Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord” has won the Palme d’Or as the best film of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, a jury headed by Park Chan-wook announced on Saturday.
The award makes Mungiu only the tenth director to win a second Palme, following his 2007 award for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” No director has ever won a third. It also gives Neon a remarkable seven consecutive Palme winners, a streak that began with “Parasite” in 2019.
The Grand Prix, Cannes’ runner-up award, went to “Minotaur” by Andrey Zvyagintsev. In his speech, the Russian director who now lives in France sent a message to Vladimir Putin by saying, “Mr. President of the Russian Federation, please put an end to this bloodshed. The whole world is waiting for you to do so.”
The two acting categories were shared by four performers from two films. Best actor went to Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne, who played Belgian World War I soldiers who fall in love in Lukas Dhont’s “Coward.” The actress prize went to Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, whose lengthy conversations dominate Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden.”
The directing award resulted in a tie between Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for “The Black Ball” and Pawel Pawlikowski for “Fatherland.”
The screenplay prize went to Emmanuel Marre for “A Man of His Time,” who pointed out in his speech that he wrote a screenplay, threw it out and made the entire film with controlled improvisation.
The Jury Prize, essentially the third-place award, went to Valeska Grisebach’s “The Dreamed Adventure.”
The winners were chosen by a jury headed by Korean director Park Chan-wook and also including filmmakers Diego Cespedes, Paul Laverty, Laura Wandel and Chloe Zhao and actors Isaach de Bankole, Demi Moore, Ruth Negga and Stellan Skarsgard.
The Camera d’Or, which is given by a separate jury for the best first film from any section of the festival, was given to Rwandan filmmaker Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo for “Ben’Imana.”
Other films in competition this year include Pedro Almodovar’s “Bitter Christmas,” Ira Sachs’ “The Man I Love,” Laszlo Nemes’ “Moulin,” James Gray’s “Paper Tiger,” Asghar Farhadi’s “Parallel Tales” and Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown.”
With “Paper Tiger” not winning anything, this was the fifth time that a Gray film has been selected for the Cannes competition but was bypassed by the jury. The previous four were “We Own the Night” in 2007, “Two Lovers” in 2008, “The Immigrant” in 2013 and “Armageddon Time” in 2022.
In addition to “Fjord,” Neon went into the festival with deals for the other competition films “All of a Sudden,” “Hope,” “Paper Tiger,” “Sheep in the Box” and “The Unknown,” giving it six chances to continue a Palme d’Or streak that began with “Parasite” and continued with “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Anora,” “It Was Just an Accident” and now “Fjord.”
Also at the ceremony, Barbra Streisand received an Honorary Palme d’Or. She was scheduled to accept the award in person, but canceled her appearance “on the advice of my doctors” while recovering from a knee injury. Isabelle Huppert spoke in honor of Streisand, who gave her acceptance speech via video.
The winners:
Palme d’Or: “Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu Grand Prix: “Minotaur,” Andrey Zvyagintsev Jury Prize: “The Dreamed Adventure,” Valeska Grisebach Best Director: (TIE) Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for “The Black Ball” and Pawel Pawlikowski for “Fatherland” Best Actor: Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne, “Coward” Best Actress: Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, “All of a Sudden” Best Screenplay: Emmanuel Marre, “A Man of His Time”
Camera d’Or (best first film): “Ben’Imana,” Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo
Honorary Palme d’Or: Barbra Streisand
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