Above: The Dead Don’t Die by Jim Jarmusch (USA).
Maybe if they re-introduced a Best Poster palme to Cannes things would get better. I’ve been doing this Competition round-up for nine years now and, though there are always stand-outs, in general there is nothing much to get excited about. Of course the poster usually comes later, after the films have been picked up for distribution—the best posters here, like those for The Dead Don’t Die and Parasite, are those that already have impending theatrical releases—and many of these films have barely finished editing before they’re rushed to the Croisette, so I shouldn’t complain. But at the same time this is the most prestigious film festival in the world, so you might expect a better turnout.
There seem to be fewer posters than ever this year; usually there are three or four I can’t track down, this year I’ve only been able to find key art for 12 out of the 21 films in competition. Nothing yet for Terrence Malick, Ken Loach, nor Arnaud Desplechin, nor for the first black woman to have ever directed a film in competition at Cannes, Mati Diop. I will add them if they turn up during the festival; in the meantime, here are all the posters from the Competition in alphabetical order by English-language title.
Above: Bacarau by Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles (Brazil).
Above: Frankie by Ira Sachs (USA/France/Portugal/Belgium).
Above: Matthias and Maxime by Xavier Dolan (Canada).
Above: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino (USA).
Above: Pain and Glory by Pedro Almodóvar (Spain).
Above: Parasite by Bong Joon-ho (South Korea).
Above: Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Céline Sciamma (France).
Above: Sibyl by Justine Triet (France).
Above: The Traitor by Marco Bellocchio (Italy).
Above: The Wild Goose Lake by Diao Yinan (China).
Above: Young Ahmed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Belgium).
Still to come:
Atlantique by Mati Diop (France/Senegal)
The Whistlers by Corneliu Porumboiu (Romania/France/Germany)
A Hidden Life by Terrence Malick (USA/Germany)
It Must Be Heaven by Elia Suleiman (France/Canada)
Les misérables by Ladj Ly (France)
Little Joe by Jessica Hausner (Austria/Germany/UK)
Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo by Abdellatif Kechiche (France)
Oh Mercy! by Arnaud Desplechin (France)
Sorry We Missed You by Ken Loach (UK)
See previous Cannes Competition poster round-ups here: 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011. And follow me on Twitter for any updates to this year’s crop.