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The 21 Films in Competition at Cannes

Crew members install the red carpet at the Palais des Festival ahead of the opening day of the 74th international film festival.(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
Crew members install the red carpet at the Palais des Festival ahead of the opening day of the 74th international film festival.(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
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The 21 Films in Competition at Cannes

Crew members install the red carpet at the Palais des Festival ahead of the opening day of the 74th international film festival.(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
Crew members install the red carpet at the Palais des Festival ahead of the opening day of the 74th international film festival.(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

This year's Cannes Film Festival starting Tuesday has 21 films in competition, including movies from four past winners of the top prize Palme d'Or, as well as several cult favorites.

The winners of the 75th edition are to be announced at the closing ceremony on May 28, AFP said.

- 'Crimes of the Future' -
The dark genius behind "The Fly" and "Crash", David Cronenberg returns to his body horror roots with a tale starring Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux and Kristen Stewart about people indulging in revolting surgical alterations for artistic and sexual pleasure.

- 'Triangle of Sadness' -
The king of cringe, Sweden's Ruben Ostlund took a scalpel to modern bourgeois niceties with his Palme d'Or-winning "The Square" in 2017. In a similar vein, his latest places two models and a cleaning lady on a desert island with a group of billionaires.

- 'Tchaikovsky's Wife' -
The enfant terrible of Russian film and theatre, Kirill Serebrennikov fell foul of authorities with his caustic attacks on conservative values and was barred from travelling to Cannes for two previous nominations. Now in exile, he should be present for his historical tale about the famous composer.

- 'Armageddon Time' -
James Gray has made big sweeping dramas, from space odyssey "Ad Astra" with Brad Pitt to Amazon adventure "The Lost City of Z". This one is based on his adolescence in 1980s New York and a school governed by Donald Trump's father, starring Anne Hathaway and Anthony Hopkins.

- 'Broker' -
Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Palme d'Or in 2018 for his beautiful and touching family tale "Shoplifters". Featuring the star of "Parasite" Song Kang-ho, this one is about people dropping off infants in "baby boxes" to be looked after by other families.

- 'Decision to Leave' -
Park Chan-wook had an international hit with nightmarish thriller "Old Boy" that won him the runner-up Grand Prix in 2004. This time, the South Korean brings his unique stylings to the familiar trope of a detective falling for the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

- 'Showing Up' -
Kelly Reichardt has gradually built up a cult following with her mini-masterpieces about life on the edges of American society, including 2019 sleeper hit "First Cow". She is reunited with her favorite muse Michelle Williams for a self-reflective look at a small-town artist trying to overcome distractions.

- 'Tori and Lokita' -
Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne make simple but devastating slice-of-life stories and are among a handful to have won the Palme d'Or twice. Their latest follows the friendship of two African teenagers exiled in Belgium.

- 'Stars at Noon' -
One of France's most lauded auteurs, Claire Denis is having a busy year, having already won the directing prize at this year's Berlinale. Her Cannes entry is a political thriller set in Central America starring Robert Pattinson.

- 'R.M.N.' -
Romania's Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d'Or in 2007 for his bleak but vital abortion film, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days". This one explores ethnic and political tensions in a remote Transylvanian village.

- 'Close' -
Belgium's Lukas Dhont won the Camera d'Or newcomer award in 2018 for his debut "Girl" about a trans ballet dancer. Here he tackles two teenagers separated by a tragedy.

- 'Boy from Heaven' -
A daring film about power struggles in the Al-Azhar University in Egypt, from Swedish director Tarik Saleh.

- 'Holy Spider' -
Having won the Un Certain Regard section in 2018 with "Border", Danish-Iranian Ali Abbasi heads for the Iranian religious city of Mashhad where a family man seeks to rid the streets of prostitutes.

- 'Forever Young' -
A tale of love, life and tragedy in a Paris theatre troupe against the outbreak of AIDS in the 1980s from French-Italian director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

- 'Nostalgia' -
Italian director Mario Martone pays homage to his hometown of Naples.

- 'Brother and Sister' -
Marion Cotillard stars in a drama about feuding siblings brought back together by the death of their parents, directed by Cannes veteran Arnaud Desplechin.

- 'Leila's Brothers' -
Iran's Saeed Roustaee made a splash last year with his punchy cop thriller "Just 6.5". His new film examines the economic struggles of a family in a country hit by international sanctions.

- 'EO' -
Following a donkey from the circus to the slaughterhouse, this treatise against animal cruelty is from 84-year-old Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, who was first in competition at Cannes in 1972.

- 'Pacification' -
Spanish director Albert Serra heads for Tahiti to explore the diplomatic tensions around French nuclear testing.

- 'Mother and Son' -
France's Leonor Serraille follows a Senegalese mother from the 1980s to the present day as she tries to establish a life in the Paris suburbs.

- 'The Eight Mountains' -
A story of a lifelong friendship between boys and their rural home from Belgian husband-and-wife team Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch.

