Palm s’Or? The Longest Ever Standing Ovations at Cannes - and How Well They've Aged
The Cannes Film Festival used to be known as a place where people booed. Now it’s known as a place where people clap.
I’m not entirely sure what that shift says about the direction that the world’s going in, but it might be worth a few university dissertations at some point.
Whatever the case, news reports of standing ovations and their length (or lack thereof) have become as much a staple of film festival coverage recently as the interview junket or the first look review. If I had to choose a key location for this phenomenon, it would probably not be Cannes but its friendly rival in Venice. There’s just something about the intimacy and light in that festival’s main hall, the Salle Grand — the way those steps lead up so regally to where the director and stars sit — that seems to stir the crowds into full-blown worship.
Say what you want about Cannes and its attendees, I do think that the love shown to movies there is usually more based on the quality of the movies themselves — in the festival’s gargantuan Grand Theatre Lumiere, the seats are very much designed to worship nothing but the screen — or at least what those movies are trying to say. In the list below, which I’ve arranged in ascending order, you’ll get a good idea of the kind of things that inspire palm-stinging ovations at the world’s most famous film festival. You’ll also, on at least one occasion, be left scratching your head.
Read on to learn a bit more about each of them and use the guide to find out where to stream them on services like Apple TV, Netflix, Prime Video and elsewhere.
Coming in at joint sixth on our rundown of the longest ever standing ovations in Cannes are a quintet of movies that could hardly be more different if they tried. First up is the Dardennes brothers’ Two Days, One Night — a typically Dardennesian slice of social realism (a woman must convince her co-workers not to take their bonuses so that she can keep her job) that eventually earned Marion Cotillard an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Like most of the Belgian siblings’ movies, this is a very solid piece of work with the kind of clear and righteous message that Cannes audiences tend to chime with between their yacht parties and glasses of rosé. What’s more, it boasts a glamorous star in a dressed-down role (big bonus points) and comes from a directing duo with two Palme d’Or to their names, and who were basically the festival’s spirit animals for much of the ‘90s and ‘00s.
Has it aged well?: If anything, 15 minutes feels a little light.
Without putting too fine a point on it, the 15-minute standing ovation received by The Paperboy in 2012 might be the most insane bout of ovation-itis to ever grip a film festival crowd. I’m also kind of into it.
This is a movie in which a character played by Nicole Kidman pees on a character played by Zac Efron — who, lest we forget, had only just graduated from the High School Musical franchise — after he gets stung by a jellyfish. The humidity-fueled Florida crime drama bombed spectacularly on release but has slowly gained a cult following for boasting one of Kidman’s most unhinged performances — and that’s saying something.
Has it aged well?: It’s so delightfully weird that I’m going to say, yes.
Quality film? Check. Endearing child performances? Check. Clear, concise, and palatable political message? Check, check and indeed check.
Nadine Labeki’s Capernaum — a film about two kids living in the slums of Beirut who decide to sue their parents for neglect — was such a hit with the Cannes crowds and attending critics in 2018 that it quickly became a dark horse for the Palme d’Or (it eventually lost to Kore-eda’s Shoplifters) and would eventually go all the way to the Oscars.
Has it aged well?: It’s a little bit “worthy”-coded, but it’s hard to say no to this one.
Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro is, IMO, one of the best films of the 21st century and really should have won the Palme d’Or in 2018 (it also lost to Shoplifters), so if you were to tell me that some poor souls were still standing and clapping for it on the French Riviera today, a full eight years after the credits rolled, I’d really not see anything wrong with that.
The story takes place in a dodgy tobacco farm in rural Tuscany, where an angelic innocent named Lazzaro strikes up an unlikely friendship with the son of his family’s ruthless landowner. If you are any kind of fan of magical realism (think 100 Years of Solitude or even a movie like The Fall), I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Has it aged well?: You betcha.
Last but not least in our quintet of films that hit the 15-minute mark is Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, a bona fide Hollywood classic — Leone’s masterpiece follows two Jewish boys from Brooklyn who rise through the world of organised crime, which appears to be the only film in the rankings that was released before the year 2000.
