Hollywood stars grace Cannes for 70th festival

Nicole Kidman and Jake Gyllenhaal among big names on French Riviera

Hollywood stars including Nicole Kidman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Pattinson are heading for the French Riviera as the 70th Cannes Film Festival gets under way today.

Kidman has four projects on the bill, including the latest film by Lost In Translation director Sofia Coppola, The Beguiled, which also stars Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Colin Farrell.

She also stars alongside Farrell in the new movie from The Lobster filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, Killing of a Sacred Deer, and John Cameron Mitchell’s How To Talk To Girls At Parties, also featuring Fanning, Matt Lucas and Luther star Ruth Wilson.

Her fourth appearance will be in the second series of Top Of The Lake, which will be screened in full at the festival.

The other television event likely to have the Croisette buzzing is the long awaited return of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, which will debut at Cannes after 26 years off the air.

Anticipation is also high for Carol director Todd Haynes’ new film Wonderstruck, starring Michelle Williams and Julianne Moore, in which two stories told 50 years apart intertwine in a mysterious way, and Bong Joon-ho’s monster movie Okja, made for Netflix and starring Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton.

Twilight star Pattinson will be back in Cannes for the premiere of Good Time, a bank-robber drama starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Captain Phillips’ Barkhad Abdi and indie director Noah Baumbach will make his south of France debut with The Meyerowitz Stories, starring Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, about the family of an acclaimed author.

Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, whose last film was We Need To Talk About Kevin in 2011, will make her comeback at the festival with the unveiling of You Were Never Really Here, based on the novella by Jonathan Ames and starring Joaquin Phoenix.

The films will vie for the coveted Palme d’Or, which was last year won by British director and Cannes stalwart Ken Loach for his searing benefits drama I, Daniel Blake.

The jury will be presided over by Spanish writer-director Pedro Almodovar, with Jessica Chastain, Will Smith and Paolo Sorrentino also joining the panel.

The festival runs until May 28 and will open with Arnaud Desplechin’s Ismael’s Ghosts.

Picture: GC Images. Susan Sarandon arrives at Nice Airport.

Pictures: GC Images. Julianne Moore, left, and Jessica Chastain are also in town.