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Entertainment

Movie Review: Stephen Curry's Animated Basketball Movie 'GOAT' Is a Disappointing Air Ball

Stephen Curry attends a premiere for the film "GOAT", in Los Angeles, California, US, February 6, 2026. (Reuters)
Stephen Curry attends a premiere for the film "GOAT", in Los Angeles, California, US, February 6, 2026. (Reuters)
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Movie Review: Stephen Curry's Animated Basketball Movie 'GOAT' Is a Disappointing Air Ball

Stephen Curry attends a premiere for the film "GOAT", in Los Angeles, California, US, February 6, 2026. (Reuters)
Stephen Curry attends a premiere for the film "GOAT", in Los Angeles, California, US, February 6, 2026. (Reuters)

You'd expect an animated basketball movie with four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry in the producer's chair to be an easy lay-up. So why is “GOAT” such a brick?

Despite a wondrously textured, kinetic world and some interesting oddball characters, the movie is undone by a predictable, saccharine script. It’s as easy to see the steps coming as a Curry three-pointer arching into the net.

The movie has the kind of lazy, thin writing that feels like it all could have derived from a Hollywood happy hour gettogether: “Bro, bro. Wait. What if the GOAT was an actual goat?”

It centers on Will Harris, a goat with dreams of becoming a great baller, voiced by “Stranger Things” star Caleb McLaughlin. Undersized and an orphan — again with the orphans, guys? — Will is a delivery driver for a diner and late on his rent. He's a great outside shooter but a liability in the paint, unless he learns, that is.

He lives in Vineland — a hectic urban landscape with graffiti and living vines that choke the playgrounds — and is a rabid supporter of the local franchise, the Thorns. His idol is veteran Jett Fillmore, a leopard who's the league's all-time leading scorer, nicely voiced by Gabrielle Union. The Thorns are a bit of a mess, despite Jett's brilliance.

The game here is called roarball, a high-intensity, co-ed, multi-animal, full-contact sport derived from basketball with a hollow ball that has small holes. It's a “Mad Max” sport — ultraviolent, unofficiated and the dangers lurk not just from the beefy opponents but from the arena itself. The championship award is called the Claw.

The best part of the movie may be the environments for the other arenas — lava in one, a swamp with stalagmites and stalactites in another, plus an ice-bound one and another with desert sandstorms and rocks. Homefield advantage is a big thing in this league.

There seem to be only two kinds of points scored here — blazing windmills, cutting tomahawks and spectacular alley-oop dunks or slow-mo threes from so far downtown they might as well be in a different zip code. No mid-range jumpers, bro.

This universe is divided into “bigs” and “smalls” — rhinos, bears and giraffes on one side, gerbils and capybara on the other — and Will is deemed a small. “Smalls can’t ball,” he is told, condescendingly.

But Will — thanks to a viral video — improbably gets signed to the Thorns by the team's owner (a cynical warthog voiced wonderfully by Jenifer Lewis). It's seen as a shameless publicity stunt that no one wants, especially Jett, who needs a winning season after being taunted by “All stats, no Claw.”

Now, predictably, in Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley script, comes the bulk of the movie, giving a steady “The Karate Kid” or “Air Bud” vibe as it charts Will's steady rise to honored teammate and franchise future, despite Jett insisting she's not ready to go: “I’m the GOAT. I’m not passing the torch.”

The lessons are good — the importance of teamwork and believing in yourself — but the testosterone-fueled violence on the courts is WWE extreme. There are unnecessary plugs for Mercedes and Under Armor, and hollow slogans like “Dream big” and “Roots run deep.”

Some of the most interesting characters end up on the Thorns, a fragile, somewhat broken team that includes a rhino (voiced by David Harbour), a delicate ostrich (Nicola Coughlan), a gonzo Komodo dragon (Nick Kroll) and a desultory giraffe (Curry).

The Komodo dragon, named Modo, is the best of the bunch, an insane, unpredictable creature full of electricity. “If Modo was any more of a snack, he’d eat himself,” he declares. Could he get his own movie?

Directed by “Bob’s Burgers” veteran Tyree Dillihay and Adam Rosette, “GOAT” is targeted to Gen Alpha, leveraging cellphone screens and online likes, virality and diss tracks. It's not as funny as it thinks it is and tiresome in its overly familiar redemption arc.

Another potential basketball GOAT — Michael Jordan — gave us a clunker of a live-action- animated basketball movie in “Space Jam” exactly 30 years ago and “GOAT,” while not as bad as that mess, is an air ball none the same.

Entertainment

Music World Mourns Ghana's Ebo Taylor, Founding Father of Highlife

Ebo Taylor, who kept performing into his 80s, was instrumental in introducing Ghanaian highlife to international listeners. Nipah Dennis / AFP
Ebo Taylor, who kept performing into his 80s, was instrumental in introducing Ghanaian highlife to international listeners. Nipah Dennis / AFP
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Music World Mourns Ghana's Ebo Taylor, Founding Father of Highlife

Ebo Taylor, who kept performing into his 80s, was instrumental in introducing Ghanaian highlife to international listeners. Nipah Dennis / AFP
Ebo Taylor, who kept performing into his 80s, was instrumental in introducing Ghanaian highlife to international listeners. Nipah Dennis / AFP

Tributes have been pouring in from across Ghana and the world since the death of Ghanaian highlife legend Ebo Taylor.

