Cannes 2014: the winners

Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu, 2014)

Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep has won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The Turkish director’s tense and morally complex character study beat out 17 other competition entries, including Alice Rohrwacher’s bittersweet coming-of-age tale The Wonders, which won the Grand Prix.

The Jury Prize, considered the third most prestigious, was shared by the youngest and oldest directors in competition, 25-year-old Xavier Dolan, for mother-and-son drama Mommy, and 83-year-old French New Wave veteran Jean-Luc Godard, for Goodbye to Language.

Timothy Spall was the most high-profile British winner on the night, accepting the award for best actor for his portrayal of 19th-century artist J.M.W. Turner in British director Mike Leigh’s BFI Film Fund-backed biopic Mr. Turner. The best actress prize went to Julianne Moore for her role as an ageing movie star in David Cronenberg’s nightmarish satire on contemporary Hollywood, Maps to the Stars. 

Mr Turner (2014)

American director Bennett Miller won the award for best director for his psychological true-to-life drama Foxcatcher, while Andrey Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin’s script for Leviathan took home the prize for best screenplay.

In addition to Mr. Turner, the BFI Film Fund backed another competition entry, Ken Loach’s Jimmy’s Hall, along with three films in the Directors’ Fortnight: Queen and Country, Pride and Catch Me Daddy. The short film Crocodile, directed by Gaëlle Denis, also received BFI backing and won the Canal + Award for best short film in the International Critics’ Week. The new digital restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn, chosen for the Cannes Classics strand, is in association with the BFI National Archive.

Ben Roberts, Director of the BFI Film Fund, said:

“A hearty felicitations to Timothy Spall whose richly deserved best actor win for his performance in Mike Leigh’s brilliant Mr. Turner crowns a hat-trick of awards for UK film talent at Cannes this year. It’s so gratifying to see our established film talent like Tim and Mike honoured alongside newcomers such as writer Stephen Beresford, whose first feature Pride, directed by Matthew Warchus, has won the Queer Palm award, and Gaëlle Denis whose film Crocodile scooped the Critics’ Week Canal + prize for best short film. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to work with these extraordinarily talented filmmaking teams and all the UK filmmakers who presented their work in Cannes this year.”

Winners in full

Palme d’Or
Winter Sleep (directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Grand Prix
The Wonders (directed by Alice Rohrwacher)

Jury Prize
Mommy (directed by Xavier Dolan) and Goodbye to Language (directed by Jean-Luc Godard)

Camera d’Or
Party Girl (directed by Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis)

Best Director
Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher)

Best Screenplay
Leviathan (directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev)

Best Actress
Julianne Moore (Maps to the Stars)

Best Actor
Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner)

Short Film
Leidi (directed by Simón Mesa Soto)