Cannes 2026 Winners: Cristian Mungiu’s ‘Fjord’ Wins Palme d’Or — Full List

Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu has won the Palme d’Or for the second time, taking Cannes’ top prize with the courtroom drama Fjord as the 79th edition of the festival drew to a close on Saturday night. The jury, headed by Korean director Park Chan-wook, handed Mungiu the award during a ceremony at the Palais des Festivals that also saw a rare tie in the directing category, four performers sharing the acting prizes, and an impassioned political plea from the winner of the Grand Prix.

Mungiu, who first won the Palme in 2007 for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, becomes only the tenth filmmaker in history to claim the award twice. Accepting the prize from presenter Tilda Swinton alongside Fjord stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, the director cemented a moment of festival history. The victory also extends the extraordinary run of U.S. distributor Neon, which has now been behind seven consecutive Palme d’Or winners, a streak that began with Parasite in 2019 and continued through Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall, Anora, It Was Just an Accident and now Fjord.

The Grand Prix, awarded to the runner-up, went to Andrey Zvyagintsev for Minotaur. The Russian director, who now resides in France, used his acceptance speech to issue a direct challenge to Vladimir Putin. “Mr. President of the Russian Federation, please put an end to this bloodshed. The whole world is waiting for you to do so,” Zvyagintsev said from the stage, receiving the prize from Zoe Saldaña. The moment drew one of the night’s longest ovations.

The Jury Prize, widely seen as the festival’s third-place honor, was presented to German filmmaker Valeska Grisebach for The Dreamed Adventure (Das geträumte Abenteuer). Grisebach took the stage with actress Yana Radeva.

In a highly unusual move, both acting categories were split between two performers from two different films. The Best Actor prize was shared by Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne for their performances in Lukas Dhont’s Coward, a Belgian drama in which they play World War I soldiers who fall in love. The Best Actress award went to Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, who spend much of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden (Soudain) locked in lengthy, riveting conversation.

The directing award ended in a tie between two Spanish filmmakers and a celebrated Polish auteur. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi won for The Black Ball, while Paweł Pawlikowski was honored for Fatherland. The screenplay prize went to Emmanuel Marre for A Man of His Time (Notre Salut). Marre surprised the audience by revealing he had thrown out his written script and made the entire film through controlled improvisation.

Rwandan filmmaker Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo took the Camera d’Or for the best first film across all sections of the festival with Ben’Imana. The short film Palme d’Or was awarded to Argentine director Federico Luis for For the Opponents (Para los contrincantes).

This year’s main competition jury, led by Park Chan-wook, also included filmmakers Diego Cespedes, Paul Laverty, Laura Wandel and Chloe Zhao, as well as actors Isaach de Bankole, Demi Moore, Ruth Negga and Stellan Skarsgård. Their choices left several high-profile entries empty-handed, including Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, James Gray’s Paper Tiger, Laszlo Nemes’ Moulin, Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales, Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love, and Arthur Harari’s The Unknown. For Gray, it marked the fifth time a film of his had screened in competition at Cannes without winning an award.

The closing ceremony also featured the presentation of an Honorary Palme d’Or to Barbra Streisand. The actress and director, originally expected to attend in person, canceled her trip on doctors’ advice while recovering from a knee injury. Isabelle Huppert delivered a tribute before Streisand gave her acceptance speech via video.

Full list of winners at the 79th Cannes Film Festival:

Palme d’Or (In Competition)

This is the main slate of 21 feature films that competed for the festival’s top prize.

Un Certain Regard

This sidebar section spotlights emerging filmmakers and includes 18 feature films.

Short Film Palme d’Or (In Competition)

Ten short films from 136 countries were selected to compete for the Short Film Palme d’Or.

Camera d’Or (Best First Feature)

This award is for the best debut feature film across all festival sections. This year, 29 films were eligible.