When the Cannes Film Festival first introduced the Palme d’Or, or Golden Palm, award in 1955, it became the highest ranking award at the festival. It is now regarded as one of the most prestigious awards in the film industry. Many filmmakers, regardless of whether they are new to the industry or not, hope to show their movie at this festival, and they all hope for the best awards they can get. However, usually only one movie will win this honor, though occasionally there may be two winners in one year due to a tie. The last time there were two winners in one year, however, was 1997.
The Palme d’Or has not always gone by that name. When the festival first began, the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film award was the highest, which was then renamed. However, for a brief moment, the Grand Prix was brought back and replaced the Palme d’Or from 1964 to 1975. Since these were merely two different names for the same award, the films that won in those eleven years under a different title and the films that won it before 1955 are all held in the same regard. Regardless of the title of the award during the 1970s, these were the movies which took home arguably the most coveted prize in cinema, and were the best of the best in their years.
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13 The Hireling
Columbia Pictures
The Hireling is one of two to win the award in 1973. It is about former sergeant-major Ledbetter and how he is getting on after the end of World War I. He acts as a chauffeur for the recently widowed Lady Franklin as she is discharged from a mental clinic only to be hired to take her on outings, meaning they spend a lot of time together as she slowly recovers from her depression. One night, he brings her to a boxing match he helps run, where they meet former officer Cantrip, who is struggling to recover from the war just like Ledbetter. Things don’t go in Ledbetter’s favor though when Lady Franklin becomes romantically interested in Cantrip. While The Hireling is a sometimes beautiful meditation on loneliness, Alan Bridges’ film has largely been forgotten in film history.
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12 Padre Padrone
Cinema 5 Distributing
In 1977, Padre Padrone won the Palme d’Or. The film takes from Italian neo-realism in its documentary-style approach, as if documenting the life of the fictional character Siligo. He is pulled from school by his father to tend to their herd of sheep, suffering under his close watch and sadistic behavior. While spending 14 years in isolation watching the sheep in the mountains, he begins to discover things and slowly starts rebelling against his father until he is called for military service. There, he discovers many wonderful things about the world, and is determined not to let his father control him anymore when he returns home.
11 Chronicle of the Years of Fire
Arab Film Distribution
The Palme d’Or was awarded to Chronicle of the Years of Fire in 1975. The film is an Algerian historical drama chronicling the Algerian War of Independence, but seen through the eyes of a peasant. The war was fought between France and Algeria from 1954 to 1962, resulting in the independence of Algeria. The war was an important moment of decolonization, and one with a lot of conflict (something seen in the 1966 masterpiece The Battle of Algiers). Not only was Algeria fighting against France for independence, but it became a civil war too, as some communities didn’t want independence, or didn’t think the effort was worth it. Seeing the war through the eyes of a peasant really brings to light the intricacies and hardships they had to endure for nearly a decade.
10 Scarecrow
Warner Bros.
Scarecrow is the second winner from 1973. Max Millan, an ex-convict, and Francis “Lion” Delbuchi, an ex-sailor, meet each other on the road in California. There, they agree to become partners and open up a car wash once they reach their final destination in Pittsburgh, where all of Max’s money is. However, Lion had been traveling to reach Detroit to see the child he has never met and hopes to make amends with his wife Annie. After Max agrees to make a detour, they travel together, going through many trials and mishaps as they grow close to each other as friends. Scarecrow is now one of the most underrated films of the ’70s, and has incredible performances from Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.
9 The Mattei Affair
Paramount Pictures
1972 had two winners, and The Mattei Affair is one of them. The film follows the life and mysterious death of Italian businessman Enrico Mattei, who was a real person. In the aftermath of World War II, Mattei held onto Italy’s oil and hydrocarbon industry instead of selling them to US companies. He then developed them into Eni, which rivaled the usual oil and gas deals in North Africa and the Middle East. His death, however, was never solved, leaving the movie open-ended as viewers can only wonder what really happened to him.
8 The Working Class Goes to Heaven
New Line Cinema
The second winner in 1972 is The Working Class Goes to Heaven. It focuses on the issues surrounding the poor treatment of factory workers, as it shows us the life and chances of Lulu Massa. Massa is a productive worker in a factory that pays per piece completed, and is disliked by his colleagues because management uses him to up their demands for higher output. Meanwhile, outside, students are protesting for higher pay rates and less work. At home, Massa’s family life is suffering, as he spends so much energy working that he doesn’t have any at home. As soon as he loses a finger in a work accident, however, he discovers just what the pressures of the job was doing to him, and begins to think like the students and calls for a strike.
