Celebrated filmmaker Peter Jackson will receive an honorary Palme d’Or for his lifetime achievements at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. The award will be presented during the opening ceremony of the festival’s 79th edition on May 12.
Announcing the honour, the festival praised Jackson for creating “a body of work that blends Hollywood blockbusters and films d’auteur with extraordinary artistic vision and technological audacity.”
Despite the recognition, Jackson has never had a film compete in the festival’s official selection. His relationship with Cannes, however, stretches back decades. In 1988, he brought his debut feature Bad Taste to the festival’s Marché du Film, where the ultra-low-budget splatter horror secured international distribution. Years later, in 2001, he returned to Cannes to showcase 26 minutes of promotional footage from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, a move that reportedly convinced sceptical distributors of the project’s potential.
Jackson’s ambitious adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy went on to become a global phenomenon. The three films collectively grossed around $3 billion worldwide and won 17 Academy Awards. The final instalment, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, alone secured 11 Oscars, including Best Picture. His subsequent prequel trilogy based on The Hobbit also performed strongly at the box office, earning nearly $3 billion globally despite receiving little awards recognition.
Reacting to the announcement, Jackson said: “To be honoured with an honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes is one of the greatest privileges of my career. This festival has always celebrated bold, visionary cinema, and I’m incredibly grateful to the Festival de Cannes for being recognised among the filmmakers and the artists whose work continues to inspire me.”
Jackson’s career began with a trio of irreverent cult films — Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Dead Alive — before he gained international recognition with the 1994 drama Heavenly Creatures. The film, starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in early roles, earned Jackson and longtime collaborator Fran Walsh an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.