Can the Cannes: Why the draconian festival deserves to be dumped
Every May the Riviera turns into a velvet-rope obstacle course. Cannes still insists that prestige requires a thick stack of regulations, even as the wider industry keeps finding new ways to tell stories. The festival’s 2018 rulebook set the tone, and most of those restrictions have simply aged into permanent policy rather than disappearing. The result is a glitzy event that still feels more like a private club than an open celebration of cinema.
Banned: Netflix Original movies
Cannes director Thierry Frémaux announced a new rule outlining the ban of any films without French theatrical distribution from playing in competition at the festival. According to Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, this left the streaming giant with no option but to pull out of the festival completely, telling Variety: “I don’t think there would be any reason to go out of competition. The rule was implicitly about Netflix, and Thierry (Frémaux) made it explicitly about Netflix when he announced the rule . . . They’ve set the tone. I don’t think it would be good for us to be there.”
Sarandos also rather astutely suggested Cannes’s decision is “completely contrary to the spirit of any film festival in the world.” In 2017, there was controversy surrounding Netflix’s appearance at the festival, with people clutching at their pearls over Netflix Originals movies like Okja & The Meyerowitz Stories competing for the Palme d’Or. For them, it signaled the end of the industry as they knew it!
The theatrical-distribution rule remains in effect years later. Netflix has continued to acquire films and make market deals, yet nothing from the streamer has slipped back into main competition. The policy keeps the red carpet focused on titles with French cinema releases, even while the rest of the world watches premieres on laptops.
What they should have banned: Weinstein Company movies
In the mountains of accusations shared about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct against various women, the Cannes Film Festival featured as a repeat hunting ground for his accused actions. Model Zoë Brock alleged the disgraced producer harassed her at Cannes in 1997 and British actor Kadian Noble alleged she endured similar behavior at the festival in 2014. There are also accusations from Emma de Caunes, Léa Seydoux, Myleene Klass, Alice Evans, and Judith Godrèche involving alleged incidents of sexual misconduct and harassment taking place at or around the Cannes Film Festival.
If (as Rose McGowan has suggested) the producer’s behaviour was the worst kept secret in the industry, it might have been an idea for a festival like Cannes to set an example and ban movies from the Weinstein Company from competition. It’s worth noting regularly offending director Lars von Trier still appears to be banned from Cannes after he glibly called himself a Nazi at the Melancholia press conference at the festival in 2011. Many anticipated the "Persona Non Grata" filmmaker would be invited back in 2018 with his film The House that Jack Built. Alas Cannes still seem to be withholding an invite from him thus proving that when they really want to keep certain people away they definitely have the power to do so.
After 2017, the festival responded with a sexual-harassment hotline and a gender-parity pledge. Weinstein himself was later convicted and is serving a twenty-three-year sentence, effectively barring him from any further red-carpet appearances. The episode showed that when Cannes decides to draw a line, it can enforce it.
Banned: “Grotesque” red carpet selfies
Expressing his concern for how selfies on the red carpet cause “disorder” and tarnish “the quality” of the luxurious screening experience and the festival as a whole, Frémaux announced such frivolous acts of excitement had no home at Cannes. “It’s not beautiful. It’s grotesque. It’s ridiculous . . . We want to restore a bit of decency.” The 2018 selfie ban became part of a stricter dress-code regime that has only grown more detailed since then. Recent additions include explicit prohibitions on nudity and on voluminous gowns with large trains that block aisles or stairs.
What they should have banned: Grotesque sexual opportunists
At this stage we don’t need to reel off the big, long, sad list of filmmakers, producers, and actors who are alleged to have used their position of power to delight in a series of alleged sexual misdeeds, do we? All we will say is that there are still sexual assault accusations against Cannes favorite Kevin Spacey being investigated right now by LA prosecutors, while the world refuses to forget the various sexual harassment cases levied against Casey Affleck in 2010 (which was mysteriously only revealed to the public years later). If Frémaux is worried about how red carpet selfies are stripping the event of any decency, he should maybe worry about what alleged sexual predators could do to his precious red carpet, too.
Banned: Flat shoes
The #Flatgate scandal of 2015 has been replaced by clearer guidance. The current FAQ states that elegant shoes and sandals with or without a heel are permitted; sneakers remain off-limits. The clarification ended the earlier confusion that left some women in their fifties turned away from premieres. The policy now focuses on maintaining a polished appearance without forcing anyone into impractical footwear for the sake of it.
What they should have banned: Flat films
By “flat films” we of course mean ones in which female characters have been unfairly misrepresented or underrepresented. How do you expect your film to rise above the rest if your female characters are lacking in development, purpose, or are simply there to exist in a state of undress for a male character to leer at? That’s a flat film, honey, and Cannes could probably set a better precedent for the industry by insisting filmmakers do better – just like how they do with women’s footwear. At a Cannes Press Conference in 2017, outspoken champion of better cinema Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life) called out the festival’s program for its “disturbing” depiction of women.
“This is the first time I’ve watched 20 films in 10 days, and I love movies. And the one thing I really took away from this experience is how the world views women from the female characters that I saw represented. And it was quite disturbing to me, to be honest . . . I do hope that when we include more female storytellers, we will have more of the women that I recognize in my day-to-day life — ones that are proactive, have their own agency, don’t just react to the men around them. They have their own point of view.”
Progress since then has been modest. The 2026 competition featured five female-directed films out of twenty-two, roughly twenty-three percent, while overall selections hovered around thirty percent. Those numbers sit below the 2023 high of thirty-three percent, showing that the parity pledge introduced in 2018 has yet to deliver consistent balance.
Banned: Press screenings
Restricting the level of good or bad buzz generated by movies at the festival, Frémaux also announced he was nixing the usual advanced showings for press ahead of the world premiere screenings in the evening. Members of the press will see the 7pm showings at the same time as audiences. Sounding like an evil villain in a cartoon, Frémaux stated “It will be total suspense.” The change has remained in place, keeping the evening premieres as the first public screenings and preserving the sense of occasion.
Banned: AI-Generated Content
Industry chatter about artificial intelligence has grown louder, yet Cannes continues to favor work rooted in human authorship and theatrical presentation. No formal ban on AI-assisted films exists, but selectors have made clear that projects must demonstrate clear creative control by credited filmmakers. The emphasis keeps the competition aligned with the festival’s long-standing preference for auteur-driven cinema over purely technological experiments.
What they should have banned: Climate-Unfriendly Practices
Major festivals draw thousands of travelers each year, creating a sizable carbon footprint from flights, yachts, and private jets. Calls for greener operations have increased since 2018, yet Cannes has not introduced measurable targets for reduced emissions or sustainable production requirements. The absence leaves an obvious gap between the event’s glamour and the environmental cost of staging it.
Banned: Overly Commercial Premieres
Recent lineups have featured fewer big-studio tentpoles, reflecting an ongoing preference for independent and international titles. The 2026 edition drew attention for its lighter American studio presence, a deliberate choice that keeps the focus on auteur cinema even as Hollywood consolidates. The policy maintains the festival’s identity but also underscores the tension between art-house credibility and commercial reach.
What they should have banned: Token Gender Parity Efforts
Despite the 2018 pledge, female directors remain underrepresented in competition slots. With only five women-directed films in the 2026 main slate, the numbers suggest that incremental gestures have not produced structural change. Sustained programming commitments and funding initiatives would carry more weight than annual statistics that continue to fall short of parity.
The rules keep evolving, yet the underlying contradictions remain. Cannes still wants the world to watch while it polices every detail of how that watching happens. Whether the next round of restrictions will address the issues that matter most or simply add another layer of velvet rope is the open question every May.
