Founded in 1939, the Cannes Film Festival has a long and distinguished track record of spotlighting landmark works of cinema with its highest honor, the Palme d’Or.

The festival is an important showcase for European film and an international launch pad for award-winning movies. Among the most recent examples is 2024's Anora which won the Palme d’Or before going on to win the Best Picture Oscar the following year. Neon, which distributed Sean Baker's record Oscar-winning film, also hit the mark with the Cannes prize and Best Picture with Bong Joon Ho's Parasite (2019).

Other prominent pictures to win the festival's top prize include Anatomy of a Fall, Triangle of Sadness, The Third Man, The Wages of Fear, Black Orpheus, La Dolce Vita, Blowup, MASH, The Conversation, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Barton Fink, The Piano, Pulp Fiction and Dancer in the Dark.

In addition to Cannes' artistic appeal, its Marché du Film is also the world's most important film markets. The festival is usually held each year in May.