Oscars Outsider - Cannes Winners Reaction: Did the Palme d’Or Just Break the Oscar Race?

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

The Cannes awards are here, and somehow the Oscar race feels less clear than it did before.In this episode of The Oscars Outsider Podcast, we react to the major winners from the Cannes Film Festival, including the Palme d’Or win for Fjord, and try to figure out what any of it means for the Oscar race.The big question: did Cannes give us a new frontrunner, or did it make the whole season even messier?We dig into the Screen Cannes jury grid, where Fjord landed at 2.5 while several other contenders, including Fatherland, Minotaur, and All of a Sudden, scored higher. We also talk through the mismatch between critical consensus and jury awards, which films feel stronger after Cannes, which ones suddenly look shakier, and whether the Palme winner is actually positioned for Oscar attention.If you follow Cannes, Oscar season, festival buzz, or the strange gap between critics’ favorites and awards bodies, this episode is for you.Subscribe for more Oscar race analysis, festival reactions, and awards season chaos.

I'm more confused than I was going into Anticon. I think that the mismatch of the critical consensus versus what has been awarded and what is like kind of coming out in the reviews just has left me really confused. I have no more clarity than I did going in. Welcome to Oscars outsider. It's your show about Hollywood history and the awards race. I'm Dylan over there as Craig. Okay, great guys. It's going. Doing pretty good. Yeah. Nice. So we're just going to do a little quickie here for you guys because we're wrapping up our coverage of the Cannes Film Festival, the world's most important film festival. We are going to be crushing that can tonight. We are going to be sending the can to the recycling. We are, we've done a few of these. I'm running out of puns. But the awards have been announced a couple days ago. We're recording this on Monday the 25th. And we want to just get in our quick reactions to who won the big prizes.

So right off the bat, the Palm Door went to Romanian filmmaker, Christian Munjou's Norwegian, mostly Norwegian language, I believe, drama, Fjord set in Norway. Craig, what was your initial reaction to hearing that Fjord took home the Palm Door? You know, it's funny. I think, like, if you would have told me that Fjord was going to win, like, before the festival started, and we had reactions to this, I would not have been shocked because that was a film

that was highly hyped. But the reactions that came into for Fjord, it wasn't tepid, but it was like a bit polarizing. Like there was, the scores were all over the board. And I think that was actually finished seventh on the screen grid.

So it's a little surprising that's something that was that low amongst the critical consensus that people kind of look at on a day-to-day basis was, was the winner. So I was surprised when I heard that it was fewer. How about you?

Yeah, me too. Me too. Same reaction as you. It definitely felt like a bit of a heavy hitter heading into the festival. Kristen Munju has won the Palm Door before. It has a couple pretty big name actors in it. It looked well positioned. But it's sure right, the critic consensus has not been overwhelmingly positive.

I think a lot of people, us included, were saying that heading into the final days of Khan, it looked like it was going to be a Palm Door race between, Minotar, Fatherland, maybe all of a sudden. Yeah. I think the average score on that the screen critics jury grid, which you just mentioned was something like 2.5,

which is generally considered middling. There definitely were a lot of critics that love the movie, for sure. It did take home the critics prize at Khan as well. So there are enough critics that really were into the movie, but a lot of critics, also like Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, comes to mind, were very tepid on it.

We're very underwhelmed. by it. It felt like a very mixed reaction. So I was surprised. Yeah, I was surprised. I didn't think that it was ever like out of the running, but it didn't feel like an obvious choice for a finalist. If you had to like pick right now any of these cons films that would be within the Oscar conversation, what do you think it's going to get the most nominations?

I already kind of thought it might be fjorge. I think I said that in, uh, Bustrault started. And obviously, this case is just stronger now. Being the Palm Door winner gives it a much stronger case. I think it's just really well positioned to make noise in the Oscar, specifically because of where its two leads are at in their careers and in their critical reception.