A guitarist, composer and bandleader who died on Saturday, Taylor's six-decade career played a key role in shaping modern popular music in West Africa, said AFP.

Often described as one of the founding fathers of contemporary highlife, Taylor died a day after the launch of a music festival bearing his name in the capital, Accra, and just a month after celebrating his 90th birthday.

Highlife, a genre blending traditional African rhythms with jazz and Caribbean influences, was recently added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

"The world has lost a giant. A colossus of African music," a statement shared on his official page said. "Your light will never fade."

The Los Angeles-based collective Jazz Is Dead called him a pioneer of highlife and Afrobeat, while Ghanaian dancehall star Stonebwoy and American producer Adrian Younge, who his worked with Jay Z and Kendrick Lamar, also paid tribute to his legacy.

Nigerian writer and poet Dami Ajayi described him as a "highlife maestro" and a "fantastic guitarist".

- 'Uncle Ebo' -

Taylor's influence extended far beyond Ghana, with elements of his music appearing in the soul, jazz, hip-hop and Afrobeat genres that dominate the African and global charts today.

Born Deroy Taylor in Cape Coast in 1936, he began performing in the 1950s, as highlife was establishing itself as the dominant sound in Ghana in the years following independence.

Known for intricate guitar lines and rich horn arrangements, he played with leading bands including the Stargazers and the Broadway Dance Band.

In the early 1960s, he travelled to London to study music, where he worked alongside other African musicians, including Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.

The exchange of ideas between the two would later be seen as formative to the development of Afrobeat, a political cocktail blending highlife with funk, jazz and soul.

Back in Ghana, Taylor became one of the country's most sought-after arrangers and producers, working with stars such as Pat Thomas and CK Mann while leading his own bands.

His compositions -- including "Love & Death", "Heaven", "Odofo Nyi Akyiri Biara" and "Appia Kwa Bridge" -- gained renewed international attention decades later as DJs, collectors and record labels reissued his music. His grooves were sampled by hip-hop and R&B artists and helped introduce new global audiences to Ghanaian highlife.

Taylor continued touring into his 70s and 80s, performing across Europe and the United States as part of a late-career renaissance that cemented his status as a cult figure among younger musicians.

Many fans affectionately referred to him as "Uncle Ebo", reflecting both his longevity and mentorship of younger artists.

For many, he remained a symbol of highlife's golden era and of a generation that carried Ghanaian music onto the world stage.

Entertainment

'Send Help' Repeats as N.America Box Office Champ

Canadian actor Rachel McAdams and US actor Dylan O'Brien pose upon arrival on the red carpet for the UK premiere of the film 'Send Help' in central London on January 29, 2026. (Photo by CARLOS JASSO / AFP)
Canadian actor Rachel McAdams and US actor Dylan O'Brien pose upon arrival on the red carpet for the UK premiere of the film 'Send Help' in central London on January 29, 2026. (Photo by CARLOS JASSO / AFP)
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'Send Help' Repeats as N.America Box Office Champ

Canadian actor Rachel McAdams and US actor Dylan O'Brien pose upon arrival on the red carpet for the UK premiere of the film 'Send Help' in central London on January 29, 2026. (Photo by CARLOS JASSO / AFP)
Canadian actor Rachel McAdams and US actor Dylan O'Brien pose upon arrival on the red carpet for the UK premiere of the film 'Send Help' in central London on January 29, 2026. (Photo by CARLOS JASSO / AFP)

Horror flick "Send Help" showed staying power, leading the North American box office for a second straight week with $10 million in ticket sales, industry estimates showed Sunday.

The 20th Century flick stars Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien as a woman and her boss trying to survive on a deserted island after their plane crashes.
It marks a return to the genre for director Sam Raimi, who first made his name in the 1980s with the "Evil Dead" films.

Debuting in second place at $7.2 million was rom-com "Solo Mio" starring comedian Kevin James as a groom left at the altar in Italy, Exhibitor Relations reported.

"This is an excellent opening for a romantic comedy made on a micro-budget of $4 million," said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research, noting that critics and audiences have embraced the Angel Studios film.

Post-apocalyptic Sci-fi thriller "Iron Lung" -- a video game adaptation written, directed and financed by YouTube star Mark Fischbach, known by his pseudonym Markiplier -- finished in third place at $6.7 million, AFP reported.

"Stray Kids: The Dominate Experience," a concert film for the K-pop boy band Stray Kids filmed at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, opened in fourth place at $5.6 million.

And in fifth place at $4.5 million was Luc Besson's English-language adaptation of "Dracula," which was released in select countries outside the United States last year.

Gross called it a "weak opening for a horror remake," noting the film's total production cost of $50 million and its modest $30 million take abroad so far.

Rounding out the top 10 are:
"Zootopia 2" ($4 million)
"The Strangers: Chapter 3" ($3.5 million)
"Avatar: Fire and Ash" ($3.5 million)
"Shelter" ($2.4 million)
"Melania" ($2.38 million)