The 79th Cannes Film Festival has named eight members to its main competition jury, including actors Demi Moore, Ruth Negga, and Stellan Skarsgaard, as well as Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao. The jury will be headed by acclaimed South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook and will oversee the 22-film In Competition lineup at this year's festival, scheduled from May 12 to 23 on the French Riviera.
Jury Composition
Joining the jury are veteran screenwriter Paul Laverty, Ivorian-American actor Isaach De Bankole, Chilean director Diego Cespedes, and Belgian director Laura Wandel, according to a press release. This diverse group brings a wealth of experience from across the film industry.
Notable Jury Members
Demi Moore recently earned Golden Globe, SAG, and Critics Choice awards for her performance in Coralie Fargeat's body-horror film The Substance, which won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes 2024. Ruth Negga received an Academy Award nomination for Jeff Nichols' Loving, which competed at Cannes in 2016, and has since earned Emmy and Tony nominations for her stage and television work. Stellan Skarsgaard starred in Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value, which won the Grand Prix at the 2025 festival, and was himself nominated for the prize.
Chloe Zhao, who won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director for Nomadland (2021), received a second Best Director nomination this year for Hamnet, making her only the second woman in Oscar history to earn two such nominations. She first came to Cannes with her debut feature Songs My Brothers Taught Me in 2015.
Diego Cespedes won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2025 festival for his debut feature The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, while Laura Wandel's first feature Playground won the FIPRESCI Award at Cannes 2021 in the Un Certain Regard section. Paul Laverty, a longtime collaborator of British director Ken Loach, wrote the screenplays for two Palme d'Or winners: The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016). He has written 14 films for Loach, 11 of which have played in Cannes competition.
Jury President
Park Chan-wook, the celebrated South Korean filmmaker behind Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave, was announced as jury president in February. He is the first Korean filmmaker to head the Cannes jury, having previously won the Grand Prix for Oldboy in 2004, the Jury Prize for Thirst in 2009, and the Best Director award for Decision to Leave in 2022.
Awards Ceremony
The jury will announce the Palme d'Or and other winners at the closing ceremony on May 23 at the Grand Theatre Lumiere. This year's festival promises a celebration of global cinema, with a distinguished jury ready to honor the best in competition.
