Cannes 2012: our tips for this year's festival lineup – in pictures

The only dead cert on the list is Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, which has been picked to open the festival. Starring Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand and – yes – Bill Murray, it's the 60s-set story of teen lovers and the townsfolk who set out after them when they elope Photograph: PR

Chances are we'll be seeing the 71-year-old Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami on the red carpet: four of his films have been shown in competition at Cannes, and one of them – Taste of Cherry – carried off the Palme in 1997. His latest, Like Someone in Love aka The End, is a Japanese-set story about a student who works as a prostitute, and the professor who is one of her clients. A trailer for it popped up a few days ago Photograph: PR

Andrew Dominik, director of The Assassination of Jesse James, is definitely in with a shout. He has reteamed with Brad Pitt for Killing Them Softly, an adaptation of a George V Higgins gangster thriller. Cannes likes a bit of stylish Hollywood violence (see last year's Drive); Dominik could be the man to supply it Photograph: PR

There's some serious pedigree to The Wettest County, the upcoming adaptation of Matt Bondurant's bootlegger novel: Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce and Mia Wasikowska all decorate the cast. Will it be enough to get director John Hillcoat his first Cannes competition slot, along with scriptwriter Nick Cave? We shall see Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Cannes can claim some credit in Korean action maestro Park Chan-wook's international breakthrough by programming Oldboy in 2004, and then giving it the second-place Grand Prix. His new film, Stoker, sees him move into English-language film-making, and he has corralled a classy cast – Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode – into what sounds like a Hitchcockian suspense thriller of the Shadow of a Doubt variety. Surely a shoo-in?
Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Getty Images

Former Palme winner Ken Loach is currently the UK's most talked-up contender: his latest, The Angels' Share, is already pencilled in for a June release, and so a Cannes spot would be very neat. Angels' Share is billed as a bittersweet comedy about petty criminals on community service orders who try their hand at whisky-making; Loach's regular writer Paul Laverty has turned out the script Photograph: PR

Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas is a Cannes favourite, despite his slim output: his first film, Japon, won the Camera d'Or and his next two were both shown in competition. His latest, Post Tenebras Lux, is a more ambitious effort; hopping across continents to explore, in Reygadas's own words, 'feelings, memories, dreams, things I've hoped for, fears, facts of my current life' Photograph: EPA

David Cronenberg seems to be mellowing with age: where's the splintered metal or unnecessary anatomy in A Dangerous Method? His new film, Cosmopolis, adapted from the Don DeLillo novel, looks set to continue the near-respectable trend. Featuring Robert Pattinson, a bona fide teen idol, it's the story of a bond trader's epic trip across New York in a limo. For the trailer, go here Photograph: PR

A decent outside bet: Derek Cianfrance went from nowhere to Oscar noms with his 2009 film Blue Valentine. The Place Beyond the Pines is scoring highly on what we must now call 'le buzzomètre'; Ryan Gosling stars as a stunt biker turning to crime. May be a bit similar to Drive, but has a good cast alongside Gosling: Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne, Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta
Photograph: Douglas C Pizac / AP

The old stager of the French new wave, Alain Resnais is still churning them out at 89 years old. His new one, Vous N'Avez Encore Rien Vu aka You Haven't Seen Anything Yet, is an adaptation of Jean Anouilh's Eurydice; Mathieu Amalric, Michel Piccoli, and Sabine Azéma are among the cast. Resnais received a special award at Cannes in 2009 for his 'body of work'; no doubt they'd love to have him back Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Women directors are conspicuous by their absence in the contenders stakes this year; one of the few getting a mention is Danish film-maker Susanne Bier, an Oscar winner for her knotty drama In a Better World. For her next one, she's turned to comedy, and imported Pierce Brosnan to lead the cast. But Cannes has never been a massive fan of her work: All You Need Is Love might be the change of direction needed to get her in there Photograph: PR

After years of delays and no-shows, Terrence Malick has suddenly metamorphised into a properly prolific director. After The Tree of Life scooped the Palme last year, Malick has embarked on a string of projects, two of which could easily turn up. One is an as-yet-untitled romance with Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams; the other is the unlikely sounding Lawless, in which Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara, among others, smoulder at a music festival in Austin, Texas. Hmm, our money's on the first one Photograph: Associated Press

