Golden Leopard

The Golden Leopard (Italian: Pardo d'oro) is the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival, an international film festival held annually in Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. Directors in the process of getting an international reputation are allowed to be entered in the competitive selection. The winning films are chosen by a jury. The award went under many names until it was named the Golden Leopard in 1968. The festival was not held in 1951 and the prize was not awarded in 1956 and 1982. As of 2024 René Clair is the only director to have won the award twice, winning in the first two years of the festival.

Golden Leopard
Awarded for	Best film
Country	Switzerland
Presented by	Locarno Film Festival
First award	1946
Currently held by	Two Seasons, Two Strangers by Sho Miyake

Winners

Roberto Rossellini won in 1948.

John Ford won in 1950.

Otto Preminger won in 1955.

Michelangelo Antonioni won in 1957.

Stanley Kubrick won in 1959.

Kon Ichikawa won in 1961.

Miloš Forman won in 1964.

Glauber Rocha won in 1967.

Raoul Ruiz won in 1969.

Mike Leigh won in 1972.

Krzysztof Zanussi won in 1973.

István Szabó won in 1974.

Jim Jarmusch won in 1984.

Claire Denis won in 1996.

Jafar Panahi won in 1997.

Lav Diaz won in 2014.

Albert Serra won in 2013.

Hong Sang-soo won in 2015.

Pedro Costa won in 2019.

For the first two years the award was known as Best Film (Miglior film). Then for several years the award went by the name of Grand Prize (Gran premio). In 1950 and 1952 the award was from the International Jury of Journalists (Giuria internazionale dei giornalisti); in 1953 and 1954 the award was from the International Jury of Critics (Giuria internazionale della critica); in 1955 the award was from the Jury of Swiss-Italian Radio (Giuria della Radio della Svizzera Italiana); in 1957 the award was from the Jury of the Swiss Association of Cinematographic Press (Giuria dell'Associazione Svizzera della stampa cinematografica). In 1958 and 1960–65 the award was the Golden Sail (Vela d'oro). In 1959 it was the Prize for Best Direction (Premio per la migliore regia). In 1966 and 1967 the prize was the Grand Prize of the Jury of Youth (Gran premio della Giuria dei giovani). Finally, it became the Golden Leopard in 1968.^[1][2][3][4]

1940s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
1946	And Then There Were None		René Clair	United States	[5]
1947	Man About Town	Le silence est d'or	René Clair and Robert Pirosh	France, United States	[6]
1948	Germany Year Zero	Germania, anno zero	Roberto Rossellini	Italy, France, Germany	[7]
1949	The Farm of Seven Sins	La ferme des sept péchés	Jean Devaivre	France	[8]

1950s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
1950	When Willie Comes Marching Home		John Ford	United States	[9][10]
1952	Hunted		Charles Crichton	United Kingdom	[11]
1953	Julius Caesar		David Bradley	United States	[12]
	The Composer Glinka	Композитор Глинка	Grigori Aleksandrov	Soviet Union
	The Glass Wall		Maxwell Shane	United States
1954	Gate of Hell	地獄門	Teinosuke Kinugasa	Japan	[13]
	The Sheep Has Five Legs	Le mouton à cinq pattes	Henri Verneuil	France, United States
	Rotation		Wolfgang Staudte	East Germany
1955	Carmen Jones		Otto Preminger	United States	[14][15]
	The Emperor's Nightingale	Císařův slavík	Jiří Trnka	Czechoslovakia
1957	Il grido		Michelangelo Antonioni	Italy, United States	[16][17]
1958	Ten North Frederick		Philip Dunne	United States	[18]
1959	Killer's Kiss		Stanley Kubrick		[19]

1960s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
1960	Il bell'Antonio		Mauro Bolognini	Italy	[20]
1961	Fires on the Plain	野火	Kon Ichikawa	Japan	[21]
1962	The Winner	Un cœur gros comme ça	François Reichenbach	France	[22]
1963	Transport from Paradise	Transport z ráje	Zbyněk Brynych	Czechoslovakia	[23]
1964	Black Peter	Černý Petr	Miloš Forman		[24]
1965	Four in the Morning		Anthony Simmons	United Kingdom	[25]
1966	Everyday Courage	Každý den odvahu	Evald Schorm	Czechoslovakia	[26]
1967	Entranced Earth	Terra em Transe	Glauber Rocha	Brazil	[27][28]
1968	The Visionaries	I visionari	Maurizio Ponzi	Italy	[29]
1969	Charles, Dead or Alive	Charles mort ou vif	Alain Tanner	Switzerland	[30][31]
	Those Who Wear Glasses	Szemüvegesek	Sándor Simó	Hungary
	Three Sad Tigers	Tres tristes tigres	Raoul Ruiz	Chile
	No Path Through Fire	В огне брода нет	Gleb Panfilov	Soviet Union