Before anyone gets carried away, this is no reflection on the movies of the 20th century — which were, as we can all agree, better. It is simply an outlier from a time before, when audiences at film festivals decided to start breaking out the stopwatch.
Has it aged well?: If we’re talking about the movie, I’d have to say that certain aspects of the final act have not, but whatever ovation it received at the time was totally warranted.
At fifth place in our list is a genuinely interesting case. Landing in 2016, just before critics started to save their scorn for platforms like Twitter, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon can rightly claim to be one of the last movies to be audibly booed at both its press screening and premiere in Cannes. But that booing also inspired the film’s defenders to make themselves heard in return—and for a full 17-minutes at that.
The movie, Refn’s last feature before taking a decade away from the big screen (he is set to return this year with Her Private Hell), follows Elle Fanning’s wannabe model as she descends into the lurid world of the L.A. fashion industry. If you are a fan of Refn’s Drive and films with that kind of neo-noir style, it’s well worth checking out.
Has it aged well?: Given that the movie has gone a little off the radar, in retrospect, I think 17 minutes sounds a bit over the top.
Jeff Nichols’ Mud, a very good movie that I’m pretty sure nobody has thought about in at least five years, came to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival with early-McConaissance energy and left with the memories of an 18-minute standing ovation.
Was the Cannes audience brought to rapture by the Southern gothic vibe of Nichols’ movie, or was it the irresistible pull of Matthew McConaughey’s comeback narrative? If events in Venice (see above) are anything to go by, it was probably the latter.
Has it aged well?: It’s a solid movie, but you have to say it looks a little out of place amongst some of these other titles on this list.
The most recent film on our rundown of marathon ovations is Sentimental Value, a Norwegian family drama that premiered in Cannes less than a year ago, where it picked up the Grand Prix (essentially the festival’s second prize) and, earlier this year, nine nominations at the Oscars.
It was pushed towards those achievements early on with a whopping 19-minute standing ovation last May, which feels like just rewards for the story’s emotional pull and the masterclass performances of Stellan Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning (her again) and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas—each of whom were nominated at this year’s Oscars. Add to that the sense of a prodigal son returning (the director, Joachim Trier, had charmed the festival four years earlier with The Worst Person in the World) and you’ve got yourself a recipe for claps.
Has it aged well?: It’s been less than 12 months, but you have to say 100% yes.
It will be hard to explain to future generations how significant a figure Michael Moore was in the first decade of the 21st century. The affable documentarian was so respected at the time for his earlier movie Bowling for Columbine and for speaking out so vocally against George Bush’s war in Iraq, that his Palme d’Or win at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for his moving and zeitgeisty Fahrenheit 9/11 actually didn’t feel so crazy at the time.
22 years on, that win has gone down as one of the most controversial in the festival’s history. This has less to do with the movie itself than with the fact that Quentin Tarantino’s jury should really have chosen Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy instead, and given what we know about Tarantino and his taste in cinema, it’s still quite shocking that they didn’t. Regardless, Moore’s film received a 20-minute standing ovation after its premiere — making it the record holder for the longest ovation ever, at least for a little while…
Has it aged well?: Tricky one, but even as a Moore fan, I’m tempted to say no.
Seeing as the festival is set to open with a 20th anniversary screening of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth this week, we should end our list with that singular fantasy horror masterpiece. Set during the Spanish Civil War, the film follows a young girl who discovers a darkly magical underworld that allows her to occasionally escape the true horrors of real life.
As an Irish person, I will never say a bad word said about Ken Loach’s richly deserved Palme d’Or win for The Wind That Shakes the Barley that year, but it was nothing if not an upset that Wong Kar Wai’s jury decided not to award del Toro with cinema’s most coveted prize. Not to worry, the beloved Mexican went on to earn an Oscar nomination (for Original Screenplay) at a ceremony where his film cleaned up in the crafts—winning for makeup, art direction and cinematography. Its record 22-minute ovation that year will likely never be beaten. The film is now considered a modern classic.
Has it aged well?: A million times yes.