Sebastian Stan is somebody who's very familiar to American audiences because he's been in like 37 Marvel movies. But we're more used to the idea of seeing him as like a really good actor because just a couple years ago, he was at Oscar Dobby for Best Actor in the same year where he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor for a different role. So he's definitely on the map as a guy

who's up and coming in terms of being somebody who gets award recognition. And then the female lead, of course, is Renata Renzwe, who, after the success of sentimental value last year is more and more so on everybody's radar and is close to maybe becoming a proper Hollywood star. So just the fact that

The two leads are like really guarding a lot of tension lately. It's just very good timing for both of them. And that really bodes well, I think, for the movie getting a good reception whenever it is eventually released in America and around the world. Yeah, I would have to agree with you there. Like, it seems like it's well positioned. I think one of the things that could be up in the air is like Neon has so many films that it has, it could potentially like put its effort behind.

But now that Fjord has the, has the palm, I think it makes sense for them to put most of their energy around a campaign around Fjord, not just because of, you know, where the stars are at within the Hollywood headspace, but also just because it's got the accolades now. I think that one of the other films that we were talking about, or a few of the other films that we were talking about being potential. contenders within the Oscar and having big campaigns like Fatherland and Minotar, I think, are two of the other big ones that we had kind of picked early as being potentially in there. Those are both held by Mooby, and Mooby doesn't really have a clear indicator as to which of these films they should really put their resources behind. And I mean, Mooby isn't like a huge studio that can have huge campaigns for both of these films. So I'm really interested to see what happens with with these.

Yeah. Though it is interesting, I think Mooby has been like heavily recapitalized lately. And I think they might be in a better position to start becoming more of a big player. At least that's I think the intention internally. So it would be interesting to see if they try to make a multi-pronged effort at the Oscars and push more than one movie heavily at the same time. not sure if they really have that capability yet, as you mentioned, but that'll definitely be interesting to see. I think one thing that is interesting to me about Fj winning is that this really makes Christian Munju into kind of a Khan Titan. He is now one of a select group of directors who's

had two Palm Door winners. And also two of his films, graduation and Beyond the Hills have also won top prize at Khan. One of them won best director. director, one of them, one of them, one best screenplay. I can't remember which is which, but he's now had four different movies win top prizes at Cod,

and two of them winning Palm Door. Four months, three weeks, two days, the movie, which won the Palm Door back in like 2007, I believe it's almost 20 years ago. And it really put Manju on the map,

but also put the Romanian New Wave on the map. That was really the moment where people started using that term, Romanian New Wave to start talking about these new Romanian director's films. you know, we're almost two decades away from that. And it's fair to say that that Manju is more than just a guy who is part of like a brief wave of cinema from another country and is now one of the kind of big dogs of international festival. So why don't we look at what else won prizes to? Of course, Palm Door is the big one. The Grand Prix is often considered kind of the.

silver medal or runner-up prize, and that went to Minotar by Andrei Zvigninzev, which was a film that seemed to have been more broadly well-received during the festival, and that I would have picked that I did pick as my prediction to win the Palm Dore. So that has to settle for Grand Prix. And then the jury prize went to the dreamed adventure, a German film, which came out right at the end, one of the last in competition films to premiere. So that felt a little bit out of left field to me, but just because we didn't really have much time between the film premiering and the awards

to get a reaction. That'll really be interesting to see when that film actually becomes available to watch. What's surprising to you, we've kind of hinted at it, about what did not make it to any of these three top prizes? Yeah, I mean, there's two main ones that come to mind.

and all of a sudden, I think, all of a sudden had like such a clear critical consensus behind it. It was up there on the grid. It's got huge scores across all of the other sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, that sort of thing. So to see neither of those where there seemed to be, you know, a lot of consensus around it, not take either of these prizes was surprising. How about you? Yeah, those are the obvious ones. All of a sudden gets the best actress prize,

which is shared between its two leads, the French actress, Virginia Efirra, and the Japanese actress, Taokoamoto. Fatherland, the only main prize it gets is best director, but that was shared. Actually, technically a three-way share. It was shared between Pavel Pavlovakovsky, director of Fatherland,

and two Spaniards named Javier, who directed the Black Ball. So that has to kind of feel a bit like getting, mift for Pavel Pavlovakowski, who had a pretty buzzy new release. You know, his first film in a long time, a lot of people were really excited about it. To only get one prize and that prize being shared is a little interesting, especially since the reception seemed to be generally positive for the film. So it will be

interesting to watch if that actually bodes for Fathland, maybe not making much of a dent when it does get released, or that's just a con thing and it's still going to become a popular international feature once it hits cinemas. The black ball, La Bola Negra, that Spanish film, that shared best director prize, that was a bit of an eye opener too because I think it was well we were actually recording our last episode when we did our predictions for who's going to win the Pong du Pomp Dore that the Black Ball premiered and had a huge standing ovation. Yeah, they were clapping the entire duration. of our last recording.

