Every Animated Film to Watch at Cannes 2026

The 2026 Cannes Film Festival runs May 12–23 and features a small but remarkably diverse slate of animated films.
French 2D feature Fallen, from Pixar alum Louis Clichy, is the early frontrunner for awards attention among the animated offerings.
Directors’ Fortnight opens with an animated film for the first time ever — In Waves from director Phuong Mai Nguyen.
Midnight screening Jim Queen and the Quest for Chloroqueer is shaping up to be the festival’s most daring animated entry.
Several films are expected to continue on to Annecy in June, following the same path that led Flow to its surprise Oscar win.

Cannes has never been the most reliable home for animation — some years the Croisette delivers, some years it doesn’t — but lately the French Riviera has quietly become one of the most important launching pads for animated films with Oscar ambitions. In 2024, the tiny Latvian indie Flow premiered in Un Certain Regard, built a head of steam through the year on the back of rave reviews, and ended up winning Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards. Last year, Arco and Little Amélie or the Character of Rain — both Cannes premieres — made it all the way to nominations.

The 79th Cannes Film Festival, which opens May 12 and closes May 23, doesn’t have a massive animated lineup in 2026. But what it does have is genuinely interesting: a wide range of styles, tones, and ambitions that spans prestige drama, family adventure, queer midnight cinema, and everything in between.

The One to Watch for Awards Season

The animated film most likely to follow in Flow‘s footsteps is Fallen, a French 2D feature from director Louis Clichy. If that name sounds familiar to animation fans, it should — Clichy is a Pixar alum who worked on WALL-E and Up before returning to France to direct two Asterix films. This is his third feature, and it marks a shift: a sketchbook-style 2D aesthetic that looks genuinely charming, wrapped around the story of a young boy who wears an iron corset to stand upright and escapes his strict farm life to find a love of music. It’s the kind of warm, emotionally accessible story that tends to resonate with audiences and awards voters alike. If the reviews hold up, Fallen could be the one to circle on your Oscar ballot as early as May.

The Films Heading to Annecy Next

Two Cannes Special Screenings are also expected to compete at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June — the same route Arco and Little Amélie traveled last year on their way to Oscar nominations.

Tangles is the debut feature from Canadian director Leah Nelson, adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir about a daughter who comes home to care for her mother after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. It’s a deeply personal source story, and the kind of subject matter that tends to land hard when animation gets it right. The other is Lucy Lost from Oliver Clert, a more family-friendly adventure set in 1915 Sicily, following a young orphan who sets out to uncover the truth behind her mysterious visions. Two very different films, but both carrying real potential.

The Wildcard Everyone Should Know About

The most exciting — and least predictable — animated entry at this year’s festival is playing as a Midnight screening, which tells you everything you need to know about its energy. Jim Queen and the Quest for Chloroqueer is a retro 2D indie from debut directors Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athané, and its premise is exactly as audacious as the title suggests: a hunky gay influencer and a twink team up to find a cure for a disease that turns gay men straight. It sounds unabashedly camp, visually gorgeous, and unlike anything that has ever gotten serious awards traction in the animation space. Whether it finds that traction is almost beside the point — this is exactly the kind of film festivals exist to surface.

Beyond the Main Festival

Cannes extends well beyond its main competition, and the parallel sections this year have some genuinely notable animated entries too. Directors’ Fortnight — which runs alongside the main festival on the Croisette — is opening with In Waves, a French animated feature from director Phuong Mai Nguyen about a romance between a surfer and a skateboarder. It’s the first animated film ever to open Fortnight, and it will screen in both English and French. That’s a milestone worth paying attention to.

The Fortnight will also close with Le vertige, from French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux — the deadpan provocateur behind Rubber and Smoking Causes Coughing — about a man who discovers his entire world is a simulation, rendered in animation that deliberately looks like a PS2 game. Very on brand. Other selections in the mix include the Japanese rotoscope film We Are Aliens and Viva Carmen!, an adaptation of the famous opera from Chicken for Linda! director Sébastien Laudenbach.

Not all of these films will be great. Some may not even find U.S. distribution. But that’s always been the deal with Cannes — you show up, the lights go down, and something you’ve never heard of might just change the way you think about what animation can be. A few of these could be that film. We’ll find out starting May 12.