FILM COMMENT’S TRIVIAL TOP 20® (expanded to 30): Best Cannes Palme d’Or Winners
Votes cast by Melissa Anderson, Geoff Andrew, Richard Brody, Michael Chaiken, Chris Chang, Chris Darke, Scott Foundas, J. Hoberman, Alexander Horwath, Kent Jones, Laura Kern, Nathan Lee, Elisabeth Lequeret, Adrian Martin, Olaf Möller, James Quandt, Jonathan Romney, Gavin Smith, Chuck Stephens, and Amy Taubin.
Village Voice critic J. Hoberman proposed that we make it a 10 Best and 10 Worst Palmes list and we solicited from him a personal list of 10 Worst: 1. A Man and a Woman Claude Lelouch, 1966 2. Barton Fink Joel & Ethan Coen, 1991 3. The Mission Roland Joffé, 1986 4. Paris, Texas Wim Wenders, 1984 5. Pelle the Conqueror Bille August, 1988 6. The Best Intentions Bille August, 1992 7. Black Orpheus Marcel Camus, 1959 8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Jacques Demy, 1964 9. When Father Was Away on Business Emir Kusturica, 1985 10. The Wind that Shakes the Barley Ken Loach, 2006
New Yorker film editor Richard Brody submitted a brief list with the following observations:
“This is a fun question that is hard to answer seriously, because 1) there are a bunch I haven't seen, and 2) a serious answer would take into account the other movies in competition each year that these winners beat out and the respondents’ sense of whether the juries’ choices were good ones. To take two years chosen at random, 1991: Barton Fink is a nice movie, but it was up against Malina (Werner Schroeter) and Van Gogh (Maurice Pialat), two vastly superior films. 1957: Friendly Persuasion beat out Funny Face, The Nights of Cabiria, and A Man Escaped. 1946: Brief Encounter beat Open City. The more you look, the worse it gets; it’s easy to conclude that the best film in competition almost never won.
Another thing this list reveals is that Cannes is often five to 10 years behind the curve on the work of most filmmakers. For instance, why did Kiarostami win for Taste of Cherry in 1997 and not for more or less anything else he had been doing for the previous 10 years? Why Antonioni in 1966 for Blow-Up and not in 1960 for L’Avventura? Nothing ever for Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette? Bergman, Bresson, Tati, Rossellini, Fassbinder, Jia Zhangke?”
1. Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese, 1976 2. The Leopard Luchino Visconti, 1963 3. Viridiana Luis Buñuel, 1961 4. The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 5. The Third Man Carol Reed, 1949 6. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Jacques Demy, 1964 7. Rosetta Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 1999 8. Blow-Up Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967 9. Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 10. The Wages of Fear Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953 11. La Dolce Vita Federico Fellini, 1960 12. Othello Orson Welles, 1952 13. Under the Sun of Satan Maurice Pialat, 1987 14. Taste of Cherry Abbas Kiarostami, 1997 15. If… Lindsay Anderson 1969 16. The Tree of Wooden Clogs Ermanno Olmi, 1978 17. The Cranes are Flying Mikhail Kalatozov, 1958 18. Kagemusha Akira Kurosawa, 1980 19. Padre Padrone Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 1977 20. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Cristian Mungiu, 2007 21. The Ballad of Narayama Shohei Imamura, 1983 22. Brief Encounter David Lean, 1946 23. The Working Class Goes to Heaven Elio Petri, 1972 24. The Go-Between Joseph Losey, 1971 25. The Eel Shohei Imamura, 1997 26. Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino, 1994 27. The Tin Drum Volker Schlöndorff, 1979 28. Wild at Heart David Lynch, 1990 29. Underground Emir Kusturica, 1995 30. L’Enfant Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2005
