How Much Does Winning Cannes Help?

And how does it compare to Venice?

When your eyes first fall upon the Mediterranean you know at once why it was here that man first stood erect and stretched out his arms toward the sun. It is a blue sea; or rather, it is too blue for that hackneyed phrase which has described every muddy pool from pole to pole. It is the fairy blue of Maxfield Parrish’s pictures; blue like blue books, blue oil, blue eyes, and in the shadow of the mountains, a green belt of land runs along the coast for a hundred miles and makes a playground for the world.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, How to Live on Practically Nothing A Year, The Saturday Evening Post, September 1924

Ahh, Cannes. Each May, Hollywood gathers for a two week film festival-party-market that feels like something between showbiz prom and your own private remake of To Catch a Thief. In Hollywood’s nonstop 52 week a year circus of meetings, parties and festivals, Cannes is perhaps the quintessence of it all.

Everywhere in Cannes, or, really throughout La Cote d’Azur, one is surrounded by legends of past Hollywood derring-do and, one hopes, by the opportunity to create your own.

What’s the prize? The prize for you might be selling your foreign rights, financing your film, landing the star you needed after a set of tennis on the clay of the Cap d’Antibes, or just connecting with friends and collaborators.

But ostensibly, the Palme d’Or is the prize — the most prestigious award in international cinema, given on the Riviera, wrapped in gold, and applauded with standing ovations carefully timed by Variety.

But what is the Palme d’Or worth? And should you even be going to Cannes? Below, I will assume you want to win Oscars and make money.

Le view from Le Carlton

The market part of Cannes, where people make deals, was, a month ago, a bit of a dud (or worse). Foreign sales and all deals were far below expectations. The reality is that the market for films used to be comprised of many healthy sub-markets divided by country and category (film, TV, etc.). So it used to make sense to meet with the Italian free TV person and the French theatrical person, etc. — and they all had to acquire some product. But though there are some licensing deals still to be made, increasingly there is just one unified global SVOD market where most deals are made in LA. The old Cannes, where Dino DeLaurentis or Francis Ford Coppola could cobble together the financing for their next film before heading off to Silvio Berlusconi’s yacht party, is mostly a memory.

But, still, people — studios, producers, filmmakers — push to get their films in competition. Many very legit Hollywood people go to the festival. Films that shine, if they haven’t been picked up for distribution yet, often are picked up. There is a sense that the competition is important. People talk about it.

So is it?

To avoid boiling the ocean here, I am going to focus on Palme d’Or winners because they epitomize “success at Cannes.” The big answer is perhaps unsurprising: for most films, the Palme d’Or doesn’t seem to help much financially. But for the right film—one with a real story, real emotion, and the potential to travel — the Palme d’Or and, in general, a positive reception at Cannes, is a powerful springboard. It can turn a strong indie into a must see event, with tens of millions in profit and a lifetime of prestige for the filmmakers and distributors involved.

The Palme is not a lock, but about 20% of the time, it will take a film to the next level.

The 10-Year Track Record

Here are the past ten Palme d’Or winners:

From a money point of view, most Palme winners vanish quietly after their moment on the Croisette. (Of course, they linger on in our hearts.)

The Cannes jury changes every year but its taste is consistently pretty artsy. I am not saying that in a bad way. I have done a lot of “artsy” movies. But it’s true.

Nomadland’s success is hard to judge because it came out in a dead COVID box office year. I will count it as a win, but we will never know how it would have done in a normal year.

But 20% to 30% of the Palme d’Or winners lived the dream. Which makes it very much worth pursuing. Two standouts in the past decade fully represent the Cannes brass ring:

Parasite (2019)

• Directed by Bong Joon-ho.

• Won Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Foreign at the Oscars—the first film ever to do so.

• Grossed $253 million worldwide on a ~$15 million budget.

• Put Bong firmly in the top tier of global auteurs. Put distributor Neon on the map.

Was it a guaranteed hit? No. It was in Korean. It was dark. But the Cannes win created global urgency — which drove reviews (Metacritic 97%) and eventually, Oscars.

Anora (2024)

• Directed by Sean Baker. Won the Palme d’Or.

