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.
1991 winner
The Coen brothers have debuted eight films in competition at Cannes. But only their fourth feature overall, the dark period comedy/thriller Barton Fink, was able to capture the Palme d'Or. Fink is set in early 1940s Hollywood where a young and successful playwright (John Turturro) attempts to transition into screenwriting only to run into an epic case of writer's block and a gleefully demonic neighbor played by John Goodman in one of his most memorable performances. With additional trophies going to Turturro and to Joel Coen (for his directing) despite reported divisions in the Roman Polanski-led jury, Fink was the final film to win three awards at Cannes; its success caused festival organizers to enact a limit of two awards per film for subsequent years. Many critics praised the film, but some dismissed it as empty at its core.
“Very competently mounted and acted (there are also juicy parts for Judy Davis, Tony Shalhoub, and Jon Polito), this is basically a midnight-movie gross-out in Sunday-afternoon art-house clothing--an intriguing novelty that revels in effect while oozing with cryptic signifiers.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
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