Films by master directors like Jean-Luc Godard, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh are among the 18 films that will compete for the coveted Palm d'Or at the 67th edition of the Cannes film festival.
The 83-year-old Godard, one of the greatest directors of French 'New Wave', is returning on the Croisette with his latest work 'Goodbye to Language'.
Loach, another Cannes regular, is in the festival with 'Jimmy's Hall', which is about former Irish communist leader James Gralton. 'The Artist' director Michel Hazanavicius will screen his Chechen war film 'The search'.
The other big names include Tommy Lee Jones' Western 'The homesman', 'Moneyball' director Bennett Miller's 'Foxcatcher' and David Cronenberg's 'Maps to the Stars' will all be part of the competition lineup, festival director Thierry Fremaux said while announcing the list, which is two films short than last year's 20.
The opening film is Olivier Dahan's 'Grace of Monaco', which will screen out of competition.
Other competition titles are Mike Leigh's 'Mr Turner', Bertrand Bonello's 'Saint Laurent', Atom Egoyan's 'The Captive', Naomi Kawase's 'Still the Water', Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's 'Two Days, One Night' and Abderrahmane Sissako's 'Timbuktu'.
The festival, famed for combining great cinema with glittering star presence, will have plenty of glamour in Hollywood A-listers like Ryan Gosling, who is in Un Certain Regard with his directorial debut 'Lost River', Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Channing Tatum, Nicole Kidman, Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore and Robert Pattinson among others.
The festival's competition jury is headed by director Jane Campion this year.
Cannes runs from May 14 to May 25.
