It's time to end the Cannes at Home project. Hopefully, these daily posts haven't been a bore. For me, as a writer and film lover, they've been a blast, a sparkling antidote to Cannes-induced FOMO. Thank you so much for reading along. Finally, to end on something special, I decided to rank all Palme d'Or winners from 1949 to 2019, eighty winners in all. For brevity's sake and because it's my birthday and I don't want to dwell on negativity, this write-up is only focused on the top ten, my absolute favorites of the bunch. If you're interested, the complete ranking's on my Letterboxd or you can read an old version of it on the Portuguese website Magazine.HD. And now, without further ado, here are my choices for the best Palme d'Or winners of all time…
10) PARASITE (2019) Bong Joon-Ho
One of the best Oscar champions to conquer AMPAS' biggest prize, the first non-English Best Picture winner, also happens to be one of the greatest films to be rewarded with the top honor at the Croisette. This uncategorizable masterpiece is undeniable, an intersection of sublime technique and savage social commentary, sagacious set design, and unimprovable acting. Not even the Academy could resist. Indeed, the magnetism it exudes is mind-bending. When I was unsure if movies would ever move me to tears again, Parasite did. All it took was a perfect montage and some nifty peach fuzz. Thank you for rekindling the flame of my hope.
Streaming on Hulu and Kanopy. You can also rent it on most services.
09) THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS (1978) Ermanno Olmi
Looking like a Millet painting come to life, Olmi's The Tree of Wooden Clogs concerns the life of 19th-century peasants in the Italian region of Bergamo, Lombardy. While its three-plus hours may intimidate a prospective viewer, this immersion into the historical past is a besotting work. Structured through a collection of short scenes mostly framed in wide shots, there's a sense of quickness to The Tree of Wooden Clogs' seasonal storytelling, lives changing as trees change their foliage. It's cinematic poetry, a hymn for the working class, as simple as it is beautiful.
Streaming on The Criterion Channel. You can also rent it on many platforms.
08) THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964) Jacques Demy
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg I see today isn't the same film I saw in college or high school. It's not that Demy's lush musical has changed, but that I have. Growing along with it, one finds new reasons to love the Technicolor melancholia, discovering new meanings along the way. Some of the best films have these mysterious properties, making a snowy farewell tragic one year, a pragmatic conclusion the next. Wait a bit of time, and the tragedy is back, though not the same sort that might have come through in teenaged years. It's the tragedy of growing up and out of young love. It's a process made of equal parts jubilation and yearning for what is lost in an adult's memory of youth.
Streaming on HBO Max, the Criterion Channel, and Kanopy. You can also rent it on some platforms.
07) THE TREE OF LIFE (2011) Terrence Malick
An epiphany, an explosion of euphoria, pure ecstasy – such are words one could use to describe the majesty of Malick's The Tree of Life. From the Big Bang to the end of days, the film feels like it contains the entire universe within its celluloid dream. Emmanuel Lubezki has never shot a more breathtaking movie, one where an abstract flame can be both the beginning of everything that has ever existed and just the start of a single life. In this temple of cinema, those concepts can live in communion, so intertwined that it's impossible to know where one ends and the other starts.
Available to rent on several platforms.
06) ALL THAT JAZZ (1979) Bob Fosse
The curtains rise, the stage is set, the lights shine bright – It's showtime! As the spectacle is about to start, Angels of Death beckon to their warm bosom, neglected daughters perform accusations as Burlesque, and old lovers dance up a storm of furious grief. Nearly predicting his end, Bob Fosse reshapes Fellini's ideas of a cineaste's autobiography into a sing-song hyper-choreographed self-portrait complete with jazz hands and spangles as far as the eye can see. Cruel vivisection of the artist by his own hand, All That Jazz is a glorious distillation of all things Fosse.
You can find All That Jazz on Blu-Ray and DVD. The film even has a Criterion edition.
05) THE LEOPARD (1963) Luchino Visconti
An epic mural about dying aristocracy, The Leopard could have only been directed by Luchino Visconti. A nobleman communist, the director presents the necessary end of an era while also showing empathy, even sympathy, to those who must now confront their obsolescence. He understands their pain while celebrating their downfall. This museum-like recreation of 19th century Italy is immersive in its material detail and lively ideals, but the camera always knows when to maintain the distance. As much as it is about the people on screen, The Leopard is the ultimate cinematic representation of historical movements, their unstoppable nature, and the miracle of progress.
Streaming on the Criterion Channel. You can also rent it on many platforms.
04) THE CONVERSATION (1974) Francis Ford Coppola
The 70s were a decade defined by paranoia, on and off the screen. Many of the essential films of New Hollywood Cinema are works dominated by that idea, by an ever-present unease, a suspicion that's marrow-deep. Coppola plays with POVs and the unknowability of what is hidden by the frame's limits by working with audiovisual idioms to create this inchoate mood. The Conversation is a wondrous hallucination of thriller filmmaking, an era-defining experience where subjectivity is centered so vehemently that human perception itself becomes the primal source of unrest. It also features the best performance in Gene Hackman's career, which is a big plus.
Streaming on Hulu, Paramount+, Epix, and Sling TV. You can also rent it on various platforms.
03) THE THIRD MAN (1949) Carol Reed
If the 1970s were the decade of paranoia, the latter half of the 40s were an age of nihilism. Reeling from the immediate trauma of World War II and the Holocaust, filmmakers worldwide explored the darkest depths of the human soul, perfecting the film noir as the perfect genre of its time. Set in the smoldering ruins of Vienna and shot like a shattering chiaroscuro nightmare, The Third Man is one of the most hopeless titles of this cinematic tradition. But, perchance because of that, it's also a haunting film. Long after the screen has faded to black, visions of spiritual rot persist in the mind. The Third Man is thus like a glistening dark diamond of evil crystallized.
Streaming on the Criterion Channel and IndieFlix. You can also rent it on many platforms.
02) VIRIDIANA (1961) Luis Buñuel
There are audacious filmmakers, and then there is Luis Buñuel. Viridiana, a film he directed during a brief visit to Franco's Spain in the early 1960s, is the most outrageous of his works, spitting on the face of the dictator with feverish delight. Furthermore, it's a jovial attack on the Catholic Church, and its hypocrisies, their support of fascistic oppression materialized in the figure of an aristocrat who wants to molest his nun niece. There's also a profanation of the Last Supper iconography and much more. Finally, Viridiana is a carnivalesque pageant of provocations, all of them presented with such feral angry conviction we have no choice but to applaud.
Streaming on the Criterion Channel and Kanopy. You can also rent it on Apple iTunes and Amazon Video.
1) THE PIANO (1993) Jane Campion
The first woman ever to win the Palme d'Or is also, in my opinion, the greatest victor in the award's history. Campion is my champion, a formidable cineaste whose work is constructed out of a negative gesture. She defines stories by what we don't see, what's denied, both by the camera and characters. Yet, paradoxically, hers is a cinema of viscerally detailed imagery. Erotic, sensual, alternatively brutal and delicate, her shots are so textured they feel tactile, gorgeous but never postcard-ready. As for The Piano, it's the director's top achievement, the kind of life-changing picture that can reframe how someone sees and appreciates art, how they regard the world, and understand themselves. It's the kind of thing that, by its mere existence, justifies cinema's purpose, its longevity, and, one hopes, its immortality.
Available to rent on Amazon Video, Vudu, Redbox, Apple iTunes, and AMC On Demand.
What films make up your Palme d'Or top 10? Would you please share the answer in the comments?