Jenna Ortega Takes the Wheel in Leos Carax’s Mysterious Dystopian Road Odyssey Lily May B

Jenna Ortega is teaming up with Leos Carax for his next film, and yeah, that pairing makes a lot of sense. Her onscreen vibe lately has been all sharp edges and eerie calm, and Carax lives for that kind of beautiful chaos. The project is called 'Lily May B' and it was one of the buzziest things floated at Cannes 2026, even though the movie will not roll cameras until spring 2027. Classic Carax: wild ambition, long runway.

So, what is 'Lily May B'?

Carax is calling it a dystopian, surreal road movie. The story tracks three young travelers, each dragging around a secret they would rather not unpack, as they move through what sounds like a post-everything landscape: empty highways, ghosted cities, old forests that feel older than they should. If you have seen 'Holy Motors' or 'Les Amants du Pont-Neuf,' you know he is not afraid to lean hard into dream logic and leave you to connect the dots. Early footage shown around Cannes apparently points in exactly that direction.

"Once upon a time, this is what destroyed us, and this is what kept us alive."

- Leos Carax, at Cannes 2026

Why Ortega is the right kind of wild card

This is Carax's seventh feature and his first time working with Ortega, who has been on a heater since 'Wednesday ' turned into a cultural steamroller. For context: the show racked up over 252 million views and 1.72 billion hours watched in its first 91 days, making it Netflix 's most-watched English-language series at the time. Netflix already locked in season 3 for its 2027 slate, and production has shifted to Paris, where Ortega and Tim Burton have been spotted on set. She just came off 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' too, which keeps her in that macabre/fantastical lane. Drop her into Carax's headspace and, as producer Hugo Sélignac put it, it basically feels like the natural next step.

Quick hits

• Title: 'Lily May B'
• Filmmaker: Leos Carax, returning after 'Annette' won him Best Director at Cannes 2021
• Star: Jenna Ortega
• Premise: A dystopian, surreal road movie about three young drifters with heavy secrets
• Setting: Abandoned cities, empty highways, ancient forests, end-of-the-world vibes
• Tone: Dreamlike, ominous, emotionally loaded (aka peak Carax)
• Production: Chi-Fou-Mi Productions, produced by Hugo Sélignac
• Timeline: Introduced as a hot Cannes 2026 project; filming planned for spring 2027

The bigger picture

If you are waiting for a straightforward plot synopsis, do not hold your breath. Carax prefers mood, metaphor, and big swings over handholding. That is part of why this announcement popped: he brings operatic scale to deeply personal ideas, and Ortega brings the stare-down-your-demons intensity to match. On paper, it is a clean fit. Now we just have to wait a year for the cameras to roll.