Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director

Best Director Award
Best Director Award
Prix de la mise en scène (French)
	The 2025 recipient: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Awarded for	Best Achievement in Direction
Country	France
Presented by	Cannes Film Festival
First award	1946
Currently held by	Kleber Mendonça Filho ; The Secret Agent (2025)
Website	www.festival-cannes.com/en/

The Best Director Award (French: Prix de la mise en scène) is an award presented annually at the Cannes Film Festival since 1946. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition slate at the festival.

At the 1st Cannes Film Festival held in 1946, René Clément was the first winner of this award for his work on The Battle of the Rails, and Kleber Mendonça Filho is the most recent winner in this category for his work on The Secret Agent at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in 2025.

History

The award was first presented in 1946. The prize was not awarded on 12 occasions (1947, 1953–54, 1960, 1962–64, 1971, 1973–74, 1977, and 1980).

The festival was not held at all in 1948, 1950, and 2020. In 1968, no awards were given as the festival was called off mid-way due to the May 1968 events in France.

Also, the jury vote was tied, and the prize was shared by two directors on seven occasions (1955, 1969, 1975, 1983, 2001–02, and 2016). Joel Coen of the Coen brothers has received the most awards in this category, with three. One directing team has shared the award: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne for Young Ahmed (2019). Yuliya Solntseva became the first woman to win the award, for Chronicle of Flaming Years (1961).

The winner of the Best Director Award rarely wins the Palme d'Or, the main prize given at the festival, which is also awarded to the director of the winning film. This happened only twice: Joel Coen won both awards for Barton Fink in 1991;^[1] and Gus Van Sant won for Elephant in 2003.^[2]

Winners

Ingmar Bergman won for Brink of Life (1958)

Terrence Malick won for Days of Heaven (1978)

Werner Herzog won for Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Martin Scorsese won for After Hours (1986)

Robert Altman won for The Player (1992)

Mike Leigh won for Naked (1993)

Joel Coen won for Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

David Lynch won for Mulholland Drive (2001)

Paul Thomas Anderson won for Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Michael Haneke won for Caché (2005)

Sofia Coppola won for The Beguiled (2017)

1940s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
1946	René Clément	The Battle of the Rails	La Bataille du rail
1949	René Clément	The Walls of Malapaga	Au-delà des grilles

1950s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
1951	/ Luis Buñuel	Los Olvidados
1952	Christian Jaque	Fanfan la Tulipe
1955	Jules Dassin	Rififi	Du rififi chez les hommes
1955	Sergei Vasilyev	Heroes of Shipka	Герои Шипки
1956	Sergei Yutkevich	Othello	Отелло
1957	Robert Bresson	A Man Escaped	Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut
1958	Ingmar Bergman	Brink of Life	Nära livet
1959	François Truffaut	The 400 Blows	Les Quatre Cents Coups

1960s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
1961	Yuliya Solntseva	Chronicle of Flaming Years	Повесть пламенных лет
1965	Liviu Ciulei	Forest of the Hanged	Pădurea spânzuraților
1966	Sergei Yutkevich	Lenin in Poland	Ленин в Польше
1967	Ferenc Kósa	Ten Thousand Days	Tízezer nap
1969	Glauber Rocha	Antonio das Mortes	O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro
1969	Vojtěch Jasný	All My Compatriots	Všichni dobří rodáci

1970s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
1970	John Boorman	Leo the Last
1972	Miklós Jancsó	Red Psalm	Még kér a nép
1975	Michel Brault	Orders	Les Ordres
1975	/ Costa-Gavras	Special Section	Section spéciale
1976	Ettore Scola	Down and Dirty	Brutti, sporchi e cattivi
1978	Nagisa Ōshima	Empire of Passion	愛の亡霊
1979	Terrence Malick	Days of Heaven

1980s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
1982	Werner Herzog	Fitzcarraldo
1983	Robert Bresson	L'Argent
1983	Andrei Tarkovsky	Nostalghia
1984	Bertrand Tavernier	A Sunday in the Country	Un dimanche à la campagne
1985	André Téchiné	Rendez-vous
1986	Martin Scorsese	After Hours
1987	Wim Wenders	Wings of Desire	Der Himmel über Berlin
1988	Fernando Solanas	Sur
1989	Emir Kusturica	Time of the Gypsies	Дом за вешање

