Cannes Critics' Week Winner 'La Gradiva' Sets December 18 U.S. Release as France's Oscar Hopeful
Marine Atlan's feature directorial debut La Gradiva will open in the United States on December 18, 2026, at Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Center in New York, with a rollout to follow, Variety reported on August 13.
Distributor 1-2 Special, which acquired all North American rights shortly after the film's Cannes premiere, is handling the release. The film expands the week after its New York opening to the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles, then continues to a national rollout. The acquisition was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter in May.
La Gradiva arrives with an unusually heavy awards shelf. It won the Ami Paris Grand Prize at the 65th edition of Cannes' Critics' Week, the festival's competitive sidebar devoted to first and second features. It also took the audience award at the New Horizons International Film Festival and the Prix d'Ornano-Valenti at the Deauville American Film Festival. The screenplay, co-written by Atlan and Anne Brouillet, won the grand prize at the 2024 Fondation Gan, a French literary foundation that backs emerging writers.
The film follows a French school class trip to Pompeii, where teenagers wander the ancient city's ruins and encounter the bodies frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. It runs 2 hours 25 minutes, in French and Italian, and is a France-Italy co-production. Antonia Buresi leads a cast that includes newcomers Colas Quignard, Suzanne Gerin and Mitia Capellier-Audat.
Before it reaches U.S. screens, La Gradiva will make its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, followed by a screening in the main slate of the New York Film Festival. France has its own theatrical release set for October 21, 2026, distributed by Tandem. The film has already held a week of Oscar-qualifying screenings in France, drawing 1,000 admissions across sold-out showings. France is eyeing the film as its submission for the international feature Oscar race, a category in which each country selects one film to compete.
Atlan came to directing from behind the camera. Her cinematography credits include The Innocents, which earned her a César Award nomination — France's national film honour. She and Brouillet previously collaborated on Green Romances and Daniel.
The numbers behind the film's reception are striking. La Gradiva holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 98 on Metacritic and a 4.0 average on Letterboxd, making it the best-reviewed film of this year's Cannes by those three measures.
The international rollout is broad. Austria gets the film on November 6 via Stadtkino, Belgium on November 11 via Cineart, Italy on November 18 via Fandango. After the U.S. opening, the schedule continues: Poland on January 15, 2027 (Cinobo), Bulgaria and Romania on January 22 (Beta and Good Time respectively), Lithuania on January 28 (A-One), Germany on February 25 (Grandfilm), Hungary on March 4 (Budapest Film), Finland on April 2 (BKS), Sweden on April 9 (Lucky Dogs), Denmark on May 5 (Angel Films), and the Netherlands on May 20 (Cineart). Additional territories — including Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Greece, South Korea, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland — have been sold, with dates to be announced.
