The festival opens in classy Riviera style with political and personal crisis for actor-turned-monarch Grace Kelly (Nicole Kidman). Should she make Marnie? Is her marriage - to Tim Roth's Prince Rainer – getting stale? And what can she do about threats to Monaco's privileged tax status? Full-bodied support is on hand from Robert Lindsay (as Aristotle Onassis), Frank Langella (as a helpful priest) and Derek Jacobi (as a parrot-loving protocol expert). Cannes lends a location-appropriate berth for the biopic, but controversy has already been brewing. Photograph: Allstar/WARNER BROS./Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
Steve Carell acquires fake nose and Oscar speculation to play real-life philanthropist-turned-murderer John DuPont, an eccentric sports enthusiast who shot his friend, an Olympic gold-winning wrestler (played by Mark Ruffalo). Vanessa Redgrave is John's mum, Channing Tatum the wrestler's brother. Like Grace of Monaco – and The Monuments Men – it was put back from last year's release schedules, meaning anticipation is now sky high to see if Carell can convince as a killer. Photograph: PR
Ryan Gosling can open a movie no probs. But hows about when he's behind rather than in front of the camera? Previously titled How to Catch a Monster, his debut as a writer/director is billed as a dark fantasy drama and stars Matt Smith and Saoirse Ronan, as well as Gozzle's Drive co-star Christina Hendricks and Place Beyond the Pines buddies Eva Mendes and Ben Mendelsohn. Speaking to the Guardian earlier this year, Mendelsohn seemed optimistic about the likely results. Photograph: Screenrant
Hollywood eats itself in this gamey-sounding satire from David Cronenberg with Julianne Moore as a past-it star, Mia Wasikowska as her assistant, recently released from an asylum, John Cusack as a dodgy shrink and Robert Pattinson a limo driver. Cosmopolis - also boasting Pattinson, Cronenberg and limos - split opinion at Cannes a couple of years back; early word on this suggests the positives will be more unanimous. Photograph: Shocktillyoudrop
Vaguely-similar-sounding-plot alert: Juliette Binoche plays a fading cinematic icon whose equilibrium is upset by an up-and-coming young actor (played by Chloe Grace Moretz), in the latest from Olivier Assayes. Binoche's character then retreats to the mountains with loyal assistant Kristin Stewart. Photograph: Hitfix
Like mountains? Then you'll love the latest from Turkish autuer Nuri Bilge Ceylon: a high-altitude meditation on isolation. It's nearly four hours long and currently bookies' favourite for the Palme d'Or. Photograph: Screendaily
Serious, Vera Drake-level buzz is building around Mike Leigh's later years biopic of the painter (Timothy Spall), which focuses on the artist's relations with his father (Paul Jesson), his London housekeeper (Dorothy Atkinson), the owner of his Margate boarding house (Marion Bailey) … and the Royal Academy. Photograph: Film4
It may not be Ken Loach's last feature after all. But there's still much excitement about this latest drama from the Croisette favourite, which pits cops against communists and priests against community-minded farmers in 1920s Ireland. Photograph: Entertainment One
A teenager is on the run with her AWOL-from-the-army boyfriend in this Yorkshire-set debut from Daniel Wolfe. It's screening as part of the Directors’ Fortnight, where it faces homegrown competition from … Photograph: Britishcouncil
The screen debut of former theatre director Matthew Warchus, which closes Directors' Fortnight. It's a culture clash comedy about a gay rights march at the time of the miners' strike. Old stagers such as Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton are joined by young bucks like George MacKay. Photograph: Nicola Dove
Last year's Un Certain Regard sidebar opened with The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola's party-hard tale of LA ladies and the celebrity swag they pinched. Don't be fooled by this one's title, though: it's much more in the Gloria vein - a mordant study of a 60-year-old night club hostess who impulsively marries a regular client. Photograph: Hollywoodreporter
