Cannes 2025: Why Oscars could be next for Palme d'Or winner Jafar Panahi's ‘It Was Just an Accident'
This year's prestigious Palme d'Or was awarded to It Was Just an Accident from the long-persecuted Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. The revenge story centers on five former prisoners who believe they've identified and found the person responsible for torturing them. It's Panahi's first project since his ban on making films was lifted by the country's religious leaders who had imprisoned him for 'propaganda against the Islamic Republic.' It marks the second Iranian film to win Cannes' top honor after Taste of Cherry (tied with The Eel from Japan) in 1997 from Abbas Kiarostami, whom Panahi worked for as an assistant director before making his own movies.
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This year's jury was led by Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche and included such big names as Oscar winner Halle Berry, Emmy-winning actor Jeremy Strong, South Korean director Hong Sang-soo and Indian auteur Payal Kapadia.
In recent years, Cannes has served as a major catalyst for Academy Award contenders. Last year, three of the films in the official competition reaped bids for Best Picture: Emilia Pérez, The Substance, and Anora, with the latter winning both the Palme d'Or and the Oscar. Four of the last five Palme d'Or winners have nabbed Best Picture nominations: Parasite (2019), Triangle of Sadness (2022), Anatomy of a Fall (2023), and Anora (2024). Other recent films that received Cannes recognition and became big Oscar players include Drive My Car, The Zone of Interest and BlacKkKlansman.
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Since the Palme d'Or was established in 1955, 43 winners have amassed 149 Academy Award nominations. Nineteen of these have claimed a combined 38 Oscars. Six years ago, Parasite won both the Palme and Best Picture Oscar, making it the first film to do so since Marty pulled off the double play in 1955. That character study was the first of the 19 Palme d'Or champs to land a Best Picture bid, followed by Friendly Persuasion (1957), M*A*S*H (1970), The Conversation (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979), All That Jazz (1979), Missing (1982), The Mission (1986), The Piano (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), Secrets and Lies (1996), The Pianist (2002), The Tree of Life (2011), Amour (2012), Parasite (2019), Triangle of Sadness (2022), Anatomy of a Fall (2023), and Anora (2024).
Considering Panahi's troubled relationship with Iran's religious leaders, the idea that the country would submit the film for Best International Feature at the Oscars seems, at best, questionable. However, it could be submitted by France or Luxembourg as the film was a coproduction with those countries. This happened last year when another Iranian film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, was submitted by Germany. Six Palme d'Or champs have gone on to win this Oscar (previously called Best Foreign-Language Film): Black Orpheus from France (1959), A Man and a Woman from France (1966), The Tin Drum from West Germany (1979), Pelle the Conqueror from Denmark (1988), Amour from Austria (2012) and Parasite from South Korea (2019). Ten other Palme winners were nominated: Keeper of Promises from Brazil (1962), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg from France (1964), Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior from Japan (1980), Man of Iron from Poland (1981), When Father Was Away on Business from Yugoslavia (1985), Farewell My Concubine from Hong Kong (1993), The Class from France (2008), The White Ribbon from Germany (2009), The Square from Sweden (2017) and Shoplifters from Japan (2018).The Grand Prix, the runner-up to the Palme d'Or, went to Sentimental Value from Norwegian director Joachim Trier. The film centers on the strained relationship between an actress (Renate Reinsve) and her estranged director father (Stellan Skarsgård). Trier's last film, The Worst Person in the World, won Best Actress at Cannes in 2021 for Reinsve and scored Oscar nominations for Best International Feature and Original Screenplay.
Seventeen Grand Prix winners have earned 35 total Oscar nominations, with seven films scoring 10 wins. Two years ago, The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer, won this and earned five nominations including Best Picture, and won two trophies (International Feature and Sound). Five of the other six — Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion from Italy (1970); Cinema Paradiso from Italy (1989); Burnt by the Sun from Russia (1994); Life is Beautiful from Italy (1998); and Son of Saul from Hungary (2015) — won Best International Film. Life is Beautiful also won Best Actor and Best Original Dramatic Score. The 2018 winner of the Grand Prix, BlacKkKlansman, won Best Adapted Screenplay for Spike Lee.
