How HBO's The White Lotus Turned the Cannes Red Carpet Into a Film Set

Running parallel to the genuine glamour of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival was a stranger, more meta production: the cast and crew of HBO's The White Lotus were filming season four of Mike White's satire of the ultra-wealthy, this time set at the Cannes Film Festival itself.

According to footage shared on social media during the festival's twelve-day run in May, the production managed to film scenes on the festival's actual red carpet, blurring the line between the show's fictional glamour and the real thing happening around it. The choice of setting is a natural extension of the show's format, which has previously sent its ensemble cast to luxury resorts in Hawaii, Sicily and Thailand — each season using its location's specific brand of wealth and status anxiety as the engine of its plot and, notably, its wardrobe.

Filming a satire about performative luxury inside one of the world's most performatively luxurious events is, depending on your read, either an obvious choice or the show's most audacious one yet. Fans of the franchise's costume design, long a highlight of the series, will have plenty to dissect when the season eventually airs.