7 MAS*H
20th Century Fox
MAS*H won the Palme d’Or in 1970, gaining enough popularity to inspire a TV show of the same name, which would go on to have the most watched finale in history. The movie is a war comedy set around the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as their new surgeons arrive: “Hawkeye” Pierce and “Duke” Forrest. Though they are excellent combat surgeons, the pair are also insubordinate, bending and breaking the rules as they see fit. A chest surgeon joins them soon as well, Trapper John McIntyre, and the trio pull many pranks around the camp such as broadcasting a secret affair to the entire camp. Their shenanigans are highlighted throughout the film and no one in the 4077th is safe from them.
6 The Tin Drum
United Artists
One of the winners of the 1979 Palme D’Or is The Tin Drum, based on a novel of the same name. Featuring an unreliable narrator in the main character Oskar Matzerath, the film takes place before and during World War II. Oskar is given a tin drum on his third birthday, and after witnessing the drunken antics of his parents and their friends, and also knowing the affair his mother is having, he vows to never grow up. Surprisingly, it works, as he does not grow at all after that day. As the war begins tensions within his family rise, leading to deaths, funerals, and struggles against the Nazis, since the family is part Polish and part German. The film is a haunting masterpiece that does the novel justice.
5 The Conversation
In 1974, The Conversation was the winner of the Palme D’Or. Director Francis Ford Coppola’s film is a masterpiece of paranoia that perfectly captures the decade, and again features an amazing Gene Hackman performance. Harry Caul is a surveillance expert who runs his own company. While he insists he is not responsible for the actual content on the tapes he collects, nor what his clients do with them, he still feels guilty for a previous wiretap he did that ended in the murder of three people.
When he gets a new job to bug a couple as they walk through a crowded San Diego square, Caul feels there is something more to the conversation he pieces together, and is hesitant to give the tape over. He is especially hesitant when his client won’t come get it himself, but sends an assistant instead. Now, Caul must decide between possibly putting the couple in danger, or losing the private life he has created for himself.
4 The Go-Between
MGM-EMI Film Distributors
Another movie based on a book of the same name, and the winner from 1971, The Go-Between is a playful, lush period film with an incredible score. Young school boy Leo Colston is invited to spend the summer with his wealthy friend Marcus Maudsley. Unfortunately, while they are at the family’s country house, Marcus catches the measles and has to be quarantined so that the disease doesn’t pass on to anyone else. Once Leo is left to entertain himself for a while, he befriends Marcus’s older sister Marian, and finds that she is in love with one man, while her parents want her to marry another. Marcus begins to act as a messenger between Marian and her lover, trying to cover their affair the best he can so that her parents don’t find out.
3 The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Ermanno Olmi
The Tree of Wooden Clogs won the Palme d’Or in 1978. It follows four peasant families working on farms that are owned by the same landlord in 1898, and are only barely scraping by. The movie chronicles a typical year for them as they plant and farm crops, as their families grow with new children, and as they all exchange stories in the shared farmhouse. Even as a revolution nearby begins it is largely ignored by these farmers just trying to live their life. However, even the simplest things can get them in trouble, and the landlord is very strict, so the peasants’ lives are even more fragile than it seems.
2 Taxi Driver
The 1976 winner was Taxi Driver, which follows Travis Bickle, who was honorably discharged from the marines and now suffers from PTSD from Vietnam and lives alone in New York. Due to issues with chronic insomnia, he takes a night shift working as a taxi driver and begins to find himself disgusted with the crime and urban decay he witnesses, dreaming of one day cleaning up the streets. After connecting with Betsy and trying to form a relationship only for it to fall apart, he falls further into despair and starts to have an existential crisis. His want for violence grows, and he even buys a few guns, planning to save Iris, a child prostitute, whatever the cost. Often considered one of the best films ever made, and arguably the best Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro film, The Taxi Driver is a dark, violent cry of anger.
1 Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is the second winner from 1979, and the second Coppola film to win the Palme d’Or. Based on the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, it follows the mysterious orders given to Captain Benjamin Willard and his quest through the jungles of Vietnam. He has been tasked with finding where Colonel Walter Kurtz is and ending his command by using whatever means necessary, as Kurtz had gone mad and was no longer listening to the army. Willard joins a navy patrol boat in the hopes that they will eventually go far enough up river to find Kurtz, and he makes the crew into his allies. However, the further up the river they go, the more problems they run into in this often surreal, epic masterpiece.
