Films in the running for the Cannes festival Palme d'Or

(AFP) The Cannes Film Festival opens on Wednesday with a mix of big names and new faces going head-to-head in the race for the top Palme d'Or prize.

Here are the 18 films chosen to compete before the jury headed by New Zealand film-maker Jane Campion:

- "Clouds of Sils Maria", Olivier Assayas

- "Saint Laurent", Bertrand Bonello

- "Winter Sleep", Nuri Bilge Ceylan

- "Maps to the Stars", David Cronenberg

- "Two Days, One Night", Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

- "Mommy", Xavier Dolan

- "Captives", Atom Egoyan

- "Goodbye to Language", Jean-Luc Godard

- "The Search", Michel Hazanavicius

- "The Homesman", Tommy Lee Jones

- "Still the Water", Naomi Kawase

- "Mr Turner", Mike Leigh

- "Jimmy's Hall", Ken Loach

- "Foxcatcher", Bennett Miller

- "The Wonders", Alice Rohrwacher

- "Wild Tales", Damian Szifron

- "Timbuktu", Abderrahmane Sissako

- "Leviathan", Andrei Zvyagintsev