So you didn’t make it to the south of France for the Cannes Film Festival this year, you can still watch Award winning movies from previous years on Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime! So let’s get down to business.
Hulu
One of the best movies that has won at Cannes is Life is Beautiful, the 1997 masterpiece by Roberto Benigni. It’s about how a father tries to spare his child the inhumanity and indignity of a World War II internment camp. It stars Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi and Giorgio Cantarini. And it won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1998. Also on Hulu is The Square, a 2017 production starring Elizabeth Moss, Claes Bang and Dominic West. I have already mentioned it as a film to watch on Hulu, if you like satiric films, but I didn’t mention that it won the Palme D’Or in Cannes. and, finally, Hulu has BPM(orignally 120 BPM) which is about AIDS activists in Paris in the 1990’s. Again, I have suggested BPM before as a good Hulu view, but (again) I neglected to mention that this movie won four awards at Cannes, including the Grand Prix.
Netflix
And, of course, Netflix has a lot of Award winners from Cannes, even after the ignominy of being sbanned from of Cannes(!) this year. One of the biggest hits at Cannes,in 2011,was The Tree of Life, the Terrence Malick movie, which won the Palme D’Or. It has a great cast, with Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and Sean Penn. It’s an experimental drama, like many of Malick’s films and it was named one of the best films since 2000, by the BBC. So check it out. Also on Netflix is Dheepan, a 2015 Palme D’Or winner for French director Jacques Audiard. It stars Antonysathan Jesusathan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan and Claudine Vinasithamby as Tamil refugees trying to find a new home in France. It’s a wonderful movie. And, Netflix offers The Meyerwitz Stories, the 2017 Netflix Original starring Adam Sandler, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Okay, this movie didn’t win at Cannes, but it competed for the Palm D’Or, and it’s a fine movie, so what the heck. And, finally there is Okja, the 2017 movie about a girl and her giant pig. It”s an amazing movie starring Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton , Lily Collins and Jake Gyllenhaal. Again, it didn’t win, but I suppose we should be grateful Cannes even allowed it’s contention in 2017 for the Palme D’Or.
Amazon Prime
Amazon, too, offers some great Cannes winners this month, including Wonderstruck, Todd Haynes‘ 2017 classic. It starred Oakes Fegley, Julianne Moore, Millicent Simmonds and Michelle Williams. It was a terrific movie, one everyone should see, but it didn’t win the Palme D’Or, you say, it was only nominated. Well, Grigris won the Vulcan Award at Cannes, a 2013 movie directed by Mahamet Saleh Haroun and is a French Chadian production. It starred Soulemane Deme, Mariam Monory and Cyril Guei and it’s the story of a man with a paralyzed leg who dreams of becoming a dancer. It’s an outstanding movie. Amazon also offers Her Name is Sabine, an incredible documentary made by actress Sandrine Bonnaire about her autistic sister Sabine. It won the FIPRESCI Award at Cannes and gets a 7.7 on IMDb to boot. And, finally, Amazon has I Am a Soldier, a 2015 French-Belgian film. It stars Louise Bourgoin, Jean-Hugues Anglade and Anne Benoit and is about the illegal dog selling trade in France. It won the Palme Dogmanitarian Award, an alternative award given for dog movies, but also won at the Cairo Film Festival and the Lumieres Festival.
So, even if you can’t get to Cannes this year, you can stream Cannes Award winning movies at home, from the comfort of your easy chair.
