It’s been a minute, but we’re back and ready to kick off our conversations about the 2026 Academy Award season. Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident received the coveted Palme d’Or, the top prize at the annual Cannes Film Festival. As the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences becomes both younger and more international, this award holds more significance now than it ever has before. Over the past five festivals (the 2020 edition was cancelled due to the pandemic), two winners (Parasite and Anora) went on to win Best Picture. Two other winners (Triangle of Sadness and Anatomy of a Fall) received multiple nominations, including Best Picture.
It’s because of this correlation you’re seeing many, many more Oscar bloggers at the festival than ever before.
So, with It Was Just an Accident crowned the winner, the question becomes, “Is it an Anora? Is it Triangle of Sadness? Or is it a Titane that bucks recent trends and goes completely ignored by the Academy?” That’s a trickier question than I suspect many thought it would be.
The front runner going into today’s award ceremony was widely considered to be Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, which received this year’s Grand Prix. Both films received positive reviews from critics and festival attendees, although the online buzz seemed to tip more toward Trier’s film than Panahi’s. That passionate response coupled with Value‘s more approachable, American-tinted drama seems likely to drive it more into the Best Picture race than Accident, which received strong but somewhat tempered responses.
We should also pay attention to The Secret Agent. It’s reviews were slightly more mixed that either of the other two films with The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw emerging a major fan. The Cannes jury certainly liked it enough to award it two prizes: Best Actor for Wagner Moura and Best Director for Kleber Mendonça Filho. Last year, the Academy warmed to Brazilian cinema as I’m Still Here became a major player, winning Best International Feature over Emilia Perez.
We’ll have to wait for the fall festival circuit to see how these Cannes-blessed films play out with broader audiences. And, oh by the way, last year’s Best Picture-winning distributor, Neon, will distribute all three major titles coming out of Cannes.
Until then, here are your 2025 Cannes Film Festival winners.
Palme d’Or
Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident
Grand Prix
Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
Jury Prize
Mascha Schilinski for Sound of Falling and Oliver Laxe for Sirat (tie)
Best Director
Kleber Mendonça Filho for The Secret Agent
Best Screenplay
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Young Mothers
Best Actress
Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister
Best Actor
Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent
Special Prize
Resurrection, dir. Bi Gan
Camera d’Or for Best First Film
The President’s Cake, dir: Hassan Hadi
Palme d’Or for Best Short Film
I’m Glad You’re Dead Now, dir: Tawfeek Barhom
