Cannes ’26 winners are mostly deserving

Cannes winners (clockwise from top): “Fjord,” “Minotaur” and “The Dreamed Adventure” — Courtesy Cannes Film Festival

I’m onside with Park Chan-wook’s #Cannes Palme d’Or jury, especially that it didn’t embarrass itself by giving kudos to the hopeless monster movie “Hope.” Happy Cristian Mungiu’s “𝗙𝗷𝗼𝗿𝗱” won the Palme although I would rather see Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗮𝘂𝗿,” the Grand Prix winner, get the top prize. And the Jury Prize (i.e. third place) for Valeska Grisebach’s late-breaking “𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲” means a really smart movie will get a lot more eyeballs, which is all to the good. But nothing at all for James Gray’s toothsome “𝗣𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗿”? We need to invoke the sanity claws!

Here’s the official list of feature winners in the Palme d’Or competition:

Feature Films

Palme d'or

FJORD

directed by Cristian MUNGIU

Grand Prix

MINOTAUR

directed by Andreï ZVIAGUINTSEV

Best Director Prize (ex-æquo)

Javier CALVO & Javier AMBROSSI 

for LA BOLA NEGRA

Pawel PAWLIKOWSKI

for FATHERLAND

Best Screenplay

Emmanuel MARRE

for A MAN OF HIS TIME

Jury Prize

DAS GETRÄUMTE ABENTEUER (THE DREAMED ADVENTURE) 

directed by Valeska GRISEBACH

Best Performance for an Actress

Virginie EFIRA and Tao OKAMOTO

in ALL OF A SUDDEN directed by HAMAGUCHI Ryusuke

Best Performance for an Actor

Emmanuel MACCHIA and Valentin CAMPAGNE

in COWARD directed by Lukas DHONT