Cannes Film Festival
Founded in 1939, the Cannes Film Festival has a long and distinguished track record of spotlighting landmark works of cinema with its highest honor, the Palme d’Or.
The festival is an important showcase for European film and an international launch pad for American movies. Among the most recent examples of the former are 2019's Parasite, which won the Palme d’Or before going on to win the Best Picture Oscar the following year.
Other prominent pictures to win the top prize include The Third Man, The Wages of Fear, Black Orpheus, La Dolce Vita, Blowup, MASH, The Conversation, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Barton Finke (which won the top three awards), The Piano, Pulp Fiction and Dancer in the Dark.
Among the actors whose careers were catapulted by in Cannes are Samuel L. Jackson, Lily Gladstone, Dennis Hopper, Sophia Loren, John Travolta, Anna Paquin, Adrien Brody, James Spader, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Charles Melton, David Thewlis, Michael Fassbender, Brenda Blethyn and Forest Whitaker.
In addition to Cannes' artistic appeal, its Marché du Film is also the world's most important film markets. The festival is usually held each year in May.
- Year Founded
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1939
- Top Prize
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Palme d'Or
- Leadership
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Pierre Lescure (President), Thierry Frémaux (General Delegate)