• Grossed $20M U.S., $39M international

• Won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

• Cemented Baker as a major American filmmaker.

Big wins.

Would Parasite and Anora have succeeded anyway? In my opinion, not nearly at the same scale (presuming they didn’t go on to win Venice instead).

• Parasite needed visibility to break through the subtitle barrier. Cannes gave it that visibility—and critical weight.

• Anora had a compelling story, but without the Palme, it easily could have topped out at $5M and been a footnote come Oscar season.

Winning Cannes helped Anora and Parasite and doing the festival was well worth it for them. Either one could have been much more modest successes. Cannes is great for a film that is artistically accomplished but also delivers emotionally in a somewhat traditional way. For those films, it can give you what you’re hoping to get.

Should you go to Venice or Cannes?

Venice is developing a strong record of delivering box office success and Oscar noms and wins. Here are the last ten Golden Lion winners:

Venice has become the strategic favorite for many Oscar campaigns. It’s later in the year (September), friendly to streamers, and has launched recent hits like Nomadland, The Whale, Joker, Poor Things, and Roma. And just before this time period it also premiered Birdman.

All else being equal, I would say that getting the festival boost in September is better than getting it in May because the momentum runs straight into Fall. (One small problem: this year Venice and Telluride overlap.) But, with exceptions, I would say that Venice boosts a slightly different film than Cannes. On the whole, Venice has recently been more open to films that are a bit more commercial. It’s overbroad, because Almodovar’s The Room Next Door for example — no offense — was not at all commercial, but it feels like a somewhat more popular film like Joker and Shape of Water have a shot at Venice, whereas they might not at Cannes. I suspect both might have played out of competition in Cannes.

You might ask whether The Brutalist, which premiered in Venice in 2024, might have done better at Cannes against Anora. I love both these films but I think Brutalist would have had a real shot at Cannes. Would Poor Things have edged out Anatomy of a Fall in Cannes in 2023? It’s possible. Poor Things did great anyway, but it feels to me like a Cannes film.

Venice and Cannes are both great. If your film is a bit more commercial, Venice might be more open to it. If your film is artsy and/or has an auteur director (especially with some Cannes history), it could be right for Cannes. If your film is just a turgid bomb in any case, it sort of doesn’t matter — neither festival can save you. It is a benefit that you can do both Cannes and Telluride, which Anora did. But you cannot generally do both Venice and Telluride.

So Cannes doesn’t elevate everything. But if you have a special film with good performances where the story really delivers, then it can be worth $30M/$40M. It is well worth pursuing.

People do (Jojo Rabbit did), but I would tend not to premiere at Toronto. I feel like by the time we are in Toronto the narrative has already gotten rolling and you’re slightly behind. And I would rather premiere in Cannes and then play Telluride than just premiere at Telluride.

I will note though that Everything Everywhere premiered at SXSW so, really, you never know. But that was a very commercial film in tone.

I don’t want to downplay the non-financial benefits of having success at either festival — or any of these terrific festivals. Even if there are no Oscar noms and your talky, indulgent, tone poem bombs at the US box office and bankrupts your studio, the prestige of winning or even just being well received at any of these festivals has great personal and career value. To be honest, few remember that Anora won the Golden Lion but Brady Corbet won Best Director at Venice and no one cares. Within 24 months it will all fade into a general notion that the film was very prestigious and well-regarded and you’re a fabulous and very svelte person.

Final Takeaway

Most years, the Palme d’Or winner flickers and fades. But once or twice a decade, it hits the right film at the right moment — and changes everything.

So if you’re making something small, powerful, and real? Something with story, stakes, and heart? Cannes could be the choice, and it could take your film — et vous —to the next level.

But you can’t go wrong, really.

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Best books —

On the plane to Cannes: Peter Biskind, Easy Riders Raging Bulls (1998); Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge (1944).

On the plane to Venice: Just watch Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973). Or for a historical perspective, read Roger Crowley’s City of Fortune (2013).

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Roy Price was an executive at Amazon.com for 13 years, where he founded Amazon Video and Studios. He developed 16 patented technologies. His shows have won 14 Best Series Emmys and Globes. He was formerly at McKinsey & Co. and The Walt Disney Co. He graduated from Harvard College in 1989.