Every Cannes Palme d'Or Winner Since 1990, Ranked
Updated May 27, 2023 with the 2023 Palme d'Or winner, Anatomy of a Fall.
A best picture Oscar may be film's peak honor, but a Cannes Palme d'Or win isn't far behind. Though it didn't adopt its current name (which translates to "Golden Palm" in English) on a permanent basis until 1975, the top award at the globe's most prestigious film festival has been handed out in nearly every year since 1946, with occasional interruptions (most recently in 2020, when the festival was canceled during the COVID pandemic).
Is the latest Palme d'Or winner a favorite with critics as well? Not every Palme d'Or recipient is, as Cannes juries (typically composed of actors and directors, and different every year) don't always have the same tastes as reviewers. In the gallery on this page, we rank all of the Cannes winners since 1990. They are arranged from worst to best by Metascore, which reflects the consensus of professional critics for each film.
2014 winner
Oft-praised Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan collected his country's second Palme d'Or (and his first, personally) for one of the best-reviewed films of his career. Loosely based on the Chekhov short story "The Wife," the talk-heavy 2014 drama focuses on the stormy relationship between an actor-turned-innkeeper, his young wife, and his recently divorced sister during a snowy Anatolian winter. But Winter Sleep was not quite the best-reviewed film to compete at Cannes in 2014; Two Days, One Night, Mr. Turner and Leviathan all scored even higher.
“While it doesn't always earn its heft, Winter Sleep is both subdued and rich in details, its plot growing slowly over a series of extensive conversations. It's a robust, challenging experience he's been building toward with his previous features, as well as an adventurous step above them.” —Eric Kohn, IndieWire
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