Yeah. Yeah. I think pretty easily the biggest standing ovation of, of Khan this year. So that for a relatively unheralded movie

made by a cast and crew that's basically unknown outside of Spain was very surprising. So that could be an interesting movie to look out for Netflix. Just acquired it.

That's one of the movies that wedded a con without a distribution deal in place. There was a apparently a bit of a bidding war for it, not to the extent that we saw for a club kid, which ended up going to A24 for like $17 million. Netflix ended up scoring the blackball for what is reported as something between

four and five million. More modest, but still again, for a movie that's like, you know, nobody outside of Spain has heard of these people. It's, it's, it's pretty interesting. It could be, it could be the introduction of some new filmmakers on the international scene. and the Netflix deal apparently does have provisions for theatrical release and awards campaign in there. Yeah, I mean, Netflix is something we talked a few weeks ago about the fact that it seemed like Narnia was going to be positioned as their potential like awards push, but that has been pushed back to next year. So they were really looking for something that they could put their energy behind. and I feel like the black ball makes sense for them right now. It will be interesting to see what happens

because I guess the other thing that could potentially be an awards push for them would be that clip booth movie, which there was a little bit of news about that. We can talk about that a little. Do it now. I don't know what you're referring to. Give me the cliff booth. No, no.

Let's pivot. Let's pivot away from Khan for a second. It's not even like real big news. They just announced that it, will be in theaters for a two-week period, and it's going to be exclusive to IMAX, which, I mean, to me, kind of sucks. I don't know. It's just Netflixing. That's also just me being a little bit of a Netflix fader. Did you notice, it's also kind of off topic, but the Super Bowl ad that they aired for that movie did not have a title, did not have a title card

at all. And I wonder if Netflix is a little embarrassed that they have to release a movie titled The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth. And that's why they've just been not using the title in their marketing. I don't know. I hadn't noticed that I don't think I've even seen that trailer. This is not a film that I am particularly excited about. As much as I do like Fincher and I think that Tarantino is a great writer, it's something that just like I'm struggling to really be excited about and I don't know.

why. If someone wants to get in the comments and get me hyped for this movie, I would appreciate it. But right now, it's really not doing anything for me. How about you? I definitely like that character in once about a time in Hollywood. Just kind of really a terrible guy

who Tarantino does everything to make super likable. I love that kind of dynamic. Like when a filmmaker really flexes their ability to manipulate the audience's reaction to a character. everything about this guy is that he sucks,

but you know, you love him watching the movie because, uh, because the filmmaker manipulates you into, into doing so, um, whether that can continue for another movie and actually get more interesting and develop.

I have no idea. We'll, we'll have to see how it comes out. But I, I have faith in Brad Pitt at this point in his career. I think, I like what he's been doing lately. Uh, specifically since he started working with Tarantito and,

um, and it's a lot's going to rest on his shoulders for that film. to be actually interesting, I think. We shall see. Yeah. Let's go back to come quickly, just to wrap up a few final thoughts. Are you left with any reactions to what we've heard about the movies and what movies were awarded here?

Do you think there are any lessons to be learned about, like, maybe where international cinema is headed in terms of, like, what's being celebrated? Honestly, no. I'm more confused than I was going into Anticon. I think that the mismatch of the critical consensus versus what has been awarded and what is like kind of coming out in the reviews just has left me really confused. I have no more clarity than I did going in. Yeah, that sounds fair. I mean, definitely a lot of critics who were there seemed to be confused too.

