The 10 best Palme d’Or winners of all time
Forget the Oscars and their ‘Best Picture’ prize, there’s no better trophy in the cinema industry than a shiny Palme d’Or. Presented in a beautiful display case of Morocco leather, that is, of course, second to the prize itself (despite its sleek design), the highest honour at the Cannes Film Festival is a 118g 18-carat yellow gold palm, so the Academy Awards can keep their naff Oscar statuettes.
Ever since the dawn of the festival in 1939, there have been 74 winners of the esteemed prize, with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Bong Joon-ho, Francis Ford Coppola, Wim Wenders, Mike Leigh, Jane Campion and Abbas Kiarostami having each taken home the award. Over that time, the jury of each respective festival has usually got the winner pretty right, only choosing terrible films on a small handful of occasions.
Ranking a mere list of ten Palme d’Or winners is no easy task, but we’ve burdened ourselves with the challenge in order to give you a rundown of the greatest films to grace the history of the festival. With so many impressive movies, we had to sadly cull some excellent films from our list, including the might of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Take a look at our list of the ten best Palme d’Or winners of all time below.
The top 10 Palme d’Or winners:
10. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 masterpiece Parasite did something that no Palme d’Or winner has ever done, winning ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy Awards whilst also becoming a box-office sensation at the very same time. A socially conscious ‘eat the rich’ movie, Parasite tells the story of a poor family who infiltrates the house of a wealthy upper-class family and changes the course of their lives.
Asking who is benefiting from the other in a system that encourages division, Bong Joon-ho’s film was a pertinent film for a fragile contemporary society, inspiring critics and audiences across the globe.
9. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Known as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Martin Scorsese released his magnum opus in 1976 with Taxi Driver, a venomous critique of America post-Vietnam. Starring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel and Jodie Foster, the film tells the story of a New York cab driver who navigates the gloomy streets of the city whilst witnessing the smut and violence that has started to plague the streets.
Written by Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver managed to beat out the likes of Wim Wenders’ Kings of the Road, Roman Polanski’s The Tenant and Paul Mazursky’s Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
8. The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993)
The New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion made history in 1993, becoming the first-ever female director to take home the coveted Palme d’Or for her romance drama, The Piano. Telling the story of a mute woman in the mid-19th century who is sent to New Zealand for an arranged marriage and becomes the centre of intrigue by a farm worker, Campion’s intimate movie is something truly special.
Starring the likes of Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel, and Holly Hunter, The Piano also saw success at the Academy Awards, winning Oscars for ‘Best Actress in a Leading Role’, ‘Best Actress in a Supporting Role’ and ‘Best Original Screenplay’.
7. Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961)
There’s no doubt that the Spanish-Mexican filmmaker is one of the most influential directors of all time, but few know him for his 1961 Palme d’Or winner Viridiana ahead of such classics as 1972’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and 1967’s Belle de Jour. His successful Cannes feature tells the story of a nun who visits her widowed uncle shortly before she takes her final vows.
Sharing the award with Henri Colpi’s The Long Absence during a rare year in which the spoils were shared, we think Buñuel’s complex drama was far more worthy of solo success.
6. Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
Helming 1975’s The Passenger and 1960’s L’Avventura, Michelangelo Antonioni is one of Italy’s greatest directors, but, in our eyes, nothing beats his 1966 classic Blow-Up. Telling the story of a fashion photographer who mistakenly captures a death on film, screenwriters Antonioni, Julio Cortázar, and Tonino Guerra create a film that fizzles with subtext, creating a timeless classic set in Britain’s swinging sixties.
Starring Vanessa Redgrave, David Hemmings and Sarah Miles, the film beat out other Palme d’Or competitors, such as Robert Bresson’s Mouchette and Carlos Velo’s Pedro Páramo.
5. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)
The Cannes Film Festival featured some classics in 1963, including Federico Fellini’s 8½ and Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, yet neither film was in competition, allowing Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard to cruise to winning the Palme d’Or. Still, the 1963 film certainly deserved its prize, with the film being a riveting historical drama featuring the likes of Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale and Paolo Stoppa.
As for the story, it all follows the Prince of Salina, a noble aristocrat who tries to protect and preserve his family and class during the major social changes that occurred in 1860s Sicily.
4. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Most Vietnam War movies took a pretty familiar route when it came to re-telling the horrors of the late 20th-century conflict, but Francis Ford Coppola cared little about keeping between the lines. His 1979 masterpiece, Apocalypse Now, told the story of a US Army officer tasked with assassinating a Special Forces Colonel who has lost his mind and believes he is a God among a local tribe.
With special performances from the likes of Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, and Dennis Hopper, Coppola’s film is an insane cinematic achievement which bafflingly comes together, despite its fraught tensions behind the scenes.
3. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
The Italian mastermind Federico Fellini appeared at Cannes several times, but only once did he take home the coveted Palme d’Or, winning the award for his 1960 film La Dolce Vita. A film so iconic that its mere name has seemed to seep into everyday use, La Dolce Vita is a beautifully captured film that tells the story of a tabloid journalist living in Rome who has a romantic fling with a local woman.
Thanks to the iconic on-screen chemistry between Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, La Dolce Vita is an influential classic that would go on to shape European cinema in the late 20th century.
2. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
Carol Reed’s 1949 film The Third Man is one of the unsung heroes of British cinema, as well as one of the greatest Palme d’Or winners of all time. A stylish and ingeniously constructed film noir, Robert Krasker won an Oscar for his cinematography work in this stunning film that tells the story of a novelist who travels to postwar Vienna and finds himself investigating the death of an old friend.
With iconic performances from both Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, Reed’s film is a complex drama and a lusciously classy mystery that inspired Alfred Hitchcock among countless other burgeoning Brutish minds.
1. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)
No film better represents what the Cannes Film Festival stands for than Wim Wenders’ iconic romance Paris, Texas from 1984. A melding of a painful tale of the American dream with classy, dreamlike European filmmaking, even the name of the film suggests a duality of creative inspiration, with the movie itself telling the story of a man caught between two states of being after he reconnects with his estranged family.
With excellent performances from Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell, Paris, Texas is a classic of modern cinema which also happens to feature one of the greatest endings of all time.
