Cannes ’22 Spitballing Continues

One specific topic that keeps cinephiles’ interests going during the early months of winter is our monthly Cannes Film Festival speculation.

Cannes is, after all, the marquee cinematic event of the year (no offense, Oscars and Venice). Spitballing the lineup is an absolute blast for us. I get intel thrown at me and then try to piece together the final competition lineup.

Of course, we are still 7 full months away from Cannes even occuring, but we already have assembled an impressive amount of possible titles. Most of these 23 films are either in production, post-production or completed.

Triangle of Sadness — Ruben Ostlund
Bardo - Alejandro Gonalez Inarittu
Untitled Spain Movie — Wes Anderson
Decision to Leave — Chan Park-Wook
Crimes of the Future — David Cronenberg
On Barren Weeds – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
The Zone of Interest — Jonathan Glazer
Armageddon Time — James Gray
Baby, Box, Broker — Hirokazu Kore-eda
Showing Up — Kelly Reichardt
Untitled — Jia Zhangke Project
Tori et Lokita — Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
The Way of the Wind — Terrence Malick
Our Apprenticeship — Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
What Happens —Andrei Zvyagintsev
The Son — Florian Zeller
The Perfumed Hill — Abderrahmane Sissako
Peter von Kant — Francois Ozon
École de l'air — Robin Campillo
Monica — Kantemir Balagov
The Stars at Noon — Claire Denis
Untitled — Jean-Luc Godard
Close — Lukas Dhont
The Eternal Daughter — Joanna Hogg
Passengers — Ira Sachs
Frere et Soeur — Arnaud Desplechin
La Chimera — Alice Rohrwacher
L'envol — Pietro Marcello
Revoir Paris — Alice Winocour
Three Thousand Years of Longing — George Miller
Eureka — Lisandro Alonso

What am I missing here?

You can scratch off Claire Denis’ “Fire,” which is set to world premiere at Berlin. Ditto Robert Eggers’ “The Northman.”

One can certainly dream of Steven Spielberg’s “The Fablemans,” and Martin Scorsese‘s “Killers of the Flower Moon” making the trek to the Croisette next year but both filmmakers seem to prefer skipping festivals.

A couple of Netflix titles that would have been perfect fits for Cannes 2022 include Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise,” Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Bigbug,” and David Fincher’s “The Killer.” Maybe the Cannes/Netflix feud will be settled before then.

American productions have veered more towards skipping Cannes these last few years, but that might not stop Todd Field’s “Tar,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” or Ari Aster’s “Disappointment Blvd” from entering the fray.

Then there’s the question regarding Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things.” The film started production a few weeks ago and should be in the editing room by early January. A Venice bow seems more likely, but Lanthimos has a long history with Cannes, and an invitation to the croisette might be too hard to resist for the Greek auteur.

In the coming weeks, films by Bruno Dumont and Armand Desplechin will start production and one must imagine those two filmmakers will again be aiming for Cannes.