The Jury Prize was shared between two films this year: Sirât from French-Spanish director Óliver Laxe and Sound of Falling from German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski. The films that have won here don't correlate as much to the Oscars, but last year's winner, Emilia Pérez, bucked that trend when it scored 13 nominations and two wins: Supporting Actress (Zoe Saldaña) and Original Song. All told, 15 films that have won the Jury Prize have amassed 52 Oscar nominations and 11 wins. Among these victories were one for Best Picture (All About Eve which played at Cannes in 1951, the year after its Oscar romp) and two for Best International Film (Mon Oncle in 1958 from France and Z in 1969 from Algeria).
Best Actress was presented to French performer Nadia Melliti for her work in The Little Sister by Hafsia Herzi. The 23-year-old was a student in Paris when she was discovered by Herzi and had never acted in a film prior to this. She portrays a college student from a French-Algerian family who begins to carve her own identity after she begins her studies. Twenty-two past Cannes champs for Best Actress received nominations from the Academy, and five won: Simone Signoret for Room at the Top (1959); Sophia Loren for Two Women (1961); Sally Field for Norma Rae (1979); Holly Hunter for The Piano (1993); and Saldaña for Emilia Pérez (2024, Oscar won in the supporting category).
Best Director went to Brazilian auteur Kleber Mendonça Filho for The Secret Agent. The political thriller is about a technology expert on the run in 1970s Brazil. The Oscar track record for this award is not great. Only seven of the helmers who prevailed here went on to contend at the Oscars: Robert Altman for The Player (1992); Joel Coen for Fargo (1996); David Lynch for Mulholland Drive (2001); Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel (2006); Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007); Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher (2014); and Pawel Pawlikowski for Cold War (2018). Both Fargo and Babel also earned Best Picture bids.
The Secret Agent also took home the Best Actor honor for Wagner Moura's performance in the film. Sixteen winners of the Best Actor award at Cannes have been nominated by the Academy with the most recent being the 2019 champ, Antonio Banderas, for Pain and Glory. Five have taken home the Oscar: Ray Milland for The Lost Weekend (1945); Jon Voight for Coming Home (1978); William Hurt for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985); Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009, Oscar won in the supporting race); and Jean Dujardin for The Artist (2011).
A Special Jury Prize was awarded to Chinese director Bi Gan for Resurrection. The science fiction drama is about a woman who finds herself trapped inside of several dreams. Films that have received special honors at the festival have not had much luck at the Oscars. The most prominent instances were in 1992 when Howard's End won the 45th Anniversary Prize for James Ivory, 2002 when Bowling for Columbine won the 55th Anniversary Prize for Michael Moore, and last year when Mohammad Rasoulof won a special prize for The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Howard's End scored nine nominations including Best Picture and three wins that included Best Actress (Emma Thompson) and Adapted Screenplay. Bowling would go on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature and Seed scored a nomination for Best International Feature.
Best Screenplay was awarded Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne for Young Mothers. The Belgian filmmaking brothers are perennial favorites at Cannes with their films having won almost every prize at the festival. The only one they've never claimed is the Jury Prize. Their latest centers on five teenage mothers and their children as they are living in a housing center for teenage moms. Last year's winner here, The Substance, became the second screenplay winner to score a Best Picture nomination after Drive My Car became the first in 2021. Both these films scored corresponding screenplay nominations at the Oscars as well. The Substance would go on to win last year's Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Five screenplay winners at Cannes have gone on to claim the International Feature Oscar: Mephisto from Hungary (1981), No Man's Land from Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001), The Barbarian Invasions from Canada (2003; also nominated for Original Screenplay), The Salesman from Iran (2016), and Drive My Car from Japan. Two others were nominated: Footnote from Israel (2011) and Leviathan from Russia (2014).
Here is the complete list of Cannes winners:
Palme d'Or: It Was Just an Accident
Grand Prix: Sentimental Value
Jury Prize: (tie) Sirât and Sound of Falling
Best Actress: Nadia Melliti, The Little Sister
Best Actor: Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Best Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent
Best Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Young Mothers
Camera d'Or: Hasan Hadi, The President's Cake
Camera d'Or Special Mention: Akinola Davies Jr., My Father's Shadow
Special Award: Bi Gan, Resurrection
Short Film Palme d'Or: 'I'm Glad You're Dead Now,' Tawfeek Barhom
Short Film Special Mention: 'Ali,' Adnan Al Rajeev
Golden Eye Documentary Prize: Imago, Déni Oumar Pitsaev
Golden Eye Documentary 10th Anniversary Prize: The Six Billion Dollar Man
Queer Palm: Hafsia Herzi, La Petite Dernière
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