The man they can't keep away: Woody Allen has yet another Euro film in the can, and looks more than likely for a return to the red carpet, though most likely in an out-of-competition slot. The new one, To Rome with Love, has the usual lineup of major names in the cast (Ellen Page, Penélope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni) and, making a wild guess, it'll be a love letter to a major European tourist destination Photograph: PR

Keeping the French end up is François Ozon, last in competition with 2003's Swimming Pool. After the success of Potiche, though, he's back in the game, and Dans la Maison (In the House) has a decent cast – Fabrice Luchini, Emmanuelle Seigner, Kristin Scott Thomas – for a story of the relationship between an academic and a student Photograph: David Sillitoe

Arguably, the director we'd most like to see at Cannes, and a homegrown one at that. Leos Carax hasn't made a feature since 1999's Pola X, a coda to the films with which he burned up the 80s and early 90s: Boy Meets Girl, Mauvais Sang, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. Amants' Denis Lavant is back, too, in this long-awaited new one, Holly Motors, a very weird-sounding number about a man constantly switching identities
Photograph: EPA

Wong Kar-Wai has gone slighly missing in action in recent years: his last feature was the not-terribly-well received My Blueberry Nights in 2007. He's back with a bang though: The Grandmasters is a biopic of legendary martial arts master Yip Man, Bruce Lee's teacher. Tony Leung plays the man himself, and we can't wait to see what Wong will make of the flying drop kicks and similar Photograph: PR

The Italian director who electrified everybody with the mafia saga Gomorrah, which took a major Cannes award in 2008, Matteo Garrone has turned his eye on reality TV with the comedy Big House. Its cast – Aniello Arena and Loredana Simioli – are not exactly international stars, but Garrone's awards cred ought to see this through to a prime slot Photograph: EPA

Brit director Ben Wheatley has scored much credibility with his first two films, Kill List and Down Terrace: now his third, Sightseers, is sniffing at the festival circuit. Described as a 'pitch-black comedy' and apparently featuring such delights as the Crich Tramway Museum, the Ribblehead Viaduct, and the Keswick Pencil Museum, Sightseers should have no trouble attracting yet more Mike Leigh comparisons Wheatley's way. But Wheatley's cult status may not quite cut it with the Cannes selectors, so this is an outside bet Photograph: PR

Another home-team favourite, French director Jacques Audiard is the man behind A Self-Made Hero, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet. Coming down the pipe is Rust and Bone, an odd-sounding love story between an illegal fighter and a disabled former whale trainer. Or maybe that's a joke; we have to wait and see
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Michael Haneke is one of Cannes' great institutions: five of his films have been in competition, though only one, The White Ribbon, won. Amour, his latest, has Emmanuelle Riva as a woman suffering from a stroke; Jean-Louis Trintignant is her husband dealing with the aftermath; and Isabelle Huppert their daughter. If it's ready in time, it'll definitely be in
Photograph: Willi Schneider/Rex Features

Michel Gondry is one of the great could-have-beens; maybe his sheer fashionability led him to wreck himself on the rocks of the Hollywood superhero movie. Not much is known about his new film The We and the I, other than it's supposedly about a 'group of school kids who travel forward in time'. Let's just hope it's more The Science of Sleep than Be Kind Rewind Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

We have to assume this man's latest is being saved up for something special. The Master is Paul Thomas Anderson's first film since 2007's There Will Be Blood, and is already attracting unpleasant glances from Scientologists over its central character's supposed resemblance to L Ron Hubbard. Be that as it may, this is very high on the buzzomètre
Photograph: Jim Cooper/AP

Not much has been heard from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu since his stunning second film, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, stormed to the Palme d'Or in 2007. Beyond the Hills is his first full-scale feature since then: it's about a woman who tries to get her friend to leave a convent, and who ends up facing an exorcism. Likely to be selected; needs to be properly brilliant to win Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

American director James Gray is one of those film-makers who have never quite achieved what they should have; but Cannes has always been loyal. Jeremy Renner, Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix star in his latest, Low Life, the story of a Polish immigrant forced to join the circus. Or something Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Another Cannes favourite, Walter Salles will most likely be bringing his long-awaited Kerouac adaptation of On the Road to the Croisette – and with a late May release date planned, we'd say it was a racing certainty. Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund are the beats going coast to coast; Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst come along for the ride. Could be great, could be terrible, but that's what Cannes is all about Photograph: PR