A lot of critics seem to be of the opinion that it was a week year that they weren't specifically blown over by a lot of. stuff. I think one thing that's interesting is these kind of cross-natch national productions, filmmakers making films in a language other than their own in a country other than their own, which has always been something that's happened really seems to have blown up lately. And I think we've seen definitely that in Khan. We've seen a lot of non-French filmmakers make French movies, including Ryuska Hamaguchi, including Ashgar Faradi, including Radu Jadu. we've seen like Fjord

which is a movie set in Norway which is produced by multiple countries from a Romanian filmmaker just win the Pondor beating out all those other pseudo French movies or French movies by not French filmmakers so

having one of those like kind of cross-national pictures Pavlovakowski making a German movie right Fatherland is a German movie from a Polish director that just seems to have been a big theme this year and the fact that one of those got the palm door makes it uh makes it feel like it's being kind of crowned as maybe a trend that will continue um it i will withhold judgment on the fact that they have awarded fjord until i've seen the movie that will be the responsible thing to

do uh i will say that i've definitely think that manjou is a very talented filmmaker i've i've liked all his films up until now. And so I expect to like this too. I am a little, um, a little hesitant about the fact that it does feel like such a typical kind of con win. And that, uh, it's, it sounds like just, it's a very bourgeois drama of like, uh, you know, um,

just the, the, the, the, the complications and responsibilities and, uh, and, and, um, just the things that are annoying about slightly upper-crust bourgeois people and the way that they relate to less well-off people and all that stuff, which sounds very like Rubin Austland kind of material or something like Anatomy of a Fall, which is a movie that I really liked, but also felt like very in like, this is what you expect the critics at Con to go for. so it's not a surprising win in that way. And Manju, as much as I like his movies, you can definitely see him as the most comfortable audience friendly of the Romanian New Wave directors compared to kind of the indignation that you get in like Christy Puyu movies or the kind of impish comedy you have.

in Cornelia Poromboe movies or the kind of lacerating irony of a Radojude movie. Manjou is more of just a straight-up social realist who doesn't really traffic in a lot of comedy and a lot of irony or a lot of like postmodernism. And you could see him as being kind of like the bourgeois critic's choice because he's more kind of cozy and comfortable. And so I hope when I see when I finally see Fior that I don't feel like underwhelmed by it and like, oh, is this con just like playing the familiar comfort card? But I don't know.

Can't speak on it too much until I've actually seen the movie. I still think he's a really good filmmaker. So I'm not like doubting that there's a lot of things to be into about this movie. Yeah. One film that we haven't really talked about at all, I think is coward, the Lucas Don't film. One thing that I thought was really interesting, just kind of looking at the reception, if you go to Rotten Tomatoes and had like 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and just like a 68 on Metacritic, which was really surprising.

I'm wondering whether once there's more eyeballs on that film, whether that could potentially emerge as something with a bit more awards energy than we might initially be predicting. Yeah, yeah. That'll be another one to watch. You never really know until they start coming out which ones are going to start picking up traction, you know, outside of the festival circuit. Which film do you think is the biggest gainer?

Let's talk about it specifically in the Oscar race. What's the biggest gainer and what's the biggest loser out of Khan? I feel like maybe we don't have to say it that I think we, surely we both agree that the Kepam Dora winner is the biggest gainer out of here, right? Or do you have a different answer for that? Yeah. So Shirley, Ford's the one that takes the biggest strides up front. But what do you think is the movie that has lost the most momentum from Khan?

Out of ones that had a realistic potential chance, you know? Honestly, I feel like it's fatherland. I think the fact that it just didn't really hit across the actual, like, jury. It was, you know, just kind of a little bit of an afterthought. It got the best director. But as you said, that was kind of shared. it feels like there's not a lot of attention here from this jury. And I think that that is probably going to hurt it.

But I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, it's as we've mentioned, it's hard not to see this as a disappointment for Fatherland. But I think it still could, depending on like how many screens movie can get it into. It could still be one that really catches some steam. I remember when Cold War came out, the last Pavel Pavlopalikovsky movie, that really felt like a grower. Like it really, word of mouth was like a big deal for that movie. It did get into the Oscars conversation.

