Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a culmination for the 81-year-old actor whose history with the French film festival stretches back half a century.
In 1976, De Niro starred in two films – Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 – that premiered in competition at Cannes. Taxi Driver was an immediate sensation, and went home with the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.
Since then, De Niro has been a regular on the Croisette, returning with The King of Comedy in 1983, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America in 1984 and Roland Joffe’s The Mission in 1986. Joffe’s film also won the Palme, making De Niro the rare actor to star in two Palme d’Or winners.
Though De Niro helps run his own film festival back in New York, the Tribeca Festival, he has remained a mainstay in Cannes. He presided over the jury in 2011 that selected Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life for the Palme. Most recently, he and Scorsese returned to premiere Killers of the Flower Moon in 2023.
“I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes,” De Niro said when his honorary Palme d’Or was announced last month. “Especially now when there’s so much in the world pulling us apart, Cannes brings us together – storytellers, filmmakers, fans, and friends. It’s like coming home.”
De Niro is to receive the award in the festival’s opening ceremony on May 13.
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