Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Top Gun have all premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the last decade. But in 2026, not a single Hollywood blockbuster is programmed there, raising questions about why US studios are ghosting the event.
The world's biggest film festival, which kicks off on Tuesday, has long relied on Hollywood to provide a dose of mass-market entertainment alongside the sometimes edgy independent cinema that forms the core of its programme.
Mega-stars such as Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford help draw attention to the same red carpets walked by auteur directors and the casts of obscure art-house productions -- all in the name of supporting the fragile cinema industry.
Although Cannes director Thierry Fremaux made platforming American productions a priority when he took over 25 years ago, he was left having to explain their absence when he unveiled the line-up of films in April.
"Outside of studio filmmaking, independent cinema -- cinema made somewhere other than Los Angeles -- continues to exist," Fremaux said.
There are two independent American films in the main competition: "Paper Tiger" by James Gray, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, as well as "The Man I Love" by Ira Sachs featuring Rami Malek.
But Hollywood big beasts Universal, Disney, Warner, Sony and Paramount, as well as streaming giants Netflix and Amazon, have decided to pass.
It was a similar story at the Berlin film festival in February where director Tricia Tuttle was left with a blockbuster-free schedule.
Tuttle blamed low risk-appetite and commercial pressures -- rather than another sign of America's estrangement from Europe under US President Donald Trump.
"There's a nervousness in a very difficult marketplace: nervousness about reviews coming out long before release and about controlling the way films of that scale are launched because there's so much at stake," she told The Hollywood Reporter in January.
Source: Drudge Report
