Cannes 2024: Are Oscars next for ‘Anora,’ ‘All We Imagine as Light,’ Jesse Plemons, Karla Sofía Gascón…?

Charles Bright
·8 min read

The 2024 Cannes Film Festival concluded on Saturday, May 25 following two weeks packed with screenings, stars, press and parties. With the prizes having been handed out for the festival’s 77th anniversary, we can now start looking at what contenders might be in the best spot to get into the upcoming Oscar race. Let’s examine the winners from this year’s festival and see the history that each category has when it comes to the Oscars.

In recent years, we’ve seen the festival serve as a huge springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. Three of the last four winners of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, have nabbed Best Picture nominations: “Parasite” (2019), “Triangle of Sadness” (2022) and “Anatomy of a Fall” (2023). Other big winners at recent festivals that became big Oscar players include “Drive My Car,” “The Zone of Interest” and “BlacKkKlansman.” This year’s jury was led by Oscar nominated writer and director Greta Gerwig and included such talents as Lily Gladstone, Eva Green, Nadine Labaki and previous Palme winner Hirokazu Kore-eda.

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The 2024 Palme d’Or went to American director Sean Baker for Neon’s “Anora.” The comedy-drama centers on a Brooklyn stripper (Mikey Madison) who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Baker is the 15th American to claim the trophy and the first to win in 13 years. He joins Delbert Mann (“Marty”), William Wyler (“Friendly Persuasion”), Robert Altman (“M*A*S*H”), Jerry Schatzberg (“Scarecrow”), Francis Ford Coppola (“The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now”), Martin Scorsese (“Taxi Driver”), Bob Fosse (“All That Jazz”), Steven Soderbergh (“Sex, Lies, and Videotape”), David Lynch (“Wild at Heart”), Joel Coen (“Barton Fink”), Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”), Gus Van Sant (“Elephant”), Michael Moore (“Fahrenheit 9/11”) and Terrence Malick (“The Tree of Life”)

Since the honor was established in 1955, 42 winners of this prize have amassed 143 Academy Award nominations. Eighteen of these have claimed a combined 33 Oscars. Five years ago, “Parasite” won both the Palme and Best Picture Oscar, making it the first film to do so since “Marty” pulled off this double play in 1955. That character study was the first of the 18 Palme d’Or champs to reap a Best Picture bid, followed by “Friendly Persuasion” (1957), “M*A*S*H” (1970), “The Conversation” (1974), “Taxi Driver” (1976), “Apocalypse Now” (1979), “All That Jazz” (1979), “Missing” (1982), “The Mission” (1986), “The Piano” (1993), “Pulp Fiction” (1994), “Secrets and Lies” (1996), “The Pianist” (2002), “The Tree of Life” (2011), “Amour” (2012), “Parasite” (2019), “Triangle of Sadness” (2022) and “Anatomy of a Fall” (2023).

The Grand Prix was awarded to the Indian road-trip drama “All We Imagine as Light” from Payal Kapadia. Kapadia made history as the first Indian female filmmaker to compete in the main competition. It was also India’s first time in the main competition in 30 years.

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Seventeen Grand Prix winners have earned 35 total Oscar nominations, with seven films scoring ten wins. Last year’s winner, “The Zone of Interest” by Jonathan Glazer, earned five nominations including Best Picture, and won two trophies (International Feature and Sound). Five of the other six — “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion” from Italy (1970); “Cinema Paradiso” from Italy (1989); “Burnt by the Sun” from Russia (1994); “Life is Beautiful” from Italy (1998); and “Son of Saul” from Hungary (2015) — won Best International Film. “Life is Beautiful” also won Best Actor and Best Original Dramatic Score. The 2018 winner of the Grand Prix, “BlacKkKlansman,” won Best Adapted Screenplay for Spike Lee.

