The Complete Cannes 2026 Collection
All the podcasts, plus some writing
Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,
Every year I like to gather together all the episodes I recorded at the Cannes film festival into one giant blockbusting post. Reader, this is that post! Once again I saw several movies at Cannes that are already among my favorites this year. And I’m so happy I had the chance to talk about the latest from directors like Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Valeska Grisebach with my brilliant colleagues. Under the Mediterranean sun is nice too.
I also did a fair amount of interviewing and writing at Cannes this year, and so I’m sharing what’s been published so far. That includes a chat with John Travolta and another with a French documentarian who cited Frederick Wiseman’s Basic Training as an influence.
If you like what you’re hearing and reading, why not toss a few francs my way with a li’l subscription?
Signing off with gratitude to all the wonderful supporters of The Last Thing I Saw,
Nic
RECENT WRITING
Some writing I did.
One wild thing that happened is that I interviewed John Travolta about his directorial debut, premiered at Cannes, Propeller One-Way Night Coach, for Filmmaker. He was a delight to speak with and I really enjoyed the child’s-eye perspective of the film!
Encapsulating the whiplash of Cannes: I also spoke with Jia Zhangke about his short film, Torino Shadows, for BOMB magazine.
And you can bet I asked Bruce Dern about working with Claude Chabrol, in our Cannes interview for Sight & Sound occasioned by a new documentary, Dernsie, that played in Cannes Classics. He also showed me his knee surgery?
I have more interviews yet to be published, but squeaking in just in time is an interview about an insightful documentary on the French officer-training program for its penitentiary system, directed by Guillaume Massart. Also, I wrote up documentary at Cannes this year generally.
I also picked up a couple of reviews for Sight & Sound, two of my absolute favorites this year and both much-anticipated: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland.
And last but not least, two non-Cannes pieces for The New York Times: a feature on André Holland, a talented actor with ardent fans and a cool career, and a recommendation of The Currents from filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler, which I believe premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
THE PODCAST
Jordan Cronk on Cannes 2026: Directors’ Fortnight Preview, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Nagi Notes, Butterfly Jam, plus Play-Doc retro + Jeonju
Eric Hynes on Cannes 2026: Fatherland, Parallel Tales, In Waves, The Match
Jonathan Romney on Cannes 2026: All of a Sudden (Soudain), Gentle Monster, John Lennon the Last Interview
Eric Hynes on Cannes 2026: Club Kid, The Beloved (El Ser Querido), Clarissa, Propeller One-Way Night Coach
Mark Asch on Cannes 2026: Diary of a Chambermaid, Moulin, ACID Highlights including Detention, Gabin
Chloe Lizotte on Cannes 2026: Minotaur, Fjord, Full Phil and Tim Heidecker, Hope
Guy Lodge on Cannes 2026: The Man I Love, Bitter Christmas, A Woman’s Life
Eric Hynes on Cannes 2026: Paper Tiger, Bola Negra, 9 Temples to Heaven, Thank You for Coming
Robert Daniels on Cannes 2026: Ben’Imana, A Man of His Time, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, Clarissa Redux
Keva York on Cannes 2026: The Unknown, Everytime, Libertad Doble
Nick Davis on Cannes 2026: The Dreamed Adventure, Red Rocks, A Man of His Time, Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building, Flesh and Fuel
Jessica Kiang on Cannes 2026: Sheep in the Box, The Dreamed Adventure, Too Many Beasts, The Unknown, La Perra, Colony
Justin Chang on Cannes 2026: All of a Sudden, The Samurai and the Prisoner, Coward, Fjord Redux
Manohla Dargis on Cannes 2026
K.J. Relth-Miller on Cannes Classics 2026: La Dérive, The Devils, Report to Mother, Moonlighting, Tilai, The Pelechian Project
Ildiko Enyedi on her new film Silent Friend, tree time, the everlasting serenity of Tony Leung, and theories of consciousness
Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are available at iTunes, Spotify, and so on.
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Some streaming ideas.
The American Revolution (PBS) Which we might now be living through in reverse
End of the Century (MUBI)
Melancholia (Criterion)
Infinite Football (MUBI) Corneliu Porumboiu with an Errol Morris portrait subject
Golden Eighties (Criterion) a Chantal Akerman musical
Act of Violence (HBO MAX) I once asked David Cronenberg whether A History of Violence was influenced by this 1948 noir with Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, and Mary Astor
THE BOOK
The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki is available for order in bookstores or at your online store of choice. My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service... all of Miyazaki’s lovely animated films are in here—their inspirations, their craft, their influences.
Contact me if you’re interested in setting up an event or screening.
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. You can get in touch re: writing, editing, programming, moderating, podcasting, etc. at nicolas.rapold@gmail.com.
Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer, editor, and programmer, and the author of the book The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki (available now) and the editor of the forthcoming Frederick Wiseman: Interviews. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The Financial Times, Sight & Sound, Screen Slate, The New York Times, Filmmaker, Documentary Magazine, Air Mail, BOMB, and W Magazine. (Dearly departed publications where I’ve also written include The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.) I’m also proud of the film series and screenings I’ve programmed, including both retrospectives and premieres—so do drop me a line if you’d like to collaborate.
On the editorial side, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine, where I was for 15 years in all. I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks, curated and hosted Film Comment Selects screenings, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment received the Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.