This Cannes Film Festival could be the most explosive in years. Here’s what to expect

Amid a writers’ strike in Hollywood and labor unrest in France, the 2023 edition of the Cannes Film Festival features controversial stars (Johnny Depp), beloved auteurs (Martin Scorsese) and blockbuster movies (“Indiana Jones”). Film critic Justin Chang and columnist Mary McNamara broke down the potential storylines from this year’s festival before hopping on a plane overseas to cover it in person.

Chang: First things first, Mary: I’m delighted that we’ll be covering the 76th Cannes Film Festival together, especially since this marks your return for the first time since 2005. We just missed each other! I started attending the festival until 2006, and I’ve missed only one edition since: the sparsely attended 2021 festival, held during the initial stages of COVID recovery. Now, of course, Cannes is more or less back in full swing; I didn’t see a lot of masked faces in theaters when I came back last year, and I expect to see even fewer this week. No one’s really talking about the pandemic; they’re too busy talking about the Martin Scorsese movie, the Wes Anderson movie and, of course, the “Indiana Jones” movie. (Désolé, I mean the new James Mangold movie; Cannes loves its auteurs.)