Brad Pitt returns to the Croisette as Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" leads 2011 Cannes lineup

Brad Pitt in Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life" which in a surprise will screen in competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Credit: Fox Searchlight

The 64th Cannes Film Festival line up was announced this morning and 49 films in this year's selection with 33 countries represented. And as festival director Thierry Fremaux noted, of the 19 in competition four are by female directors. As previously announced, Woody Allens' "Midnight in Paris" is the opening night film and Robert De Niro will head the competition jury.

For stateside festival watchers, the shockers were that Malick's long delayed "Life" was in competition and that the thriller "Drive," starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, made the cut. On the other hand,  new films from Pedro Almodovar and Lars von Trier had been rumored to be heading to the south of France next month for some time.

The complete list of this years selections are as follows:

In Competition

"The Tree of Life" (Terrence Malick)
"Drive" (Nicolas Winding Refn)
"Melancholia" (Lars von Trier)
"Polisse" (Maïwenn)
"The Skin I Live In " (Pedro Almodovar)
"Footnote" (Joseph Cedar)
"Parter" (Alain Cavalier)
"Once Upon A Time in Anatolia" (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
"Le Havre" (Aki Kaurismaki)
"We Have A Pope" (Nanni Moretti)
“Footnote,” directed by Joseph Cedar
“Harakiri" (Takashi Miike)
“The Kid With The Bike" (Dardenne Brothers)
“Sleeping Beauty" (Julia Leigh)
"We Need To Talk About Kevin" (Lynn Ramsey)
"La source des femmes" (Radu Mihaileanu)
"Ishimei" (Takashi Miike)
"Habemus Papam" (Nanni Moretti)
"This must be the place" (Paolo Sorrentino)

Un Certain Regard

"Oslo, 31. August" (Joachim Trier)
"Martha Marcy May Marlene" (Sean Durkin)
"Hors Satan" (Bruno Dumont)
"Restless" (Gus Van Sant)
"Bonsaï" (Christian Jimenez)
"The Day He Arrives" (Hong Sang-Soo)
"Et maintenant, on va où ?," (Nadine Labaki)
"Halt auf freier Strecke" (Andreas Dresen)
"The Hunter" (Bakur Bakuradze)
"Les neiges du Kilimandjaro" (Robert Guédiguian)
"Skoonheid" (Oliver Hermanus)
"Tatsumi" (Eric Khoo)
"Ariang" (Kim Ki-Duk)
"Toomelah" (Ivan Sen)
"L’exercice de l’Etat" (Pierre Schoeller)
"Travailler fatigue" (Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra)
"Miss Bala" (Gerardo Naranjo)
"Loverboy" (Catalin Mitulescu)
"Yellow Sea" (Na Hong-jin)

Out of Competition

"Midnight in Paris" (Woody Allen) - Opening Night
"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" (Rob Marshall)
"The Beaver" (Jodie Foster)
"The Artist" (Hazanavicius)
"La Conquête" (Xavier Durringer)
"Labrador" (Frederikke Aspöck)
"Wu Xia" (Chan Peter Ho-Sun)

Special Screenings

"Labrador" (Frederikke Aspöck)
"Le maître des forges de l'enfer" (Rithy Panh)
"Un documentaire sur Michel Petrucciani" (Michael Radford)
"Tous au Larzac" (Christian Rouaud)

Look for continuing coverage of Cannes over the next few weeks and during the festival on HitFix.
 

Gregory Ellwood
Editor-in-Chief, Co-Founder

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With over a decade of experience in the movie industry, Ellwood survived working for two major studios and has written for Variety, MSN and the LA Times. A co-founder of HitFix, Ellwood spends his time relaxing hitting 3’s on the basketball court and following his beloved Clippers.