1990s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
1990	Pavel Lungin	Taxi Blues	Такси-блюз
1991	Joel Coen	Barton Fink
1992	Robert Altman	The Player
1993	Mike Leigh	Naked
1994	Nanni Moretti	Caro diario
1995	Mathieu Kassovitz	La Haine
1996	Joel Coen	Fargo
1997	Wong Kar-wai	Happy Together	春光乍洩
1998	John Boorman	The General
1999	Pedro Almodóvar	All About My Mother	Todo sobre mi madre

2000s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
2000	Edward Yang	Yi Yi	一一
2001	Joel Coen	The Man Who Wasn't There
2001	David Lynch	Mulholland Drive
2002	Paul Thomas Anderson	Punch-Drunk Love
2002	Im Kwon-taek	Chi-hwa-seon	취화선
2003	Gus Van Sant	Elephant
2004	Tony Gatlif	Exils
2005	/ Michael Haneke	Caché
2006	Alejandro González Iñárritu	Babel
2007	Julian Schnabel	The Diving Bell and the Butterfly	Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
2008	Nuri Bilge Ceylan	Three Monkeys	Üç Maymun
2009	Brillante Mendoza	Butchered	Kinatay

2010s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title
2010	Mathieu Amalric	On Tour	Tournée
2011	Nicolas Winding Refn	Drive
2012	Carlos Reygadas	Post Tenebras Lux
2013	Amat Escalante	Heli
2014	Bennett Miller	Foxcatcher
2015	Hou Hsiao-hsien	The Assassin	刺客聶隱娘
2016	Olivier Assayas	Personal Shopper^[3]
2016	Cristian Mungiu	Graduation^[3]	Bacalaureat
2017	Sofia Coppola	The Beguiled^[4]
2018	Paweł Pawlikowski	Cold War	Zimna wojna
2019	Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne	Young Ahmed	Le Jeune Ahmed

2020s

Year	Director	English Title	Original Title	Ref.
2021	Leos Carax	Annette		^[5]
2022	Park Chan-wook	Decision to Leave	헤어질 결심	^[6]
2023	/ Tran Anh Hung	The Taste of Things	La Passion de Dodin Bouffant	^[7]
2024	Miguel Gomes	Grand Tour
2025	Kleber Mendonça Filho	The Secret Agent	O Agente Secreto	^[8]

Multiple winners

The following individuals received two or more Best Director awards:

Number of Wins	Directors	Nationality	Films
3	Joel Coen	United States	Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
2	René Clément	France	The Battle of the Rails (1946), The Walls of Malapaga (1949)
	Robert Bresson	France	A Man Escaped (1957), L'Argent (1983)
	Sergei Yutkevich	Soviet Union	Othello (1956), Lenin in Poland (1966)
	John Boorman	United Kingdom	Leo the Last (1970), The General (1998)

References

^ Coen brothers to jointly head Cannes jury - BBC News
^ CANNES FILM FESTIVAL; Van Sant's 'Elephant' Receives Palme d'Or - New York Times
^ ^a ^b Who Won and Who Lost at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival|Vogue
^ Cannes 2017: Sofia Coppola Wins Best Director and Makes History|IndieWire
^ Cannes Film Festival 2021: The List Of Winners - Forbes
^ Tartaglione, Nancy (28 May 2022). "Cannes Film Festival Winners Announced – Live". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
^ Tartaglione, Nancy (28 May 2022). "Cannes Film Festival Winners Announced – Live". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
^ "Filme brasileiro 'O Agente Secreto' vence dois prêmios no Festival de Cannes". Veja (in Portuguese). Retrieved 24 May 2025.

External links

[1] Coen brothers to jointly head Cannes jury - BBC News

[2] CANNES FILM FESTIVAL; Van Sant's 'Elephant' Receives Palme d'Or - New York Times

[:0-3] Who Won and Who Lost at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival|Vogue

[4] Cannes 2017: Sofia Coppola Wins Best Director and Makes History|IndieWire

[5] Cannes Film Festival 2021: The List Of Winners - Forbes

[6] Tartaglione, Nancy (28 May 2022). "Cannes Film Festival Winners Announced – Live". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 28 May 2022.

[7] Tartaglione, Nancy (28 May 2022). "Cannes Film Festival Winners Announced – Live". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 28 May 2022.

[8] "Filme brasileiro 'O Agente Secreto' vence dois prêmios no Festival de Cannes". Veja (in Portuguese). Retrieved 24 May 2025.

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