Bong Joon-Ho’s ‘Parasite’ Wins Palme D’Or & Antonio Banderas Takes Best Actor [Cannes]

The 72nd Cannes Film Festival has come to an end and, as expected, the competition jury made many of the media who had reviewed and screened the film both exhilarated and exhausted.  The Palme d’Or went to Bong Joon-ho‘s masterpiece, “Parasite” (our review). It was always a three-way race from those looking from the outside in, but the awards given to Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain and Glory” and Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” may have been slightly disappointed in what they went home with.

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Antonio Banderas took the Best Actor honor which immediately starts his campaign for an Oscar nomination, but it meant Almodovar immediately became ineligible from winning the Palme. An honor he still has not won despite all his visits to la Croisette over the decades.

READ MORE: ‘Parasite’: Bong Joon-Ho Delivers A Demented, Uproarious Class-Conscious Satire [Cannes Review]

Critics went overboard for Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and she could have been the first woman director to win the Palme d’Or since Jane Campion shared it for “The Piano” in 1993.  Instead, she took just the Screenplay prize after winning the Queer Palme last night.

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The rest of the winners were quite controversial.  At the post-ceremony press conference,  the jury talked about their deep love for Mati Diop’s “Atlantique,” a film with positive, but reserved reviews.  “Atlantique” ended up winning the Grand Prix, the second most prestigious prize at the festival (Spike Lee won it last year for “BlacKkKlansman”).  Diop did become the first black female director to win a Cannes prize because after 72 years she was somehow the first black female director in competition.

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The Dardennes brothers, who won the Palme d’Or twice took the Directing prize over potential winners Almodovar, Sciamma, Terrence Malick and Quentin Tarantino.  This was a shock considering how ambivalent most of Cannes has been to their new drama “The Young Ahmed.” 

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French critics and audiences were very enthusiastic about Lady Li’s “Les Miserables” so winning the Jury prize wasn’t that unexpected, but sharing the honor with Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles’s “Bacurau” was unexpected.  Also out of the blue was the Best Actress win for Emily Beecham’s “Little Joe,” a film that was dismissed by many after its premiere last week.

Elia Suleiman’s “It Must Be Heaven,” which debuted yesterday, earned a last minute special mention.

It should be noted that Joon-ho becomes the first South Korean to ever win the Palme d’Or. The Un Certain Regard winners were given out yesterday.

READ MORE: A complete list of this year’s Un Certain Regard winners

A complete list of this year’s winners:

Special Mention – Elia Suleiman, “It Must Be Heaven” [our review]
Best Screenplay – Celine Sciamma, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” [our review]
Best Actress – Emily Beecham, “Little Joe” [our review]
Best Actor – Antonio Banderas, “Pain and Glory” [our review]
Jury Prize (tie) – Ladj Ly, “Les Miserables” [our review]
Jury Prize (tie) – Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles, “Bacurau” [our review]
Best Directors – Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, “The Young Ahmed” [our review]
Grand Prix – Mati Diop, “Atlantique” [our review]
Palme d’Or – Bong Joon-Ho, “Parasite” [our review]

Camera d’Or – Cesar Diaz, “Our Mothers”

Short Film Palme d’Or – Vasilis Kekatos, “The Distance Between Us and the Sky”
Short Film Special Mention – San Martin, “Monstruo Dios”