Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Fjord, a closing-night prize that made him only the 10th filmmaker to take the festival’s top award twice. The Romanian director’s win came 19 years after his first Palme d’Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and it put Fjord at the center of a ceremony that handed out prizes across the 79th Festival de Cannes.
Fjord, which stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, also won the FIPRESCI Award for Competition, a sign that the film landed strongly both with the jury and with critics. The Grand Prix went to Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur, while the Competition prizes were spread across Fatherland, The Black Ball, The Dreamed Adventure, Coward, All of a Sudden and A Man of His Time.
The awards map a competition that favored range over sweep. Javier Calva and Javier Ambrossi won Best Director for The Black Ball, and Pawel Pawlikowski shared Best Director honors for Fatherland in a tie. Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared Best Actress for All of a Sudden, while Valentin Campagne and Emmanuel Macchia took Best Actor for Coward. Emmanuel Marre won Best Screenplay for A Man of His Time.
The ceremony also recognized newer work outside the main prize chase. The Camera d’Or went to Ben’Imana, by Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo, and the Short Film Palme d’Or went to For the Opponents, by Federico Luis. Before the closing ceremony, the festival had already announced Honorary Palmes d’Or for Peter Jackson, Barbra Streisand and John Travolta.
The result gave Neon a sixth straight top-prize win at the festival, extending a run that has become one of the most visible streaks in Cannes. For Mungiu, though, the number that matters most is the one attached to his own name: two Palme d’Or wins, separated by 19 years, and both earned in a festival that has long treated repeat victories as almost unreachable.
That is the story of this Cannes Film Festival 2026 close. Mungiu did not just return to the top of the competition; he joined the smallest of clubs and did it with a film that also drew the critics’ prize, a double signal that Fjord left Cannes as the night’s clear winner.
