Robert de Niro accepted the honorary Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival with an engaging, fiery speech that, as is De Niro’s way, also took a few sharp jabs at Donald Trump. The Goodfellas star began his remarks by extolling the power of art: “Art is inclusive. It brings people together tonight. Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity. And that’s why art is a threat.” A threat, specifically, “to autocrats and fascists.”
De Niro is particularly incensed by President Trump’s attacks on culture, from his takeover of the Kennedy Center to his supposed plan to impose a 100% tax on films produced outside the U.S. “America’s philistine president has had himself appointed head of one of America’s premier cultural institutions,” the actor said Tuesday. “He has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education. And now he announced a 100% tariff on films made outside the United States. Let that sink in: you can’t put a price on creativity, but apparently you can for the tariffs.
“Of course, this is unacceptable,” De Niro continued. “All these attacks are unacceptable. And this isn’t just an American problem, it’s a global one. Like a film, we can’t just all sit back and watch. We have to act, and we have to act now—without violence, but with great passion and determination.”
At the same time, De Niro was full of praise for the Cannes Film Festival itself, which he called his home. “We show our strength and commitment by celebrating art in this glorious festival,” he said, before quoting France’s stirring national motto: “Liberté, égalité, fraternité! Vive le festival de Cannes. Merci!”
For nearly a decade, the actor and Tribeca festival co-founder has established himself as a formidable critic of Donald Trump. “He reminds me of the godfather I played in Goodfellas,” he told the French news program Envoyé Spécial last October. “There’s a scene where the young gangster played by Ray Liotta comes up to him and says, ‘We’ll take care of so-and-so’, and I reply, ‘Kill him’. The other one asks “Right away”, but as I’m playing cards, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. It all comes down to a whim, an impulse. He has no structure. Everything is done in chaos, in madness. And it’s the people around him who are the most dangerous.”
Original story in VF France.
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