1970s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
1970	End of the Road		Aram Avakian	United States	[32]
	Lilika	Лилика	Branko Pleša	Yugoslavia
	This Transient Life	無常	Akio Jissoji	Japan
	Soleil O		Med Hondo	Mauritania, France
1971	They Have Changed Their Face	Hanno cambiato faccia	Corrado Farina	Italy	[33]
	On the Point of Death	In punto di morte	Mario Garriba
	The Friends	Les amis	Gérard Blain	France
	Private Road		Barney Platts-Mills	United Kingdom
	Signs on the Road	Znaki na drodze	Andrzej Jerzy Piotrowski	Poland
	Mexico: The Frozen Revolution	México, la revolución congelada	Raymundo Gleyzer	Argentina
1972	Bleak Moments		Mike Leigh	United Kingdom	[34][35]
1973	The Illumination	Iluminacja	Krzysztof Zanussi	Poland	[36][37]
1974	25 Fireman's Street	Tűzoltó utca 25.	István Szabó	Hungary	[38]
1975	The Son of Amir Is Dead	Le fils d'Amr est mort	Jean-Jacques Andrien	Belgium, France, Tunisia	[39]
1976	The Big Night	Le grand soir	Francis Reusser	Switzerland	[40]
1977	Antonio Gramsci: The Days of Prison	Antonio Gramsci: i giorni del carcere	Lino Del Fra	Italy	[41]
1978	The Idlers of the Fertile Valley	Οι Τεμπέληδες της εύφορης κοιλάδας	Nikos Panayotopoulos	Greece	[42]
1979	The Herd	Sürü	Zeki Ökten and Yılmaz Güney	Turkey	[43]

1980s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
1980	To Love the Damned	Maledetti vi amerò	Marco Tullio Giordana	Italy	[44]
1981	The Vicious Circle	Chakra	Rabindra Dharmaraj	India	[45][46]
1983	The Princess	Adj király katonát!	Pál Erdöss	Hungary	[47]
1984	Stranger Than Paradise		Jim Jarmusch	United States, West Germany	[48]
1985	Alpine Fire	Höhenfeuer	Fredi M. Murer	Switzerland	[49][50]
1986	Lake of Constance	Jezioro Bodeńskie	Janusz Zaorski	Poland	[51][50]
1987	The Jester	O Bobo	José Álvaro Morais	Portugal	[52]
1988	Distant Voices, Still Lives		Terence Davies	United Kingdom	[53]
	Schmetterlinge		Wolfgang Becker	West Germany
1989	Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?	달마가 동쪽으로 간 까닭은?	Bae Yong-kyun	South Korea	[54][55]

1990s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
1990	Accidental Waltz	Случайный вальс	Svetlana Proskurina	Soviet Union	[56]
1991	Johnny Suede		Tom DiCillo	France, United States, Switzerland	[57]
1992	Autumn Moon	秋月	Clara Law	Hong Kong, Japan	[58]
1993	The Place on a Grey Tricorne	Azghyin ushtykzyn'azaby	Yermek Shinarbayev	Kazakhstan	[59]
1994	Khomreh	خمره	Ebrahim Forouzesh	Iran	[60]
1995	Raï		Thomas Gilou	France	[61]
1996	Nenette and Boni	Nénette et Boni	Claire Denis	France	[62][63]
1997	The Mirror	آینه	Jafar Panahi	Iran	[64]
1998	Mr. Zhao	趙先生	Lü Yue	China, Hong Kong	[65]
1999	Skin of Man, Heart of Beast	Peau d’homme, cœur de bête	Hélène Angel	France	[66][67]

2000s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
2000	Father	冤家父子	Shuo Wang	China	[68]
2001	Off to the Revolution by a 2CV	Alla rivoluzione sulla due cavalli	Maurizio Sciarra	Italy	[69]
2002	The Longing	Das Verlangen	Iain Dilthey	Germany	[70]
2003	Khamosh Pani	خاموش پانی	Sabiha Sumar	Pakistan, France, Germany	[71]
2004	Private		Saverio Costanzo	Italy	[72]
2005	Nine Lives		Rodrigo García	United States	[73]
2006	Das Fräulein		Andrea Staka	Switzerland, Germany	[74]
2007	The Rebirth	愛の予感	Masahiro Kobayashi	Japan	[75][76]
2008	Parque Vía		Enrique Rivero	Mexico	[77]
2009	She, a Chinese		Xiaolu Guo	United Kingdom, France, Germany, China	[78]

2010s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
2010	Winter Vacation	寒假	Hongqi Li	China	[79]
2011	Back to Stay	Abrir puertas y ventanas	Milagros Mumenthaler	Argentina, Switzerland, Netherlands	[80]
2012	The Girl from Nowhere	La fille de nulle part	Jean-Claude Brisseau	France	[81]
2013	Story of My Death	Història de la meva mort	Albert Serra	Spain, France	[82]
2014	From What Is Before	Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon	Lav Diaz	Philippines	[83]
2015	Right Now, Wrong Then	지금은 맞고 그때는 틀리다	Hong Sang-soo	South Korea	[84]
2016	Godless	Безбог	Ralitza Petrova	Bulgaria, Denmark, France	[85]
2017	Mrs. Fang	方绣英	Wang Bing	China, France, Germany	[86]
2018	A Land Imagined	幻土	Yeo Siew Hua	Singapore, France, Netherlands	[87]
2019	Vitalina Varela		Pedro Costa	Portugal	[88][89]

2020s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country	Ref.
2021	Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash	Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas	Edwin	Indonesia, Singapore, Germany	[90]
2022	Rule 34	Regra 34	Júlia Murat	Brazil, France	[91]
2023	Critical Zone	منطقه بحرانی	Ali Ahmadzadeh	Iran, Germany	[92]
2024	Toxic	Akiplėša	Saulė Bliuvaitė	Lithuania	[93]
2025	Two Seasons, Two Strangers	旅と日々	Sho Miyake	Japan	[94]