Cannes Film Festival 2026 Winners List: Every Palme d’Or and Prize

Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list — every verified honoree from the 79th Festival de Cannes, which ran May 12–23, 2026 on the French Riviera and crowned Fjord with the Palme d’Or during Saturday’s closing ceremony at the Palais des Festivals. Cristian Mungiu’s English-language debut — starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan as Romanian evangelical parents accused of child abuse after relocating to a Norwegian village — gave the Romanian auteur his second Palme, joining an elite ten-filmmaker club nineteen years after 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Whether you missed Tilda Swinton handing Mungiu the top prize or want every category in one scrollable guide, this page lists the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list across main Competition, Un Certain Regard, Caméra d’or, La Cinef, and short-film sections — sourced from the official Festival de Cannes release, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter. We cover results and records — not red-carpet outfit breakdowns (Pillar F owns fashion analysis). Broadway results live in our Tony Awards 2026 winners list hub alongside most Tony Awards won by a show rankings. Compare Academy results in our Oscar winners 2026 full list. January Globe champions map in our Golden Globes 2026 winners full list.

The Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list reflects a jury chaired by South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision to Leave) that split several major categories — including a rare Best Director tie between Pawel Pawlikowski’s postwar drama Fatherland and Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s generation-spanning queer epic The Black Ball (La Bola Negra). Acting honors also doubled up: Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared Best Actress for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden (Soudain), while Valentin Campagne and Emmanuel Macchia jointly won Best Actor for Lukas Dhont’s Coward. Below, we organize verified Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list results by the sections readers search most — then connect the festival to the broader 2026 awards calendar across Pillar G.

Cannes Film Festival 2026 Winners List: Ceremony at a Glance

Before diving into category-by-category results, here is the framework for the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list. The 79th edition opened May 12 and closed Saturday, May 23, 2026, with the awards ceremony in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. Park Chan-wook’s nine-member jury chose winners from 22 Competition titles — a field mixing Cannes veterans (Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi, Cristian Mungiu) with bold newcomers. Specialty distributor Neon acquired domestic rights to Fjord ahead of the festival — extending a remarkable streak: Neon has been attached to the Palme d’Or winner for seven consecutive years.

Key ceremony facts for the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list:

• Dates: May 12–23, 2026
• Edition: 79th Festival de Cannes
• Venue: Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France
• Jury president: Park Chan-wook
• Palme d’Or presenter: Tilda Swinton
• Competition films: 22 features
• Top prize: Fjord — Cristian Mungiu (second Palme d’Or)
• Grand Prix: Minotaur — Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Camera d’or (best first film): Ben’Imana — Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo (first Rwandan film officially selected)

Cannes Film Festival 2026 Winners List: Main Competition

Main Competition categories anchor every Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list because the Palme d’Or remains the most prestigious prize in world cinema — a credential that launches Oscar campaigns, specialty distribution deals, and decades of auteur legend. Here are the verified Competition victors from the official Festival de Cannes release and Variety ceremony reporting.

Palme d’Or (Best Film)

Winner: Fjord — directed by Cristian Mungiu

Mungiu’s Norway-set moral drama about a Romanian evangelical family navigating a Norwegian child-abuse investigation became the most debated title in Competition — critics split on its sociopolitical allegiances, yet Park Chan-wook’s jury rewarded that very discussability. With the win, Mungiu becomes only the tenth filmmaker to win the Palme d’Or twice, following 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in 2007. Neon picked up U.S. rights before Cannes opened. Fjord also claimed the FIPRESCI critics prize and the Ecumenical Jury Award — a clean sweep on the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list that positions the film as an Oscar-season player.

Grand Prix

Winner: Minotaur (Minotaure) — directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

Russia’s Zvyagintsev — Palme d’Or winner in 2014 for Leviathan — took the festival’s runner-up prize. Zoe Saldaña presented the Grand Prix on the closing-night stage. The honor keeps Zvyagintsev in the Cannes elite conversation alongside Mungiu on the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list.

Jury Prize

Winner: The Dreamed Adventure (Das Geträumte Abenteuer) — directed by Valeska Grisebach

Grisebach’s German drama claimed the third-highest Competition honor — a jury prize that often signals bold auteur work the panel admired but could not crown with the top trophy.

Best Director (ex-æquo)

Winners:

• Pawel Pawlikowski — Fatherland
• Javier Ambrossi & Javier Calvo — The Black Ball (La Bola Negra)

The split director prize was among the night’s headline surprises on the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list. Pawlikowski’s postwar Polish drama shared the honor with Ambrossi and Calvo’s generation-spanning queer epic — two radically different visions rewarded equally.

