Directed by Maurice Pialat • 1987 • France
Starring Gérard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat
Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival—where its victory was greeted with more than a bit of controversy—Maurice Pialat’s searing adaptation of a novel by Georges Bernanos stars Gérard Depardieu as a priest in the throes of a moral and spiritual crisis who channels his torment into saving the soul of a pregnant teenager (Sandrine Bonnaire) who has murdered her lover. Depardieu’s visceral performance and Pialat’s rigorous style come together to create an intense, shattering exploration of faith, sin, and salvation.
Up Next in Palme d’Or Winners
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Secrets & Lies
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1996 • United Kingdom
Mike Leigh’s Palme d’Or–winning masterpiece charts the shockwaves that ripple through an already-fractured London family when Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a successful, adopted black optometrist, makes contact with Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn, win...
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Taste of Cherry
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1997 • Iran
Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry is an emotionally complex meditation on life and death. Middle-aged Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) drives through the hilly outskirts of Tehran, s...
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4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Directed by Cristian Mungiu • 2007 • Romania
Starring Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad IvanovRomanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu shot to international prominence with this rigorously realistic Palme d’Or–winning second feature. In 1987, during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, colle...
