The 68th Cannes Film Festival gets under way tomorrow, with the film industry de-camping to the Côte d'Azur for two weeks of sun, champagne and cinema.

This year's competition line-up, selected again by shrewd artistic director Thierry Fremaux, boasts not one British entry. Last year, the old guard of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach flew the flag and this time around it was hoped Ben Wheatley might line-up with his anticipated J.G.Ballard adaptation High-Rise. No such luck.

Still, Scotland will be well represented. Playing in competition on the final Saturday is Justin Kurzel's Macbeth. The Australian director behind the queasy thriller Snowtown is taking on Shakespeare's Scottish play with Michael Fassbender in the title role and French Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard as the manipulative Lady Macbeth. A stunning support cast - Sean Harris, Jack Reynor, David Thewlis, Paddy Considine - together with an imperious-looking Fassbender makes this one of the festival's must-see movies.

Talking of must-sees, Todd Haynes' Carol is his first movie in Cannes competition since his glam-rock Velvet Goldmine (and his first feature since his stunning Bob Dylan exploration, I'm Not There). Taken from Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt, Rooney Mara plays a department store clerk who falls in love with Cate Blanchett's married lady - the eponymous Carol. Sounding like a companion piece to Haynes' excellent Far From Heaven, it's the sort of prestige, provocative drama Cannes loves.

This year, there will be a number of European auteurs in competition directing films in English - not least the Norwegian-born Joachim Trier. His third movie, Louder Than Bombs is a family drama starring The Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg as well as Gabriel Byrne and Isabelle Huppert (who, as usual for the queen of Cannes, arrives with a clutch of films, including Valley of Love with Gérard Depardieu).

Italian director Matteo Garrone won the Jury prize in 2008 for his mafia movie Gomorrah, and returns here with Tale of Tales, a trio of horror-fantasy stories starring Vincent Cassel and Salma Hayek. Based on the collection of fairytales from the Neapolitan poet Giambattista Basile, if there was a prize awarded for best trailer, this would win hands down. Seek it out on YouTube - it's as if Peter Greenaway and Guillermo Del Toro had spawned a sick love-child.

Again in competition, Garrone's fellow Italian, Paolo Sorrentino, is making his second English movie with Youth. Michael Caine plays a semi-retired conductor on holiday in the Alps when he gets to call to perform one final concert - for the Queen. With Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda lending support, it's an intriguing cast - and looks to be more accessible than his first English film, the Sean Penn-starrer This Must Be The Place.

The oddest-sounding entry is The Lobster, the new film from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos who made a splash at the festival with Dogtooth in 2009. This bizarre-sounding tale, starring Colin Farrell, is set in a futuristic world where singletons are sent to a hotel, told to find a mate in 45 days or risk being turned into an animal and set free in the local forest. Co-starring Rachel Weisz and John C. Reilly (who, respectively, also appear in Youth and Tale of Tales), this one has cult written all over it.

Adding to this already A-list-heavy line-up will be Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, a thriller set around a Mexican drugs cartel starring Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt and Josh Brolin. Villeneuve's last two movies, Prisoners and Enemy, were both sublime, so hopes are high for this one. Curiously, Jake Gyllenhaal, who starred in both, is on the jury this year, headed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

The Hollywood studio presence this year comes in the shape of two films. The post-apocalyptic thriller Mad Max: Fury Road, which sees Tom Hardy step into Mel Gibson's scuffed boots, premieres in Cannes on Thursday before being released in the UK at the end of the week. Disney also brings the latest Pixar confection, Inside Out, continuing the tradition of Cannes unveiling big studio animations. Set inside a young girl's mind - 'characters' are emotions, like Disgust, Fear and Sadness - this comes from the singular brain of Pete Docter, whose beautiful film Up opened the festival back in 2009.

Receiving a special out-of-competition screening, all eyes will be on Natalie Portman's A Tale of Love and Darkness, her feature-length directorial debut. While last year it was Ryan Gosling as the high-profile Hollywood star presenting a film - the much-crucified Lost River - Portman's film promises to be a more traditional piece. Adapted from Amos Oz's autobiographical novel, it tells of his youth, growing up to be a writer in war-torn Jerusalem.

Another fascinating-looking entry, this time in Director's Fortnight, is Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room. Saulnier's neo-noir Blue Ruin played in Cannes, and its star Macon Blair returns here for a story about a punk band that gets trapped in a venue and end up facing off with a group of neo-nazi skinheads. British stalwart Patrick Stewart and the increasingly impressive Imogen Poots co-star in what could well be one of the surprise indies of the festival.

Last but by no means least, Asif Kapadia's documentary Amy is being given a special midnight screening (before its July 3rd release in the UK). The British director won many admirers for his motor-racing documentary Senna, and this portrait of singer Amy Winehouse promises another look at a one-off talent who died long before their time. And at least it gives something for the Brit film industry to shout about.

The Cannes Film Festival runs from tomorrow to May 24.