Best Performance for an Actress (ex-æquo)

Winners: Virginie Efira & Tao Okamoto — All of a Sudden (Soudain), directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Hamaguchi — whose Drive My Car won Best Screenplay at Cannes 2021 before its Oscar run — returned with a dual-lead acting victory. Efira and Okamoto shared the actress prize, a joint honor that registered among the more emotional moments on the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list.

Best Performance for an Actor (ex-æquo)

Winners: Valentin Campagne & Emmanuel Macchia — Coward, directed by Lukas Dhont

Dhont — whose Close won the Grand Prix in 2022 — collected a shared Best Actor prize for his latest feature. Geena Davis presented the acting trophies during the closing ceremony.

Best Screenplay

Winner: Emmanuel Marre — A Man of His Time (Notre Salut)

Marre’s screenplay victory paired with a Superior Technical Commission award for editor Nicolas Rumpl on the same film — editorial craft the CST jury praised for revealing “the visual aesthetic, the directorial ambition and the performances.”

Cannes Film Festival 2026 Winners List: Short Films

Short Film Palme d’Or

Winner: For the Opponents (Para Los Contrincantes) — directed by Federico Luis

The short-film Palme d’Or closed the short-form section of the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list — a category that has launched careers from Andrea Arnold to Xavier Dolan.

Cannes Film Festival 2026 Winners List: Un Certain Regard

Un Certain Regard — Cannes’ parallel section celebrating auteur discovery — produced its own slate of honorees on the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list. The 2026 selection included 19 features, six of them first films also competing for the Caméra d’or.

• Un Certain Regard Prize: Everytime — Sandra Wollner
• Jury Prize: Elephants in the Fog — Abinash Bikram Shah (first film)
• Special Jury Prize: Iron Boy — Louis Clichy
• Best Actor: Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset — Congo Boy, Rafiki Fariala
• Best Actress: Marina de Tavira, Daniela Marín Navarro & Mariangel Villegas — Siempre soy tu animal materno, Valentina Maurel

Un Certain Regard’s FIPRESCI prize went to Ben’Imana — the same debut feature that claimed the Caméra d’or, making Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo’s post-genocide Rwandan drama the discovery-story centerpiece of the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list outside main Competition.

Cannes Film Festival 2026 Winners List: Caméra d’or and La Cinef

Caméra d’or (Best First Feature)

Winner: Ben’Imana — Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo (Un Certain Regard)

Presented by Monia Chokri, the Caméra d’or honored the first Rwandan film officially selected at Cannes — a milestone on the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list that underscores the festival’s global discovery mandate.

La Cinef (Film School Section)

• First Prize: Laser-Cat (Laser-Gato) — Lucas Acher, NYU
• Second Prize: Silent Voices — Nadine Misong Jin, Columbia University (also Queer Palm for Short Film)
• Joint Third Prize: Never Enough (Aldrig Nok) — Julius Lagoutte Larsen, La Fémis; Growing Stones, Flying Papers — Roozbeh Gezerseh & Soraya Shamsi, Filmuniversität Babelsberg

Who Won the Most at Cannes 2026?

Fjord leads the Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list with three major honors when counting Competition prizes plus parallel-section critics awards: Palme d’Or, FIPRESCI Competition prize, and Ecumenical Jury Award. No single title swept every category — the jury spread wealth across Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur, Grisebach’s The Dreamed Adventure, dual director and acting ties, and Dusabejambo’s Ben’Imana discovery double in Un Certain Regard plus Caméra d’or.

Honorary Palmes d’Or went to veteran filmmakers including Barbra Streisand and John Travolta during the festival — non-competitive tributes that sit outside the competitive Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list but shaped the week’s cultural headlines.

Cannes Film Festival 2026 Winners List and Awards Season

The Cannes Film Festival 2026 winners list historically shapes fall festival and Oscar narratives because a Palme d’Or win signals global prestige before Venice, Telluride, and Toronto refine the race. Fjord‘s victory — paired with Neon’s distribution streak — positions Cristian Mungiu’s film as a specialty-cinema frontrunner heading into autumn awards voting. Mungiu’s second Palme invites comparison with our upcoming Palme d’Or winners list by year historical hub.

For the full 2026 American awards calendar, cross-link to Pillar G siblings: Oscar winners 2026 full list, Golden Globes 2026 winners full list, SAG Awards 2026 winners list, and the Broadway block — Tony Awards 2026 winners list, Tony Awards categories explained, youngest Tony Award winners ever, and Broadway shows with most Tony nominations. Visit our Awards category for full ceremony coverage.

Explore More Cannes and Festival Coverage

• Historical hub: Palme d’Or winners list by year
• Oscar season: Oscar winners 2026 full list
• January Globes: Golden Globes 2026 winners full list
• Guild results: SAG Awards 2026 winners list
• Broadway honors: Tony Awards 2026 winners list
• Tony records: most Tony Awards won by a show
• Visit our Awards category for full Pillar G coverage.