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Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director

Award presented annually by the Cannes Film Festival From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director
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The Best Director Award (French: Prix de la mise en scène) is an award presented annually at the Cannes Film Festival since 1946. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition slate at the festival.

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At the 1st Cannes Film Festival held in 1946, René Clément was the first winner of this award for his work on The Battle of the Rails, and Kleber Mendonça Filho is the most recent winner in this category for his work on The Secret Agent at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in 2025.

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History

The award was first presented in 1946. The prize was not awarded on 12 occasions (1947, 1953–54, 1960, 1962–64, 1971, 1973–74, 1977, and 1980).

The festival was not held at all in 1948, 1950, and 2020. In 1968, no awards were given as the festival was called off mid-way due to the May 1968 events in France.

Also, the jury vote was tied, and the prize was shared by two directors on seven occasions (1955, 1969, 1975, 1983, 2001–02, and 2016). Joel Coen of the Coen brothers has received the most awards in this category, with three. One directing team has shared the award: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne for Young Ahmed (2019). Yuliya Solntseva became the first woman to win the award, for Chronicle of Flaming Years (1961).

The winner of the Best Director Award rarely wins the Palme d'Or, the main prize given at the festival, which is also awarded to the director of the winning film. This happened only twice: Joel Coen won both awards for Barton Fink in 1991;[1] and Gus Van Sant won for Elephant in 2003.[2]

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Winners

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Ingmar Bergman won for Brink of Life (1958)
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Terrence Malick won for Days of Heaven (1978)
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Werner Herzog won for Fitzcarraldo (1982)
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Martin Scorsese won for After Hours (1986)
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Robert Altman won for The Player (1992)
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Mike Leigh won for Naked (1993)
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Joel Coen won for Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
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David Lynch won for Mulholland Drive (2001)
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Paul Thomas Anderson won for Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
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Michael Haneke won for Caché (2005)
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Sofia Coppola won for The Beguiled (2017)

1940s

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1950s

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1960s

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1970s

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1980s

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1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

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Multiple winners

The following individuals received two or more Best Director awards:

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See also

References

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