All Seventy Venice Film Festival Best Film Winners (with links to full reviews)
Dec 19 '05 (Updated Jan 01 '06)
The Bottom Line Use this list to find films from all over the world that won the top prize at the prestigious Venice Film Festival.
The Venice Film Festival is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world and the oldest one still taking place. It began in 1932, at which time it was called "Esposizione Internationale d'Arte Cinematografica." Since 1934, it has been called "Mostra Internationale d'Arte Cinematografica." The festival met during the years 1932, 1934-1942, 1946-1968, 1971-2, 1974-6, and 1979-2005. The Festival's top award, now called the Golden Lion, is considered one of the industry's most coveted prizes, second only the Oscars and the Palme d'Or of Cannes in international prestige. From 1934-1944, the Festival selected both an Italian film (which received the Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film) and a foreign film (awarded the Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film). From 1937-1942, the fascist influence in Italy dominated the festival and pretty much destroyed all semblance of objectivity in the jury selections. The Festival really only began acquiring the reputation it enjoys today after World War II. From 1946-8, the top award was called the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Great International Prize of Venice). It was renamed Leone di San Marco (Lion of San Marco) from 1949-1953 and became the Leone d'Oro (Golden Lion) in 1954. Awards were not presented in every year in which the festival was held. The list below was derived from three sources and includes all of the known recipients of the top prize of the Venice Film Festival.
The festival takes place every year in late August and early September on the Lido di Venezia in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi in Venice. In alternate years, the Festival is part of the Venice Biennale, a major biennial exhibition and festival for contemporary art. Screenings take place in cinemas all over Venice. The Venice Film Festival has traditionally sponsored mainly non-Hollywood films, but that is beginning to change. Something of a rapprochement has been accomplished resulting in a record eleven U.S. titles being featured at the 2005 event.
Among the seventy films listed below, I have personally reviewed twenty-three. Links to reviews by other excellent Epinions writers are also provided for fifteen of the other films. Twenty-two of the films are not in the Epinions database (mostly Italian films from the fascist era) and the remaining ten films are listed but currently have no reviews. Links are provided to the database listing for those ten.
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Best Film Winners at the Venice Film Festival (1934-2005):
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1934 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film Loyalty of Love (also known as Teresa Confalonieri) (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Guido Brignone Rating: Undetermined
Marta Abba is Teresa Confaloneiri, whose husband Count Federico (Nerio Berardi) cheats on her with various women and plays fast and loose with the law. When Abba is finally caught and sentenced to death, it is Teresa who arranges for his penalty to be converted to life imprisonment. Abba's performance is the film's highlight, but the direction and editing leave a lot to be desired.
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1934 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film Man of Aran (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: U.K. Director Robert J. Flaherty Rating: Undetermined
Flaherty used a pseudo-documentary style for this film about the harsh life of fishermen in Aran. The film uses voice-over narrative to highlight the sea's brutality and sparse living conditions. The featured performers are Colman "Tiger" King and Maggie Dirrane.
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1935 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film Casta Diva (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Carmine Gallone Rating: Undetermined
Although the 1935 version of this film is unavailable in America, the 1954 color remake by the same director can be accessed at Casta Diva: A Romanticized Biography of Bellini. The remake stars Maurice Ronet and Nadia Gray. Sandro Palmieri played Vincenzo Bellini in the original and Mártha Eggerth co-starred as Maddalena Fumarol.
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1935 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film Anna Karenina (See George Chabot's Review.) Country: U.S. Director Clarence Brown George Chabot's Rating: * * *
Greta Garbo plays Tolstoy's Russian heroine saddled with an abusive older husband (Basil Rathbone). She scandalizes Russian society by falling in love with a dashing young officer, Vronsky (Fredric March). Anna Karenina has been filmed repeatedly. The version I recommend can be accessed at Anna Karenina.
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1936 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film White Squadron (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Augusto Genina Rating: Undetermined
Fosco Giachetti plays Capt. Santelia in this war drama based on a novel by Joseph Peyré.
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1936 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film The Emperor of California (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Germany Director Louis Trenker Rating: Undetermined
Trenker directed and starred in this "Western" about a German immigrant to California, Johan August Suter, who became known to Americans as simply John Sutter, the man who discovered gold and triggered the California Gold Rush. Viktoria von Ballasko costars as Anna Suter.
