THE 71st Cannes Film Festival gets under way on Tuesday.

A day earlier than is traditional, it’s not the only change this year. The world’s most famous cinematic showcase has already made the executive decision to adjust the way the competition films are screened. No longer will the media see movies before they premiere.

Now it’s going to be simultaneous, which at least lets directors walk the red carpet free of the knowledge that critics are calling their latest opus a turkey.

While that seems sensible enough, the festival’s continuing argument with streaming service Netflix makes it look very behind the times. Last year, French cinema owners complained vociferously when two Netflix films were included in the competition selection because they were going to bypass the movie houses upon release. To diffuse the situation, Cannes ruled in future that all competition films required a theatrical release.

As a result, Netflix – and some of its juicy upcoming movies – will be nowhere to be seen in Cannes. Among the casualties is Paul Greengrass’ Norway, about the terrorist Anders Brevik who killed 77 people in 2012, and Green Room director Jeremy Saulnier’s Alaskan-set thriller Hold The Dark, starring Alexander Skarsgård. Another major omission is Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind, a now-completed version of the director’s unfinished 1971 film.

Thankfully, this year’s Cannes isn’t all about whose not here. The festival opens promisingly with Everybody Knows by the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation). A psychological thriller, it stars real life husband-and-wife Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz. The latter plays Laura, a Spanish woman who returns from Buenos Aires to attend her sister’s wedding, only for an unexpected event to see secrets spill into the open.

The biggest returnee is Danish director Lars von Trier after a seven-year absence. The one-time Cannes darling, who won the Palme d’Or for Dancer In The Dark, he was made ‘persona non grata’ at the festival back in 2011 after his ill-advised joke about being a Nazi in the press conference for Melancholia blew up into a huge media firestorm. Now, penance paid, he’s back with The House That Jack Built, playing out of competition.

Regardless of Von Trier’s return to the Croisette, this one is liable to cause a furore – with Matt Dillon playing Jack, a highly intelligent serial killer. The film is set to span twelve years, tracing the murders he commits along the way. Von Trier has stated the film will examine “the idea that life is evil and soulless”; not exactly fun for all the family then but sure to be the biggest talking point of the festival when it’s unveiled.

With Cate Blanchett heading a very starry jury (actress Kristen Stewart and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve are among her co-jurors), the official line-up also features another man long since absent from the competition: Spike Lee. The Do The Right Thing filmmaker was last seen competing in Cannes with 1991’s Jungle Fever, for which Samuel L. Jackson won a one-off prize for Best Supporting Actor.

This time he’s back for BlackKklansman, the true story of Ron Stallworth, an African-American police officer from Colorado who infiltrates the white supremacist organisation, the Ku Klux Klan. Stallworth is played by John David Washington, who appeared in Lee’s seminal Malcolm X when he was young. And with a subject right in Lee’s wheelhouse, this could well give him a shot at the Palme d’Or that has so far eluded him.

The only other high-profile American film in competition is Under The Silver Lake, from David Robert Mitchell, who put a refreshing spin on the horror movie with 2014’s It Follows. The film stars Andrew Garfield as a shabby Los Angeles resident who goes on a bizarre comic odyssey to find a girl that goes missing. It has all the hallmarks of a classic stoner noir – an Inherent Vice maybe – and should inject some much-needed humour into the heavyweight line-up.

British entries are thin on the ground this year, although Cold War – which also plays in competition – is partly funded by Film4 and the British Film Institute. It’s the latest film by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, whose last movie Ida won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Set against the background of the Cold War in the 1950s in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, it tells of an impossible love story between two mismatched people.

Away from the competition, Scottish filmmaker Kevin Macdonald returns with his latest documentary Whitney, playing out of competition in a midnight screening slot. In the past, the Glasgow-born Macdonald has successfully bounced between features, like The Last King of Scotland and State of Play, and non-fiction filmmaking, and this looks to be another intriguing prospect.

Following on from his 2012 Bob Marley portrait Marley, it’s another music-themed film, tracing the rise and tragic fall of songstress Whitney Houston. It won’t be the first – Nick Broomfield took on the same subject in last year’s mildly disappointing Whitney: Can I Be Me but Macdonald’s film is the only such project to be authorised by the singer’s estate since her death in 2012 when she was found accidentally drowned in a hotel bathtub.

The Director’s Fortnight strand always holds some key titles too, and this year is no exception. Argentine director Gaspar Noé has enjoyed some of his most notorious moments in Cannes – the dozens of walkouts in the screenings for Irréversible being among them. This time he’s back with the provocatively titled Climax. Little is known about the film but you have to admire the official synopsis: “Birth and death are extraordinary experiences. Life is a fleeting pleasure.”

Also in the same category is Romain Gavras’ The World Is Yours, a story of a petty drug dealer (Karim Leklou) who dreams of setting up an ice lolly franchise in Morocco. Winner of Best Actress in Cannes back in 1981, the enigmatic Isabelle Adjani features as his wretched mother, a compulsive gambler. Gavras, if you don’t know him, created one of the great pop promos of the 21st Century, the hugely controversial ‘Born Free’ for M.I.A. – so anything he’s up to must be worth a look.

Meanwhile, opening the Critics’ Week strand is Wildlife, the directorial debut of American actor Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), who has adapted Richard Ford’s novel about a boy who witnesses his parents’ marriage fall apart. Playing mother and father are Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal; the film got its world premiere in Sundance earlier this year to mixed reviews, though it feels like a work that will play better for European sensibilities.

While Hollywood usually has an ambiguous relationship with Cannes – the studios often reluctant to put their commercial, expensive summer movies up in front of the critical firing line – this year sees Disney take the risk with Solo: A Star Wars Story. A spin-off from the Star Wars universe, telling the story of the young space pirate Han Solo, it’s already been a troubled production after Ron Howard took over from original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Still, given the virtual impregnability of anything Star Wars-related, Disney probably just figured ‘What the heck? It’s Star Wars!’ Sadly, there won’t be any room for Harrison Ford here turning back the clock. Alden Ehrenreich, who was excellent as the cowboy-actor in the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar!, takes on the role, with British stars Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) also featuring. Expect Star Wars mania to sweep Cannes for a day or two at least.

Also appearing back in Cannes is Terry Gilliam, who will close the festival with The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. If you recall, the former Monty Python man has been trying to get this funky time-travelling take on Cervantes’ classic made for the best part of two decades. The 2002 documentary Lost In La Mancha brilliantly catalogued the collapse of the project first time around, when it was hounded by just about any disaster that could befall a film shoot.

Since then, Gilliam has tirelessly worked to get the project back up and running, with Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce replacing original stars Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort. Even now the film is in dispute with one of its original producers, Pablo Branco, who is currently seeking a court injunction to prevent it screening in Cannes. For Gilliam’s sake, one can only hope it gets resolved in time. He needs closure – and so does Cannes.

The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 8th to May 19th.