Gallery: 70 years of the Cannes Film Festival

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Even back in 1956, photographers at Cannes were a determined star-obsessed bunch.

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In 1958, both Henri Cartier-Bresson and Jacques Tati came to Cannes for the 11th Cannes Film Festival. The meeting of the two resulted in this wonderful image celebrating Tati’s film Mon Oncle.

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A 15-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud jumps on his bed in his hotel room. The 400 Blows premiered at Cannes that year. 

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Agnès Varda plays the tunes at the 1962 edition of the festival. Her film Cléo from 5 to 7 played in competition that year.

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The master of suspense and publicity, Alfred Hitchcock realised quickly how Cannes provided the perfect photo opportunity. Here is with Tippi Hedren on occasion of their film The Birds showing at 1963 edition of the festival. 

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President of the Jury Sophia Loren in 1966, catching up on films she has missed.

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Jean-Luc Godard and Geraldine Chaplin in the middle of the 1968 protests at the Palais that shut down the festival that year.

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In 1976 Isabelle Huppert presented two films in Cannes – Le petit Marcel, directed by Jacques Fansten, and Le juge et l’assassin by Bertrand Tavernier – just as she does this year with Haneke’s Happy End and Hong Sang-soo’s The Camera of Claire. We only hope she’s kept this makeshift poster.

Ken Russell dines out in 1987.

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An unusual portrait session with Isabella Rossellini at Cannes in 1990 by photographer Jean-Christian Bourcart.

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In 1991, Spike Lee holds court on the beach. His film Jungle Fever played in competition that year. After it lost out on the Palme d’Or – Wim Wenders and his jury favoured Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape – Lee told press: “I have a Louisville slugger baseball bat deep in my closet with Wim Wenders’s name written on it.”

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David Lynch at Cannes in 1992. He returns this year with his next instalment of Twin Peaks.