The 55 Most Celebrated Directors in Cannes Film Festival History

Multiple Palme d'Or laureates, jury presidents, and boundary-pushing provocateurs have shaped the Croisette's legacy across eight decades. Who is the festival's greatest champion?

1. 1
   Francis Ford Coppola

   Two-time Palme d'Or winner for The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979), cementing his status as cinema's gold standard.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Ken Loach

   Record-holding British social realist with 16 Cannes features and two Palmes d'Or for The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake.
   959pts
3. 3
   Claude Lelouch

   French director who won the 1966 Palme d'Or for A Man and a Woman, one of the festival's most popular romantic winners.
   675pts
4. 4
   Costa-Gavras

   Greek-French director of political thrillers who won the 1982 Palme d'Or for Missing and Best Director for Special Section in 1975.
   675pts
5. 5
   Francesco Rosi

   Italian director of political cinema who shared the 1972 Palme d'Or for The Mattei Affair.
   639pts
6. 6
   Robert Altman

   American maverick who won the 1970 Grand Prix for M*A*S*H and Best Director for The Player in 1992.
   598pts
7. 7
   Michelangelo Antonioni

   Italian modernist who won the Jury Prize for L'Avventura in 1960 despite boos at its premiere and later took the Palme d'Or for Blowup in 1967.
   598pts
8. 8
   Vittorio De Sica

   Italian neorealist who won the Grand Prix for Miracle in Milan in 1951 after his earlier classics had redefined post-war cinema.
   553pts
9. 9
   Martin Scorsese

   The New Hollywood titan who won the Palme for Taxi Driver in 1976 and remains one of Cannes' most celebrated returning guests.
   553pts
10. 10
    Andrzej Wajda

    Polish master who won the 1981 Palme d'Or for Man of Iron, a film about the Solidarity movement released months before martial law.
    553pts
11. 11
    Michael Haneke

    Austrian auteur and back-to-back Palme winner for The White Ribbon (2009) and Love (2012), known for ice-cold psychological precision.
    553pts
12. 12
    Ingmar Bergman

    Swedish giant whose films won repeatedly at Cannes, including the Jury Prize for The Seventh Seal, before he received the one-off Palme des Palmes in 1997.
    501pts
13. 13
    Julia Ducournau

    French director who won the 2021 Palme d'Or for the body-horror thriller Titane, becoming only the second woman to take the top prize.
    501pts
14. 14
    Shohei Imamura

    Japanese master who won the Palme d'Or twice, for The Ballad of Narayama in 1983 and The Eel in 1997.
    501pts
15. 15
    Chen Kaige

    Chinese Fifth Generation director whose Farewell My Concubine shared the 1993 Palme d'Or, still the only Chinese-language film to win it.
    501pts
16. 16
    Nanni Moretti

    Italian director who won Best Director for Dear Diary in 1994 and the Palme d'Or for The Son's Room in 2001.
    501pts
17. 17
    Alf Sjöberg

    Swedish director whose Torment shared the 1946 Grand Prix and whose Miss Julie took the top prize in 1951, making him Cannes' first double winner.
    442pts
18. 18
    Nuri Bilge Ceylan

    Turkish director who won the 2014 Palme d'Or for Winter Sleep after two Grand Prix wins and a Best Director prize at the festival.
    442pts
19. 19
    Federico Fellini

    Italian visionary who won the Palme d'Or in 1960 for La Dolce Vita, the film that turned Cannes into the stage for European art cinema.
    442pts
20. 20
    Akira Kurosawa

    Japanese master who shared the 1980 Palme d'Or for Kagemusha, the samurai epic made with backing from Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
    442pts
21. 21
    Steven Soderbergh

    American director who won the 1989 Palme d'Or at 26 for his debut sex, lies, and videotape, becoming the youngest solo winner in the festival's history.
    442pts
22. 22
    Carol Reed

    British director who won the Grand Prix at the 1949 festival for The Third Man, the noir set in the ruins of post-war Vienna.
    442pts
23. 23
    Wim Wenders

    German director who won the 1984 Palme d'Or for Paris, Texas and Best Director for Wings of Desire in 1987.
    374pts
24. 24
    Roman Polanski

    Palme d'Or winner for The Pianist (2002) whose Cannes career spans decades and remains one of the festival's most complex legacies.
    374pts
25. 25
    Abdellatif Kechiche

    French-Tunisian director whose Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the 2013 Palme d'Or, shared in a rare move with its two lead actresses.
    374pts
26. 26
    Quentin Tarantino

    The American maverick who won the Palme d'Or for Pulp Fiction in 1994, one of the most controversial and beloved Cannes decisions ever.
    374pts
27. 27
    Volker Schlöndorff

    German director who shared the 1979 Palme d'Or for The Tin Drum, the Günter Grass adaptation that also won the Oscar.
    374pts
28. 28
    The Coen Brothers

