The Cannes Film Festival had a strong showing at last night’s Academy Awards, with four movies that debuted on the Croisette taking home nine gold statuettes, a recent record for the festival. A Cannes movie won in 40% of categories.
The charge was led by Palme d’Or winner Anora, which won five Oscars, including the coveted Best Picture alongside Director, Screenplay, Actress, and Editing. Sean Baker — a true indie multi-hyphenate — served as director, producer, writer, and co-editor on the film, and last night he became the first person to win four Oscars for one feature.
Anora is only the fourth Palme winner to also take Best Picture. The last film to clinch the double was Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, which was also released stateside by Neon. The other two films to take the top award at Cannes and the Oscars are The Lost Weekend (1945) and Marty (1955).
Elsewhere, the Latvian animated film Flow won Best Animated Feature. The film debuted in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it was only the second Latvian film to screen in any of the Cannes competitions. It was the first Latvian film to win an Oscar.
After a series of damaging controversies, former awards frontrunner Emilia Perez — which had a whopping 13 nominations, a record for a foreign-language film — managed two wins, including Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña and Original Song with El Mal. And Cannes competition title The Substance won the Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar.
Eight films from the Cannes Official Selection made this year’s Oscars shortlist. Those films spanned 17 categories and totalled a record 31 nominations. The nine total wins is at least a recent record, the festival has confirmed to us, and may even be an all-time record. We’ll need more time to dig through that one.
The internationalisation of the awards season has been on full display in recent years, both in terms of foreign language movie success, voter makeup and the providence of these films. Venice also had a strong showing this season with a host of Academy nominees and five total Oscar wins on the night, including for three-time winner The Brutalist and Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here.
