Sean Baker’s “Anora” has won the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, a jury headed by Greta Gerwig announced on Saturday.
The win for Baker’s freewheeling film about a stripper and the son of a Russian oligarch becomes the fifth consecutive Palme winner to be distributed by Neon, which previously handled “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Triangle of Sadness,” “Titane” and “Parasite.”
TheWrap’s review said of the film, “It’s one of the most entertaining movies to play in Cannes this year, and also one of the most confounding: part character study of the title character (Mikey Madison), a sex worker from Brighton Beach who falls for rich Russian playboy Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn); part look into the world of the super-rich, an arena Baker has studiously avoided in films like ‘Tangerine,’ ‘The Florida Project’ and ‘Red Rocket’; part escalating nightmare comedy reminiscent of ’80s gems like ‘After Hours’ and ‘Married to the Mob.’ It swings wildly back and forth while also hanging onto its heart, and it’s just too much fun to worry about how much Baker is cramming into its two hours and 18 minutes.”
In his acceptance speech, Baker dedicated the award “to all sex workers, past, present and future.”
The Grand Prix, the runner-up award to the Palme d’Or, went to “All We Imagine as Light” by Payal Kapadia, the first Indian filmmaker to compete for the Palme in three decades.
Miguel Gomes was named the festival’s best director for “Grand Tour.”
Rather than a single award for best actress, the jury announced a group award for four actresses from Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical “Emilia Perez”: Adriana Paz, Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez. The win made Sofia Gascon the first trans actress to win the award at Cannes.
“Emilia Perez” also won the Jury Prize, which is essentially the third-place award.
Jesse Plemons won the best actor award for playing three different roles in Yorgos Lanthimos’ twisted anthology film “Kinds of Kindness.”
The screenplay award went to “The Substance” by Coralie Fargeat. A special award for screenplay went to Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof for “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which he premiered after fleeing imprisonment in Iran for making the film.
Halfdan Ullman Tondel, the grandson of actress Liv Ullman and director Ingmar Bergman, won the Camera d’Or for the festival’s best first film for “Armand.”
Gerwig’s jury also included directors J.A. Bayona, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Nadine Labaki and actors Lily Gladstone and Eva Green. It was the fourth Cannes jury in the last 10 years, and the seventh in the last 25, on which women outnumbered men.
Other films in competition included Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada,” Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” and David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds.”
Three of the last four winners of the Palme d’Or — “Anatomy of a Fall” last year, “Triangle of Sadness” in 2022 and “Parasite” in 2019 — went on to receive Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, with “Parasite” becoming the first film to win both awards since “Marty” in 1955.
Also at the ceremony, George Lucas was presented with an Honorary Palme d’Or by Francis Ford Coppola.
Other Cannes awards, including the top prizes in the Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sections, can be found here.
The winners:
Palme d’Or: “Anora,” Sean Baker
Grand Prix: “All We Imagine as Light,” Payal Kapadia.
Jury Prize: “Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard
Best Director: Miguel Gomes, “Grand Tour”
Best Actor: Jesse Plemons, “Kinds of Kindness”
Best Actress: Adriana Paz, Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez, “Emilia Perez”
Best Screenplay: “The Substance,” Coralie Fargeat
Special Award for Best Screenplay: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof
Camera d’Or (Best First Film): “Armand,” Halfdan Ullman Tondel
Short Film Palme d’Or: “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent,” Nebojsa Slijepcevic
Short Film Special Mention: “Bad for a Moment,” Daniel Soares
