The only two films to win both the Palme d’Or and ‘Best Picture’ Oscar
The Palme d’Or, the highest awarded prize given at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’, handed out at the Oscars, both represent significantly different achievements. Whilst both are held annually, the Oscars is an award ceremony, whereas Cannes is a film festival.
Up until fairly recently, the ‘Best Picture’ award was almost always given to American productions, and there were certain traits in a film that would appeal more to the Academy board members. They preferred films that were traditionally told, emotionally compelling, and epic in nature. If they were about the subjugation of a group of people, like Schindler’s List or 12 Years A Slave, all the better.
The Palme d’Or, on the other hand, is a tribute to the filmmaking itself rather than just the story. It is a celebration of bold and visionary storytelling by directors who have made themselves heard with a distinct voice. The work of auteurs, often controversial, is heralded as definitive contributions to cinema, à la Taxi Driver or Titane.
There have, however, been two times where the favours of the Cannes Jury and the Academy Board have aligned. In the mid-1950s, a debut feature from Delbert Mann called Marty premiered, not in the theatres but on television. With a screenplay by literary titan Paddy Chayefsky, the film follows a New York butcher torn between his overbearing family and a chance at finding love.
The film was met with instant praise for its deft depiction of working-class life in the Bronx and its understated character study of the titular Marty, played by Ernest Borgnine. After winning the Palme d’Or that year, it seemed like the accolades couldn’t get any higher, but then the year after that, it cleaned up at the Oscars, winning not just ‘Best Picture’, but ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Screenplay’ for Mann and Chayefsky.
This double-win was completely unheard of, and after the dust of 1956 settled, the status quo appeared to resume. Decades went by, and the Palme d’Or and ‘Best Picture’ stayed in their respective cultural lanes. That is, until 63 years later, when Bong Joon-ho’s sweeping social satire masterpiece Parasite rocked the world of cinema again.
A blackly comic and thought-provoking thriller, Parasite made history not just by being the second film to win both prestigious awards but by being the first ever Korean film to win at Cannes and the first non-English language film to ever win ‘Best Picture’, signifying a huge shift in cinema and a big progressive step forward in Hollywood. This permanently altered the cinematic landscape for the better, as demonstrated recently by the predominantly Asian American-led Everything, Everywhere, All At Once winning at the Oscars.
Whilst it’s worth noting that Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend won both the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’ and the Grand Prix (at that time, the highest award at Cannes), it wasn’t until 1955 that the Palme d’Or as we know it today was introduced. With this year’s Palme d’Or winner yet to be announced and next year’s Oscar nominations a long way from being official, this may well be the year that we get a third double-win.