The Jury Prize went to Jacques Audiard for his Spanish-language crime-comedy-musical “Emilia Pérez.” The film is about the leader of a dangerous cartel who seeks to retire and disappear by transitioning into becoming the woman the leader has always secretly identified as. The films that have won here don’t correlate as much to the Oscars, but 14 films that have won the Jury Prize have amassed 39 Oscar nominations and nine wins. Among these victories were one for Best Picture (“All About Eve,” which played at Cannes in 1951, the year after its Oscar romp) and two for Best International Film (“Mon Oncle” in 1958 from France and “Z” in 1969 from Algeria).

“Emilia Pérez” also won the Best Actress statue in a slight twist on how the award is usually handed out. The honor was presented to the female ensemble from the film. The ensemble was led by trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón who accepted the award on behalf of her and her cast mates Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz.

This was not a first for this category. The prize has been handed to multiple women from the same film four previous times: “A Big Family” (1955), “Brink of Life” (1958), “A World Apart” (1988) and “Volver” (2006). Twenty past Cannes champs for Best Actress received nominations from the academy, and four won: Simone Signoret for “Room at the Top” (1959); Sophia Loren for “Two Women” (1961); Sally Field for “Norma Rae” (1979); and Holly Hunter for “The Piano” (1993).

Jesse Plemons took home the Best Actor trophy for his performance as various characters across three vignettes in the new Yorgos Lanthimos film, “Kinds of Kindness.” Plemons already netted his first Oscar nomination in 2021 for “The Power of the Dog” so it’s not out of the question that this win could turn into his second nomination. This is especially prevalent since Lanthimos’s last two films have won the Best Actress Oscar.

Sixteen winners of the Best Actor award at Cannes have been nominated by the academy (including the 2019 champ, Antonio Banderas for “Pain and Glory”). Five have taken home the Oscar: Ray Milland for “The Lost Weekend” (1945); Jon Voight for “Coming Home” (1978); William Hurt for “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1985); Christoph Waltz for “Inglourious Basterds” (2009, Oscar won in the supporting race); and Jean Dujardin for “The Artist” (2011).

A special award was given to Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof for his latest film that he shot in secret, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” In order to attend the festival, Rasoulof had to escape Iran where he had just received a prison sentence of eight years that also included flogging and the confiscation of his property. Films that have received “special” honors at the festival have not had much luck at the Oscars. The most prominent instances were in 1992 when “Howard’s End” won the 45th Anniversary Prize for James Ivory and in 2002 when “Bowling for Columbine” won the 55th Anniversary Prize for Michael Moore. “Howard’s End” scored nine nominations including Best Picture and three wins that included Best Actress (Emma Thompson) and Adapted Screenplay. “Bowling” would go on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

The directing statue went to Portuguese director Miguel Gomes for his romantic drama “Grand Tour” about a man who leaves his wife at the alter and her journey following him as he travels around Asia. The Oscar track record for this award is not great. Only seven of the helmers who prevailed here went on to contend at the Oscars: Robert Altman for “The Player” (1992); Joel Coen for “Fargo” (1996); David Lynch for “Mulholland Drive” (2001); Alejandro González Iñárritu for “Babel” (2006); Julian Schnabel for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007); Bennett Miller for “Foxcatcher” (2014); and Pawel Pawlikowski for “Cold War” (2018). Both “Fargo” and “Babel” also earned Best Picture bids.

The Best Screenplay prize went to Coralie Fargeat for her second feature film, “The Substance.” The film stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid and is about a has-been celebrity who decides to use shady drug in order to create a younger and improved version of herself. Three years ago, the winner in this category, “Drive My Car,” became the first screenplay winner to earn a Best Picture Oscar nomination as well as noms for Director (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), Adapted Screenplay and International Feature, winning the last of those. Four other screenplay winners at Cannes have gone on to claim the International Feature Oscar: “Mephisto” from Hungary (1981), “No Man’s Land” from Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001), “The Barbarian Invasions” from Canada (2003; also nominated for Original Screenplay) and “The Salesman” from Iran (2016). Two others were nominated: “Footnote” from Israel (2011) and “Leviathan” from Russia (2014).

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