The Cannes Film Fes­ti­val just announced its most diverse line-up ever

It’s that time of year again, where the film world gath­ers around a live stream and watch­es eager­ly as two male bureau­crats tee up the possible/​probable high­lights of world cin­e­ma over the next 12 months. Antic­i­pa­tion is at fever pitch, and spec­u­la­tion is rife.

Will Netflix’s deci­sion to pull out at the 11^th hour scup­per the wider plans of out­spo­ken fes­ti­val direc­tor Thier­ry Fré­maux? Will the many pre­dic­tion lists prove at all true? And what sort of impact with the much-tout­ed self­ie ban have?

Well, judg­ing by the first announce­ment it may well be the most diverse Cannes line-up ever, with 18 direc­tors rep­re­sent­ing Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Poland, France, Amer­i­ca and Rus­sia mak­ing the cut. With the festival’s 71^st edi­tion kick­ing off on Tues­day 8 May, here are our five top picks from the offi­cial selec­tion, along with the line-up in full…

Every­body Knows by Asghar Farhadi

The Iran­ian direc­tor of A Sep­a­ra­tion and The Sales­man has teamed up with Pené­lope Cruz and Javier Bar­dem for his lat­est dra­ma. The film involves the on- and off-screen cou­ple trav­el­ling to the out­skirts of Madrid, where unex­pect­ed events bring hid­den secrets into the open.

BlacK­kKlans­man by Spike Lee

Adapt­ed from the book of the same name by Ron Stall­worth, Spike Lee’s hot­ly antic­i­pat­ed crime dra­ma tells the sto­ry of an African-Amer­i­can detec­tive (played by John David Wash­ing­ton) who infil­trates a Col­orado chap­ter of the Ku Klux Klan, even­tu­al­ly becom­ing its leader. Adam Dri­ver, Topher Grace and Lau­ra Har­ri­er co-star.

Le Livre D’Image by Jean-Luc Godard

Still going strong at 87, the French New Wave icon returns to Cannes com­pe­ti­tion this year with an exam­i­na­tion of the mod­ern Ara­bic world that’s tan­ta­lis­ing­ly described by the fol­low­ing ​“syn­op­sis”: Noth­ing but silence. Noth­ing but a rev­o­lu­tion­ary song. A sto­ry in five chap­ters like the five fin­gers of a hand.

Laz­zaro Felice by Alice Rohrwacher

Alice Rohrwach­er is one of the most tal­ent­ed female film­mak­ers work­ing today, as she proved with her pre­vi­ous fea­ture The Won­ders, which pre­miered at Cannes in 2014. Her lat­est fol­lows a man liv­ing on the mar­gins of soci­ety who trav­els through time.

Under the Sil­ver Lake by David Robert Mitchell

US writer/​director David Robert Mitchell rocked Cannes four years ago with his con­ven­tion-bust­ing teen hor­ror It Fol­lows. Now he’s back with what looks to be a nov­el spin on the crime-thriller, Under the Sil­ver Lake, in which Andrew Garfield becomes obsessed with the sus­pi­cious details sur­round­ing a girl’s kid­nap­ping and a billionaire’s murder.

En Guerre by Stéphane Brizé
Dog­man by Mat­teo Gar­rone
Sor­ry Angel by Christophe Hon­oré
Asako I & II by Ryusuke Ham­aguchi
Girls of the Sun by Eva Hus­son
Ash is Purest White by Jia Zhangke
Shoplifters by Hirokazu Koree­da
Caper­naum by Nadine Laba­ki
Burn­ing by Lee Chang-dong
Three Faces by Jafar Panahi
Cold War by Pawel Paw­likows­ki
Yomed­dine by AB Shawky
Sum­mer by Kir­ill Serebrennikov

Sofia by Meyem Benm’Barek
Long Day’s Jour­ney Into Night by Bi Gan
Lit­tle Tick­les by Andréa Bescond and Eric Métay­er
Man­to by Nan­di­ta Das
Girl by Lukas Dhont
Angel Face by Vanes­sa Fil­ho
Eupho­ria by Vale­ria Goli­no
Sex­tape by Antoine Desrosieres
My Favourite Fab­ric by Gaya Jiji
Friend by Wanuri Kahiu
The Har­vesters by Eti­enne Kal­los
In My Room by Ulrich Köh­ler
El Angel by Luis Orte­ga
The Gen­tle Indif­fer­ence of the World by Adilkhan Yerzhanov

Ten Years in Thai­land by Apichat­pong Weerasethakul
Au Grand Desir du Mys­ti­co by Car­lo Diegues
The Dead Souls by Wang Bing
A Tous Vent by Michel Toesca
La Tra­versse by Romain Goupil
Pope Fran­cis – A Man of His Words by Wim Wen­ders
To the Four Winds by Michel Toesca
The State Against Nel­son Man­dela and Oth­ers by Nico­las Cham­peaux and Gilles Porte

Le Grande Bain by Gilles Lellouche