    American duo Joel and Ethan Coen, whose Barton Fink won the Palme d'Or, Best Director and Best Actor in 1991, a triple never repeated.
    374pts
29. 29
    Theo Angelopoulos

    Greek master who won the 1998 Palme d'Or for Eternity and a Day after the Grand Prix for Ulysses' Gaze in 1995.
    374pts
30. 30
    Hirokazu Kore-eda

    Japanese humanist who won the 2018 Palme d'Or for Shoplifters after earlier Jury Prize success with Like Father, Like Son.
    374pts
31. 31
    Wong Kar-wai

    The Hong Kong romantic visionary who won Best Director for Happy Together (1997) and later presided over the Cannes jury.
    374pts
32. 32
    Andrei Tarkovsky

    Soviet poet of cinema whose Solaris, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice each won a jury Grand Prix at Cannes, the festival's second-highest honour.
    374pts
33. 33
    David Lynch

    American surrealist who won the 1990 Palme d'Or for Wild at Heart and Best Director for Mulholland Drive in 2001.
    374pts
34. 34
    Terrence Malick

    The reclusive American visionary who won the Palme for The Tree of Life (2011) with his breathtaking, impressionistic cinema.
    374pts
35. 35
    Laurent Cantet

    French director who won the 2008 Palme d'Or for The Class, ending a 21-year wait for a French winner.
    374pts
36. 36
    Bong Joon-ho

    South Korean director who won the 2019 Palme d'Or for Parasite, the first Korean film to win, before it went on to take the Oscar for Best Picture.
    374pts
37. 37
    Jane Campion

    The first woman to win the Palme d'Or solo, for The Piano in 1993, and later president of the Cannes jury.
    295pts
38. 38
    The Dardenne Brothers

    Belgian duo Jean-Pierre and Luc who won the Palme for Rosetta (1999) and The Child (2005) with their urgent, humanist style.
    295pts
39. 39
    Mike Leigh

    British director who won the 1996 Palme d'Or for Secrets & Lies and Best Director for Naked three years earlier.
    295pts
40. 40
    Jacques Audiard

    French director who won the 2015 Palme d'Or for Dheepan, the Grand Prix for A Prophet and the 2024 Jury Prize for Emilia Pérez.
    295pts
41. 41
    Jafar Panahi

    Iranian director who won the 2025 Palme d'Or for It Was Just an Accident, years after being banned from filmmaking by his government.
    295pts
42. 42
    Apichatpong Weerasethakul

    Thai director who won the 2010 Palme d'Or for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, plus two Jury Prizes at the festival.
    295pts
43. 43
    Ruben Östlund

    Swedish satirist and consecutive Palme winner for The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022), skewering class and privilege.
    295pts
44. 44
    Gus Van Sant

    American director who won both the Palme d'Or and Best Director in 2003 for Elephant, his film about a high-school shooting.
    295pts
45. 45
    Bille August

    Danish director who won back-to-back Palmes d'Or within four years, for Pelle the Conqueror in 1988 and The Best Intentions in 1992.
    201pts
46. 46
    Cristian Mungiu

    Romanian director who won the Palme d'Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in 2007 and again for Fjord in 2026, joining Cannes' two-time winners.
    201pts
47. 47
    Abbas Kiarostami

    Iranian master who won the Palme for Taste of Cherry (1997), bringing poetic, minimalist filmmaking to global attention.
    201pts
48. 48
    Sean Baker

    American independent filmmaker who won the 2024 Palme d'Or for Anora, which went on to sweep the major Academy Awards.
    201pts
49. 49
    Emir Kusturica

    Serbian provocateur who won the Palme twice — for When Father Was Away on Business (1985) and Underground (1995).
    201pts
50. 50
    Pedro Almodóvar

    Spain's most celebrated auteur, a multiple Cannes prize winner whose vivid melodramas have dazzled the Croisette for four decades.
    201pts
51. 51
    Luis Buñuel

    Spanish surrealist who won the Palme d'Or for Viridiana in 1961 and Best Director for Los Olvidados a decade earlier, scandalising the Vatican along the way.
    201pts
52. 52
    Justine Triet

    French director who won the 2023 Palme d'Or for Anatomy of a Fall, the third woman to win the festival's top prize.
    201pts
53. 53
    Jacques Demy

    French director who won the 1964 Palme d'Or for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the all-sung musical starring Catherine Deneuve.
    201pts
54. 54
    Henri-Georges Clouzot

    French master of suspense who won the top prize in 1953 for The Wages of Fear, which also took Best Actor for Charles Vanel.
    201pts
55. 55
    Lars von Trier

    The provocative Danish director and Cannes lightning rod, whose films Dancer in the Dark and Melancholia won major awards at the festival.
    0pts

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