A petty thief grieving for his best friend turns to Islam in the London-set debut of Andrew Hulme, formerly the editor for Anton Corbijn, which also screens in Un Certain Regard. Photograph: Bdarts
Cannes vet Tommy Lee Jones returns to the competition nine years after his directorial debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (which won him the festival's best actor prize). This is the tale of a claim jumper (Lee Jones) who teams up with Hilary Swank to escort three disturbed women from Nebraska to Iowa. The supporting cast includes John Lithgow as a Reverend, Tim Blake Nelson as a freighter, plus Grace Gummer as one of the girls, and real-life mother Meryl Streep, resplendent in mid-west bonnet. Photograph: Hitfix
Another light entertainment from Michel Hazanavicius, following his success with The Artist and his back catalogue of frothy spy spoofs - right? Wrong: this is a Chechen-set update of the 1948 Oscar winner by Fred Zimmerman about an foreign aid worker who helps a young boy track down his mother in the aftermath of war. Berenice Bejo and Annette Bening star. Photograph: Indiewire
Dominique Strauss-Kahn's downfall gets the sensitive treatment it deserves in this apparently uproarious drama from Abel Ferrera starring Gerard Depardieu as the big fella. Photograph: Screendaily
Ryan Reynolds stars alongside Rosaria Dawson and Scott Speedman in the latest from Atom Egoyan, about a father trying to track down his kidnapped daughter. Photograph: Metronews
The Soviet ice hockey team were all but invincible during the Cold War, a troupe of hard-boiled youngsters coached exhaustively and cheerled by KBG agents. This documentary is executive produced by Werner Herzog and Jerry Weintraub and reportedly features footage of actual brown bears playing ice hockey (as well as socio-political insights, and so on). Photograph: Francetvinfo
It's been four years since David Michod made Animal Kingdom; this followup takes place in a post-apocalyptic Oz, with Guy Pearce looking for the men who've stolen his car, and damaged soldier Robert Pattinson along for the ride. Photograph: Indiewire
Alice Rohrwacher, 33, is one of two women directors with films in competition this year. This Italian drama stars Monica Belluci and Rohrwacher's sister, Alba, as members of an isolated family, fearful of the end of the world, whose lives are interrupted by a reality TV crew. Photograph: Swide
Here's the other female entry in competition, from Japan's Naomi Kawase, a previous winner of the Grand Prix and the Camera d'Or. This was apparently inspired by a story from her granny's youth about a young couple who set about solving the mystery of a floating body. Photograph: Moviepilot
The Dardennes brothers are calling their latest a "Belgium western", with Marion Cotillard working against the clock trying to persuade her colleagues to give up their bonuses so she can keep her job. Should this take the top gong this year, it'd make the bros the only people to ever have taken the Palme d'Or three times. Photograph: Filmmakermagazine
A Directors' Fortnight spot for the latest from John Boorman, 81, back in the director's chair for the first time in eight years. It's a belated sequel to the semi-autobiographical Hope and Glory (1987) and stars Caleb Landry Jones as Bill, now 18 and dispatched to fight the Chinese in Korea. David Thewlis, Tamsin Egerton and Richard E Grant co-star. Photograph: Rasset
Director Sergei Loznitsa has already impressed at Cannes with a couple of features - 2010's My Joy and 2012's In the Fog. This year, he's back with a documentary about his native Ukraine - in particular the unrest seen in Kiev's central square. Photograph: Indiewire
More male rage and psycho-games from acclaimed and prodigious 25-year-old Canadian director Xavier Dolan, whose Tom at the Farm opened in the UK this spring. Photograph: Hitfix
Andrey Zvyagintsev's latest - based on the book of Job - is set in a new country and "gradually unwinds to a mythological scale concerning the human condition on earth entirely”. Which means that the sole Russian film in the running may end the competition (it's the final film to screen) on a bit of a downer. No relation to the cod documentary, by the way. Photograph: Moviecitynews
