Cannes is the annual event where everyone who lives in Los Angeles goes to France to party to mingle with filmmakers and distributors from around the globe and watch the best cinema every country has to offer. Besides providing the platform for Rihanna's greatest fashion decision, the festival also gives out awards to the year's films. The top three prizes—Palme D'Or, Grand Prix, and Prix du Jury—have historically represented the most iconic and groundbreaking cinema in a given year; movies like Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, and Blue Is The Warmest Color have all won the Palme D'Or in the past. The awards generally prize experimentation over mainstream accessibility, so it's always a much more interesting crop than the Oscars or even Sundance awards.
This year's Palme D'Or went to The Square, a Swedish satire of the art world's class system and exclusivity. The Grand Prix went to BPM (Beats Per Minute), a French film about the AIDS crisis in the early 90s. Sofia Coppola won Best Director for her Civil War film The Beguiled, which makes her only the second woman to win the Cannes Best Director prize. The jury also gave Nicole Kidman an unprecedented special prize for her work in four projects at Cannes.
Here's the full list of award winners:
Palme d’Or: The Square (Ruben Östlund)
Special Prize: Nicole Kidman
Grand Prix: BPM (Beats Per Minute) (Robin Campillo)
Director: Sofia Coppola, The Beguiled
Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here
Actress: Diane Kruger, In the Fade
Jury Prize: Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
Screenplay — TIE: The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou) and You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)
Camera d’Or: Jeune femme (Léonor Serraille)
Short Films Palme d’Or: Xiao Cheng Er Yue (Qiu Yang)
Short Films Special Mention: Katto (Teppo Airaksinen)
Golden Eye Documentary Prize: Faces Places (Agnès Varda, JR)
Ecumenical Jury Prize: Radiance (Naomi Kawase)
Un Certain Regard Award: A Man of Integrity (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Un Certain Regard Best Director: Taylor Sheridan, Wind River
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize: Michel Franco, April’s Daughter
Un Certain Regard Best Performance: Jasmine Trinca, Fortunata
