Palme Readings: The Cannes Film Festival
 The Cannes Film Festival is not without its goofs and nonsense; no major festival or film award ever is. Still, collectively, the films that have won the Palme d'or at Cannes easily blow the catalogue of Best Picture Oscar winners out of the water; for my money, it's also a better list than the Berlin or Venice champions, though that's a much closer call. Unfortunately, not all of Cannes' best are available to rent in the U.S. Just try tracking down Two Cents' Worth of Hope (Castellani '52) or The Long Absence (Colpi '61). Please e-mail me if you have
responses to these reviews and rankings, or knowledge about how to locate the most elusive titles.
My Preferential Rankings of
The Palme d'Or Winners
La Crème de la Crème
93 The Piano dir. Jane Campion
83 The Ballad of Narayama dir. Shohei Imamura
76 Taxi Driver dir. Martin Scorsese
97 Taste of Cherry dir. Abbas Kiarostami
79 Apocalypse Now dir. Francis Ford Coppola
74 The Conversation dir. Francis Ford Coppola
61 Viridiana dir. Luis Buñuel
00 Dancer in the Dark dir. Lars von Trier
60 La Dolce Vita dir. Federico Fellini
53 The Wages of Fear dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
87 Under the Sun of Satan dir. Maurice Pialat
07 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days dir. Cristian Mungiu
75 Chronicle of the Smoldering Years
dir. Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina
11 The Tree of Life dir. Terrence Malick
49 The Third Man dir. Carol Reed
Ooh, La La
63 The Leopard dir. Luchino Visconti
67 Blow-up dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
96 Secrets & Lies dir. Mike Leigh
94 Pulp Fiction dir. Quentin Tarantino
93 Farewell, My Concubine dir. Chen Kaige
02 The Pianist dir. Roman Polanski
64 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg dir. Jacques Demy
99 Rosetta dirs. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
80 All That Jazz dir. Bob Fosse
79 The Tin Drum dir. Volker Schlöndorff
08 The Class/Entre les murs dir. Laurent Cantet
97 The Eel dir. Shohei Imamura
84 Paris, Texas dir. Wim Wenders
05 L'Enfant dirs. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
58 The Cranes Are Flying dir. Mikhail Kalatozov
82 Missing dir. Costa-Gavras
89 sex, lies, and videotape dir. Steven Soderbergh
Comme Ci, Comme Ça
91 Barton Fink dir. Joel Coen
54 Gate of Hell dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa
59 Black Orpheus dir. Marcel Camus
04 Fahrenheit 9/11 dir. Michael Moore
51 Miss Julie dir. Alf Sjøberg
01 The Son's Room dir. Nanni Moretti
03 Elephant dir. Gus Van Sant
10 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
06 The Wind That Shakes the Barley dir. Ken Loach
09 The White Ribbon dir. Michael Haneke
90 Wild at Heart dir. David Lynch
55 Marty dir. Delbert Mann
88 Pelle the Conqueror dir. Bille August
71 The Go-Between dir. Joseph Losey
Tu Parles!
66 A Man and a Woman dir. Claude Lelouch
65 The Knack...and How to Get It dir. Richard Lester
86 The Mission dir. Roland Joffé
Palme Winners Left to See
(In Chronological Order)
Commercially Available Titles
51 Miracle in Milan dir. Vittorio De Sica
52 Othello dir. Orson Welles
56 The Silent World dirs. Jacques-Yves Cousteau
and Louis Malle
57 Friendly Persuasion dir. William Wyler
62 O Pagador de Promessas! dir. Anselmo Duarte
66 The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians dir. Pietro Germi
69 If... dir. Lindsay Anderson
70 M*A*S*H dir. Robert Altman
72 The Working Classes Go to Heaven dir. Elio Petri
73 The Hireling dir. Alan Bridges
73 Scarecrow dir. Jerry Schatzberg
77 Padre padrone dirs. Paolo & Vittorio Taviani
78 The Tree of Wooden Clogs dir. Ermanno Olmi
80 Kagemusha dir. Akira Kurosawa
81 Man of Iron dir. Andrzej Wajda
82 Yol dirs. Serif Gören & Yilmaz Güney
85 When Father Was Away on Business
dir. Emir Kusturica
92 The Best Intentions dir. Bille August
95 Underground dir. Emir Kusturica
98 Eternity and a Day dir. Theo Angelopoulos
Hard-to-Find Titles
52 Two Cents' Worth of Hope dir. Renato Castellani
61 The Long Absence dir. Henri Colpi
72 The Mattei Affair dir. Francesco Rosi
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Reviews of Films
in Competition
The 1960s
66 A Man and a Woman
The 1970s
77 3 Women
79 Days of Heaven
The 1980s
80 All That Jazz
81 Chariots of Fire
82 Missing
83 Tender Mercies
84 Another Country
85 Kiss of the Spider Woman
86 The Mission
87 The Belly of an Architect
The 1990s
90 Wild at Heart
92 Basic Instinct
92 Howards End
96 Crash
97 The Well
98 Henry Fool
98 Life Is Beautiful
98 Velvet Goldmine
99 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
The 2000s
00 Dancer in the Dark
00 The Golden Bowl
00 The Yards
01 Moulin Rouge!
01 No Man's Land
01 Shrek
02 Bowling for Columbine
02 Russian Ark
03 Dogville
03 Swimming Pool
04 Clean
04 Fahrenheit 9/11
04 The Ladykillers
04 The Motorcycle Diaries
04 Shrek 2
05 Broken Flowers
07 Zodiac
08 Changeling
08 Delta
08 Synecdoche, New York
08 Three Monkeys
08 Two Lovers
08 Waltz with Bashir
09 Inglourious Basterds
The 2010s
10 The Housemaid
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