Another Cannes Film Festival is in the books, and with it comes another slate of films from some of the world’s great auteurs that cinephiles can spend the next year discussing. The IndieWire staff has already picked our 18 favorite films of this year’s festival, which you can read here. But for a broader perspective, we enlisted dozens of critics from around the world to vote on the best film, screenplay, director, and debut feature that they encountered on the Croisette this year.
While Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or-winning “Fjord” was well-represented in the poll, coming in first place for Best Screenplay and receiving votes for Best Film and Best Director, our voters disagreed with the Cannes jury on the #1 film of the festival. That honor went to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Paris-set drama “All of a Sudden,” which also received votes for Best Screenplay. (And, unlike at the Cannes awards, winning one category of our poll does not disqualify a film from other ones.)
The biggest landslide of our poll came in the Best First Feature category, with an overwhelming majority of our voters choosing Jordan Firstman’s “Club Kid” as the best debut of the festival. Quite a few critics also singled out Firstman’s screenplay as one of the best writing achievements of the festival.
Keep reading for the complete results of our annual Critics’ Survey of the best movies from the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
Best Film
“All of a Sudden”
“Minotaur”
“A Man of His Time”
“Fjord”
“Fatherland”
Best Screenplay
“Fjord,” written by Cristian Mungiu
“All of a Sudden,” written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
“Club Kid,” written by Jordan Firstman
“A Man of His Time,” written by Emmanuel Marre
“The Samurai and His Prisoner,” written by Kyoshi Kurosawa
Best Director
“Minotaur,” dr. Andrey Zvyagintsev
“Fatherland,” dr. Paweł Pawlikowski
“The Black Ball,” dr. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi
“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” dr. Jane Schoenbrun
“The Dreamed Adventure,” dr. Valeska Grisebach
Best First Film
“Club Kid,” dr. Jordan Firstman
“Ben’Imana” dr. Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo
“Flesh and Fuel,” dr. Pierre Le Gall
“Rehearsals for a Revolution,” dr. Pegah Ahangarani
“Too Many Beasts,” dr. Sarah Arnold