The 2026 Cannes Film Festival has just wrapped up, having platformed and celebrated the auteur, the arthouse, and the emotionally replete drama. 22 features competed this year for the Palme d’Or, the highest prize up for grabs, with reports that 141 countries submitted 2,541 films for review.

Park Chan-Wook, the acclaimed South Korean behind Lady Vengeance (Kind Miss Geum-ja) and Decision to Leave (Heeojil gyeolsim), served as the main competition’s Jury president.

Starring Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler, Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski’s German-language film Fatherland  (Vaterland) took home a trophy for its direction of a story about an exiled novelist travelling with his daughter from West to East Germany during the Cold War in 1949.

Meanwhile, Romanian film artist Cristian Mungiu was awarded the esteemed prize of Palme d’Or for his drama Fjord, starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as a Romanian-Norwegian couple whose move to the wife’s Norwegian hometown proves challenging due to its progressive manner. The director’s first recipient of the award came in 2007 with his art feature, 4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days). 

Additionally, a socially and politically charged body horror titled Sangurine from France and a Korean survival horror feature called Colony oversaw a Cannes release this year.

Acting wins were handed to stars Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset for his performance as a young aspiring rap artist from Congo, as well as Virginie Efira for her work as a nursing home director attempting to revolutionise the care home.

Ari Aster’s latest release, Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, was also submitted. Additional releases included Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love and a queer body horror titled Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma by Jane Schoenbrun.

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The 2026 Cannes Film Festival Winners:

Palme d’Or–Fjord by Cristian Mungiu

Grand Prix– Minotaur by Andrey Zvyagintsev

Best Director– Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for La Bola Negra (The Black Ball), and Pawel Pawlikowski for Vaterland (Fatherland) 

Best Screenplay– Emmanuel Marre for Notre Salut (A Man of His Time)

Jury Prize– Das geträumte Abenteuer (The Dreamed Adventure) by Valeska Grisebach

Best Actress– Virginie Efira as Marie-Lou Fontaine and Tao Okamoto as Mari Marisaki for Soudain (All of a Sudden/Kyū ni guai ga waruku naru) by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Best Actor– Emmanuel Macchia as Pierre and Valentin Campagne as Francis for Coward by Lukas Dhont

Camera d’Or for Best First Film– Ben’Imana (The Children of God) by Clémentine Dusabejambo

Palm d’Or for Best Short Film– Para Los Contincantes (To Opponents) by Federico Luis

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