Robert Hamer
Bonjour, chers lecteurs! That’s right, the 79th Cannes Film Festival is commencing today. Just like with my Berlin rankings, I want to continue looking back on the previous quarter-century of recipients of the top awards at the “Big Three” international film festivals. Cannes is arguably the most internationally known and prestigious of all of them, with several high-profile releases including two recent Best Picture winners making their debuts here. The festival’s highest honor is the Palme d’Or, or “Golden Palm,” and it is a coveted award by filmmakers around the world.
Below, you will find my own rankings of the last twenty-five years of Palme winners, with fewer movies to rank since there have been, interestingly, no ties at all so far in this century (and the festival was canceled in its entirety in 2020 because of that whole global pandemic our elite pundit class have been gaslighting you all about).
Aaaaaand just like last time, I once again snuck a bonus opinion into this list:
25) Fahrenheit 9/11 – The nadir of ineffectual hectoring that pretended to be meaningful activism during the War on Terror, somehow managing to come off as both myopic and scatter-brained in its indictments against the George W. Bush Administration.
24) The White Ribbon – Awkward, overstuffed, pretentious covering of thematic ground explored better in Michael Haneke’s prior movies. The initial tension of its inciting incidents escalates to such over-the-top grotesqueries that they border on parody.
23) Elephant – Maybe I’m being too hard on this with the hindsight of clearer perspectives into what’s become horrifyingly commonplace now, but this project just feels like an empty, overly austere formalist exercise on a totally inappropriate canvas.
22) Blue is the Warmest Colour – Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos should’ve shared Best Actress, not the Palme for something too long and visually bland. The “porn” accusations were more legit than a lot of us cared to acknowledge at the time.
21) The Square – A mixed bag of genuinely insightful, piercing observations of self-serving feints at “allyship” from privileged white liberals, punctuated by clichés and stereotypes about journalism, modern art, and women in general.
20) The Son’s Room – Effective as a heartfelt, tear-jerking family drama and there is no gainsaying the performances… but as a treatise on grief and unspoken familial tensions? I’m skeptical it really has that much to say.
19) L’Enfant – The second Palme winner from the most fêted filmmakers in Cannes history is… I mean, it is well-constructed. There’s nothing here that I can single out as anything less than competent. But I just don’t know what “the point” of all this is.
18) I, Daniel Blake – Zero points for originality, either in the “working class realism” aesthetic of British indie cinema or relative to Ken Loach’s filmography. But I would be lying if I claimed this failed to move me at all, mostly due to Hayley Squires.
17) Triangle of Sadness – I get why Joey detests this. But I’d counter that Ruben Östlund displays more ambition and verve in this sprawling class satire than he did in The Square. Plus, it has a phenomenal secret weapon in Dolly de Leon.
16) Titane – The first third of this wild choice for the Palme is so vicious, so riveting, so creative as a darkly comic slasher/body horror ride, the odd downshift to focus on the pitfalls of grief can’t help but feel like a setback. Still, I was never bored!
15) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – Once my least-favorite Apichatpong Weerasethakul, I’ve warmed up to this a bit with age. Less intuitively cohesive than his other films, but its dreamlike vibes are hypnotic in their own way.
14) The Wind that Shakes the Barley – Holds a surprisingly minor reputation for what might be this director’s best work. Strikes a good balance between its human drama and political commentary, gorgeously lensed, and well-acted by the whole cast.
13) Anora – Hums along as Sean Baker’s apex riiiiight up to the moment Garnik and Igor show up at the mansion. Then he falls into a few of his usual grating indulgences. Good thing Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn never falter.
12) Winter Sleep – Does this movie earn its 3+ hour-long runtime? Not really, but there’s a remarkable confidence in how it presents such rich, layered conversations between painfully authentic characters. This probably should’ve won Best Screenplay at Cannes.
11) It Was Just An Accident – The first act and final coda are damn-near perfect cinema. Everything in between is still mostly strong, but does feel a little more “stage-bound” as Jafar Panahi ramps up his cast of characters and interpersonal conflicts.
10) Dheepan – Y’all are way too hard on this movie’s climax. It’s foreshadowed effectively throughout the film, and Jacques Audiard excels here at slowly and organically building tension even in the film’s quieter relationship-building scenes.
9) Anatomy of a Fall – Sandra Hüller, meine königin. Love the way this courtroom thriller highlights how the truth is difficult to discern, even especially when it appears to be out in the open. The book interpretation part is a bit silly, I’ll admit…
8) The Class – I once lamented to Joey that the classroom drama has yielded very few actually great feature films. This is one of them. Possibly the very best I’ve seen in the entire subgenre. Though some parts of it might seem… quaint, from our modern perspective?
7) The Pianist – Sucks that I have to give props to such a scumbag, but this really is one of the great epic Holocaust dramas. He makes every shot and every emotional beat pack a wallop. The sole touch of “I’m cold!” humor was perfectly-judged.
6) Dancer in the Dark – Speaking of great movies directed by bad people, over twenty years later, I think it’s safe to say only Dogville could challenge this as Lars von Trier’s magnum opus. Hyperbolic at times, sure. But also a harrowing and unforgettable experience.
5) Shoplifters – In justifying this for the Palme d’Or, jury president Cate Blanchett explained this was the one competitor that stood out not for a bold formal conceit or “big scene,” but rather a profound consummation of small emotional moments. I agree.
4) Amour – Love isn’t what you do with your partner during those blissful moments of romantic ecstasy. It’s what you do in the face of pain, hardship, and death. No other 21st century movie confronts this so unflinchingly.
3) 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days – The movie that I can honestly say radicalized me on an issue I was shamefully middling on. The peak of Romanian New Wave resourcefulness and dramatic vigor. The last shot will never leave me.
2) Parasite – I mean… what more is there to say about this movie? Solidified as a Timeless Classic™ the nanosecond it hit theaters for a very good reason. Its few flaws appear microscopic compared to everything it knocks out of the park.
1) The Tree of Life – Transcendent. A seemingly simple story about one family explodes into a grand inquiry into the mysteries of our very existence and how one finds grace among the vast harshness of the universe. One of the only pieces of art I’ve ever encountered that makes me wonder if I’m wrong and there is a higher power watching over us. Terrence Malick marries visual splendor and thoughtful, poetic observations about complex ideas in ways rarely matched not only among the Main Competitors of every Cannes Film Festival from the last twenty-five years, not only relative to his esteemed body of work, but of any movie I have encountered in my adult life, which is why I declare this the century’s best recipient of the Palme d’Or… so far.
What are your favorite winners of this most coveted of international film festival prizes from the last quarter-century? Let us know in the comments.
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