The coveted Palme d’Or was awarded to the Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu for his film Fjord at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
This year’s running saw the end of festival prizes prove more unpredictable than recent years, with plenty of films being highlighted for future release.
Film News Blitz’s Oscar Trinick has more on the 2026 Cannes roundup.
Lightning strikes twice for Mungiu
It was the Romanian director, Cristian Mungiu, who came away from the south of France with one of cinema’s most prestigious awards, the Palme d’Or, after the two-week stint of the Cannes Film Festival.
The filmmaker won it for his newest film, Fjord, which stars two Oscar-nominated actors, Sebastian Stan (A Different Man, The Apprentice) and Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value, The Worst Person in the World).
Mungiu now joins the prestigious list of just 10 filmmakers who have won two Palme d’Ors, with his first coming in 2007 for his film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
No director has ever won three Palme d’Ors.
The other two-time winners of the award include Francis Ford Coppola, Bille August, Emir Kusturica, Shōhei Imamura, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Michael Haneke, Ken Loach, and Ruben Östlund.
What we know about ‘Fjord’
Despite winning the festival’s highest award, the film has received mixed reactions from critics worldwide.
The synopsis of the film is as follows: After the death of Mihai’s parents, he and his wife, Lisbeth Gheorghiu, leave everything behind and move with their children to a remote village in Norway, nearer to Lisbeth’s family.
Trouble arises for the Gheorghiu’s, as the conservative Christian family faces scrutiny in their new village, which is more progressive than they are.
Awards round-up
Beyond the Palme d’Or, the festival gives out a good number of other prizes to films in the competition line-up.
Russian filmmaker Andreï Zvyagintsev was awarded the Grand Prix prize, the second-highest honour, for his newest film, Minotaur.
The award for best director was split between two films: Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo for their film La Bola Negra (The Black Ball), and Paweł Pawlikowski for his film Fatherland.
Emmanuel Marre was awarded the prize for best screenplay for his film A Man of His Time, and Valeska Grisebach was given the jury prize for her film The Dreamed Adventure.
As for the acting awards, in the best performance for an actress category, the prize was shared between the two actresses in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto.
Similarly, on the actor side of things, the award was shared between Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne in Lukas Dhont’s film, Coward.
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