has a different vibe: the near-total absence of major Hollywood studio films.

“There is no big American movie this year,” said Scott Roxborough, European bureau chief of the Hollywood Reporter and a festival veteran. “Usually there’s at least one major tent-pole title premiering at Cannes or using the festival to launch its European release.” In recent years, Cannes hosted Mission: Impossible - the Final Reckoning, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. This year: zip. Only two American films are competing for the Palme d’Or: Ira Sachs’s Aids-era musical fantasy The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek and Rebecca Hall, and James Gray’s crime drama Paper Tiger, with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson - both majority-financed outside the US.

Meanwhile, in Un Certain Regard, Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (starring Gillian Anderson) and Jordan Firstman’s debut Club Kid will premiere. Andy García’s noir-ish Diamond, with Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman, and John Travolta’s directorial debut Propeller One-Way Night Coach - an adaptation of his own 1997 book about a young aviation enthusiast - will show out of competition.

Festival director Thierry Frémaux says Cannes is just reflecting industry changes. “Quantitatively, studios are producing fewer blockbusters and fewer auteur films than in the past.” Roxborough adds that studios have grown wary of festival risks: “The studios have found you can release a major movie without the help of a prestige film festival,” pointing to awards contenders like One Battle After Another and Sinners that bypassed festivals and succeeded. There’s also the control issue - at a festival, critics decide the narrative. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny underperformed after Cannes critics trashed it in 2023. “Nowadays, a bad review can go viral on social media instantly,” Roxborough said.

Then there’s politics. This year’s Berlinale was dominated by geopolitical questions, even prompting German government intervention. For studios, viral press conference moments can be deeply damaging. So this year’s competition marks a return to international auteur-driven cinema. Pedro Almodóvar returns with Bitter Christmas, about film-maker friends who cannibalise each other’s lives. He criticised the Oscars for being too apolitical, telling the Los Angeles Times it was “quite notable watching the Oscar telecast where there were not many protests against the war or against Trump.”

The Iranian Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi brings Parallel Tales, starring Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Cassel. Hungarian director László Nemes returns with French resistance drama Moulin. Romanian Cristian Mungiu makes a comeback with Norway-set Fjord. Exiled Russian auteur Andrey Zvyagintsev premieres political thriller Minotaur. Sandra Hüller stars in Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, set around Thomas Mann’s return from American exile after WWII. Japanese masters Hirokazu Kore-eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi have new films in competition. The jury, led by South Korean director Park Chan-wook and including Demi Moore and Chloé Zhao, reflects the same international outlook.

“Funny enough, I’ve never been more excited for a Cannes lineup,” said Chris Cotonou, deputy editor of A Rabbit’s Foot magazine. “Cannes can sometimes fall into a trap of industry spectacle. This year feels much more focused on cinema from global auteurs.” Cotonou says younger audiences - shaped by platforms like Letterboxd and Mubi - are increasingly drawn to international directors once considered niche: “Plenty of younger viewers are more excited by a Hamaguchi film than by a Coppola or a Tarantino. Perhaps the festival, seeing a new type of worldly cinemagoer, is coming to terms with the fact it doesn’t need the studios any more.”

The absence isn’t limited to Hollywood. British cinema also has a muted presence: no UK directors in main competition. Clio Barnard premieres I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning in Directors’ Fortnight. Yemeni-Scottish film-maker Sara Ishaq brings The Station to Critics’ Week. Barnaby Thompson’s documentary Maverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean screens in Cannes Classics. The UK is also represented through the BFI and British Council “Great 8” showcase. Mia Bays, director of the BFI Filmmaking Fund, said the UK still had “strong representation” across the wider programme and that selections often come down to timing. “On the back of Berlin in February being one of the strongest for UK films in many years and looking forward to the autumn festivals which we hope will celebrate upcoming UK films, we believe there is much to celebrate and look forward to.”

But neither Hollywood’s retreat nor British cinema’s quieter year is likely to dent Cannes’ reputation as the industry’s foremost tastemaker. From Anora to last year’s non-English language titles like Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent, and It Was Just an Accident, films launched on the Croisette dominate the awards calendar long after the yachts have sailed home.