One Best Picture Oscar Nominee Will Achieve A Feat Only 3 Past Movies Have (If It Wins)

From Moonlight‘s much-deserved win over La La Land to Parasite‘s history-making run, the Academy Awards are known for dramatic twists. While Oscar-winner Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer seems primed to sweep several major categories, there’s still room for an upset. In fact, one 2024 Oscar nominee for Best Picture has the chance to achieve a feat only three other movies ever have before — though it requires a win in the night’s biggest category. The record in question doesn’t revolve around any “firsts,” but it provides connective tissue between a film’s festival circuit journey to its Oscars campaign.

Undoubtedly, one of the film industry’s biggest moments is the annual Cannes Film Festival. The invitation-only festival, which was founded in 1946, hosts genre-spanning film premieres. Not only is the French fest known as one of the “Big Three” major European film festivals, alongside the Venice Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, but its jurors hand out the coveted Palme d’Or. Widely considered one of the film industry’s most prestigious awards, a Palme d’Or win at Cannes can set a film up for an incredibly successful year and awards season campaign.

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Anatomy Of A Fall Can Win An Oscar After Winning The Palme d’Or At Cannes

At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute) earned the Palme d’Or. With its impressive win, Anatomy of a Fall and its director joined the ranks of classic films such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, and Jane Campion’s The Piano. Creating a buzz on the film festival circuit certainly garners more viewers and momentum, but clinching the Palme d’Or doesn’t cement a movie’s awards season pathway. In fact, only three films in history have won both the Palme d’Or and the Best Picture Oscar.

In 1946, Billy Wilder’s noir drama The Lost Weekend nabbed Cannes’ top prize — though it was then called the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film and multiple films took home said accolade. Nearly 10 years later, Delbert Mann’s 1955 romantic drama Marty took home the honor the first year it was named the Palme d’Or. Finally, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite earned the Golden Palm in 2019. Although all three of the Palme d’Or winners later claimed Best Picture at the Oscars, Parasite is the only dual winner that wasn’t made in the United States.

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Why Winning Best Picture & The Palme d’Or Is So Rare

Only the third woman director to win Cannes’ most coveted award, Triet could join another incredibly exclusive club if Anatomy of a Fallwins Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards. Historically speaking, winning the Oscars’ Best Picture and the Palme d’Or is so rare because most films produced outside the U.S. are entered in the Oscars race under the Best International Feature category. Meanwhile, it’s equally rare for a U.S.-made movie to hold onto the post-Cannes momentum it needs to eventually clinch the Best Picture Oscar nearly a year later.