It was not a best picture nominee. But, you know, that was a period where it's very rare for a foreign film to get a best picture nominee. I think it did get a best director nomination, though, if I'm not mistaken, as well as best foreign film. I think there's three nominations for it. So it was definitely in the Oscars conversation, despite being a black and white Polish movie. And I think that word of mouth was kind of a big part of that. So I would definitely not say that its chances are looking dead because of it not getting much hardware coming out of Khan. I think that for James Gray's paper tiger, which we haven't mentioned yet, not getting a prize is going to hurt any shred of a chance of an Oscar might have had, which as I mentioned before, I was very,

skeptical that it ever did have a chance, just because historically James Gray movies don't enter the conversation. But I think for this one to enter the conversation, it really needed to get that initial boost. It really needed to get a bump from Khan. And it had some good reviews, sure, but the fact that it wasn't awarded anything

isn't going to give it that much momentum. And I think starting off without any significant press isn't going to, it doesn't vote well for its future as a release that that garner's a lot of eyeballs. Yeah, I don't think it's dead in the water. I think it's just got it's got enough star power that it will still have potential the potential for some energy.

Like I think Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are kinetic forces within the awards campaign that I could really see like solidifying some momentum. So I'm not counting it out yet, but I definitely agree that that is one that is in a worse position than it was going into Com. I think another film that is in a better place. If I could just jump on that quickly, if you can get those stars to actually

come out and campaign for it, I don't know if I I'd feel, since that movie has kind of very small financial backing, I don't think they have that kind of big contract you'd have from a major studio where they're obliged to like, you know, go in Jimmy Fallon and talk about the movie. And based on what we saw at Con,

like Scarlett Johans and not showing up, not even answering the FaceTime when James Gray went on stage afterwards. I'm not sure if we can count on those stars to actually campaign for the movie. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. I think like it's going to probably need a little bit of distributor help in order to really push it there. But it's a long award season. Like I'm not, I don't think that it did as, I don't think it's like as dead coming out

of cons as you might think that. it is. I think that it's still got a lot of potential, but I don't think that it has emerged as like a clear we need to push, push this film. But I don't think that that is, that is completely out of the question. I was going to say one one film that I think that is actually gaining in terms of the momentum for awards would be all of a sudden, which is one that I didn't really, wasn't really on my radar going into cons as a potential, as a potential player within the Oscars. But the near universal acclaim for that film is something that I could see really

motivating a distributor to push this. Yeah. Yeah. Is that, who has all of a sudden, actually? Is that movie or is that Nyan or is this something else? I'm not sure who's. Got North American. I think Mooby distributed the last two Hamaguchi's.

And evil does not exist for me felt like, you know, just showed up on Moobie one day, but never really showed up in theater as much. It'll be interesting to see if this one gets a little bit more attention because drive my car did. Like the second to last Hamaguchi movie, that definitely was like that got on the best picture nominees, if I'm not mistaken. And definitely was a had a decent theatrical run. that a lot of people saw. But his follow-up,

evil does not exist, was not on very many screens at all. So it will be interesting to see on which end of the spectrum this one ends up with. But I agree with you that I think it will be more on the drive-my-car end of things and getting more attention,

getting on more screens. Will it get into Oscars' conversation? I'm not sure if I could see it going that far, but drive my car did. So it's within, reason. All right. Do we have any other storylines we need to touch on before we quickly wrap things up here and start looking ahead to the next step in the awards season? The endless award season. The award season is 12 months a year, by the way. Not much happens in April, but

no, I don't think that I've got anything else that is on my radar. Nice. Yeah, yeah, same here. We'll regroup and come back once we see what else is going on in Hollywood. Maybe bring you something about Hollywood history, a little sidebar highlighting something about the Oscars over time if things are slow in the next couple of weeks. Who knows? A lot of stuff in store. It is, like I said, a 12-month season. Craig, thanks for jumping in for our quick reactions to the Cannes Film Festival of 2026.

Any final thoughts for our listeners? No, just hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you're listening or watching on. Leave us a comment. Let us know what your thoughts are. Who do you think is best positioned going into Oscar season coming out of cons? Any surprises that happened? We want to know. Let us know in the comment. Yeah, and let us know if there's anything you want us to cover about this Oscar season or Oscar seasons in the past, since we do like to do those historical sidebars as well. My name is Dylan Ferguson. I have some writing about Philmon Substack. And me and Craig will see you next time about Oscars Outsider. Later.