Iranian revenge thriller It Was Just an Accident wins Palme d'Or at Cannes

The Associated Press

· Posted: May 24, 2025 1:54 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi's revenge thriller It Was Just an Accident  won the Palme d'Or astatine the Cannes Film Festival connected Saturday, handing the festival's apical prize to a manager who had been banned from leaving Iran for much than 15 years. 

Cate Blanchett presented the grant to Panahi, who 3 years agone was imprisoned successful Iran earlier going connected a hunger strike. The assemblage roseate successful a thunderous lasting ovation for the filmmaker. 

The triumph for It Was Just an Accident extends 1 of the astir unprecedented streaks successful movies: the indie distributor Neon has backed the past six Palme d'Or winners. Neon, which acquired It Was Just an Accident for North American organisation aft its premiere successful Cannes, follows its Palmes for Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall and Anora. 

The Cannes closing ceremonial followed a large powerfulness outage that struck southeastern France connected Saturday successful what constabulary suspected was arson. Only a fewer hours earlier stars began streaming down the reddish carpet, powerfulness was restored successful Cannes.

The Grand Prix, oregon 2nd prize, was awarded to Joachim Trier's Norwegian household play Sentimental Value, his lauded follow-up to The Worst Person successful the World.

Kleber Mendonça Filho's Brazilian governmental thriller The Secret Agent won 2 large awards: champion manager for Fihlo and champion histrion for Wagner Moura.

The assemblage prize was divided betwixt 2 films: Óliver Laxe's godforsaken roadworthy trip Sirat and Mascha Schilinski's German, generation-spanning play Sound of Falling.

Best histrion went to Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister, Hafsia Herzi's French coming-of-age drama.

The Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes won champion screenplay for their latest drama, Young Mothers. The Dardennes are two-time Palme d'Or winners.

LISTEN | The champion films and biggest flops astatine Cannes 2025: 

The grant for champion archetypal movie went to Hasan Hadi for The President's Cake, making it the archetypal Iraqi movie to triumph an grant astatine the festival.

Saturday's ceremonial brings to a adjacent a 78th Cannes Film Festival, wherever geopolitics formed a agelong shadow both connected surface and off. Shortly earlier the French Riviera extravaganza, which is besides the world's largest movie market, U.S. President Donald Trump floated the thought of a 100 per cent tariff connected movies made overseas.

Most filmmakers responded with a shrug, calling the program illogical. "Can you clasp up the movie successful customs? It doesn't vessel that way," said Wes Anderson, who premiered his latest, The Phoenician Scheme, astatine the festival.

That was 1 of the apical American films successful Cannes, on with Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest, the Christopher McQuarrie-Tom Cruise actioner Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning and Ari Aster's Eddington.