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1937 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Carmine Gallone Rating: Undetermined
This film, a pet project of Benito Mussolini, was intended to inspire his troops during the Italian adventures in Ethiopia. The story concerns the Roman Scipio (Annibale Ninchi) who invaded Africa in 202 B.C., defeating the Carthaginians and returning home a hero. Mussolini's son Vittorio spearheaded the production. Despite costing about 20 times the average for Italian films of the time, the result is quite poor.
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1937 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film Dance Program (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: France Director Julien Duvivier Rating: Undetermined
Marie Bell plays Christine Sugere, a widow who discovers a dance card from a ball she attended two decades earlier. She sets out to find each of the men that she had danced with that night, only to be repeatedly disappointed. One has become an abortionist, another a sleazy lawyer, one a hairdresser, and another a religious zealot. When she discovers that the only one that she truly cared for has killed himself, she adopts the man's orphaned son.
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1938 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film Luciano Serra, Pilot (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Goffredo Alessandrini Rating: Undetermined
Mussolini's son produced this film and Roberto Rossellini was the chief screenwriter. Former WWI Italian pilot Luciano Serra (Amedio Nazzari) had moved to America after the war, but his son back in Italy wants to become a pilot as well. During a flight from Rio to Rome, Serra crashes his plane into the Atlantic so that he can fight for his native Italy in Ethiopa. When his son's plane is shot down, it's up to Luciano to get the plane back into action and save the Italian troops.
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1938 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film Olympia: Festival of Beauty (See Stephen Murray's Review.) Country: Germany Director Leni Riefenstahl Stephen Murray's Rating: * * * * *
Leni Riefenstahl's great documentary about the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Nazi Germany met with high acclaim except in Britain and America, where anti-Nazi sentiment was understandably running high. Part I opens in portentous style as a paean to ancient Greece and the Olympic spirit and ideals. A statue of a discus thrower comes dramatically to life hurling a discus that sets into motion a myriad of athletes and dancers. Soon the film takes viewers through the opening ceremonies in the packed Deutsches Stadium, including a short speech by Hitler and the igniting of the Olympic flame. One highlight of the film is Jesse Owens winning the 100-meter dash.
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1938 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film Olympia: Festival of the People (See Stephen Murray's Review.) Country: Germany Director Leni Riefenstahl Stephen Murray's Rating: * * * *
Part II of Riefenstahl's remarkable documentary opens with the serenity of the Olympic Village at dawn. Gradually young men begin to appear, jogging or going about their morning ablutions. Among the featured events in this part are men's gymnastics, the pentathlon, women's gymnastics, Glenn Morris winning the decathlon, field hockey, soccer, the 100-kilometer bicycle race, rowing, and women's springboard diving. Riefenstahl engages in some extraordinary editing techniques to emphasize the poetry of motion rather than merely the competitive aspect of sports. During the shooting of Olympia, Riefenstahl, had a torrid affair with the American athlete Glenn Morris, which began most abruptly. As described by Riefenstahl, Morris, after accepting his decathlon medal, grabbed Riefenstahl in his arms, tore off her blouse, and began kissing her breasts in the middle of the stadium, in front of a hundred thousand spectators!
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1939 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film Cardinal Messias (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Goffredo Alessandrini Rating: Undetermined
Camillo Pilotto stars as the Cardinal is this war drama based on a story by Luigi Bernardi.
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1940 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film The Siege of the Alcazar (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Augusto Genina Rating: Undetermined
This fascist propaganda film tells the story of Franco's triumph against the Communists in Spain. Using a mix of Spanish and Italian actors, the film was shot on location in Toledo. Alcazar, the great stone fortress at Toledo, on the River Tajo, has high symbolic significance for Spaniards because it was once an Arab bastion and its ultimate conquest by Christian Spaniards played a role in the birth of Spain as a nation. The fortress was destroyed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. Fosco Giachetti stars as Capt. Vella. The most effective part of the film is the hand-to-hand fighting during the Communist's final offensive.
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1940 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film The Stationmaster (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Germany Director Gustav Ucicky Rating: Undetermined
In a plot based on Pushkin, two Russian Cavalry officers arrive at a German post station and one tells the story of a fellow soldier who fell in love with the daughter of a stationmaster. Promising her the world, the Russian finally enticed her into traveling with him to St. Petersburg, but she ultimately came to realize that he had no intention of marrying her. Heinrich George stars as the postmaster and Hilde Krahl as Dunja.
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1941 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film The Iron Cross (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: Italy Director Alessandro Blasetti Rating: Undetermined
This 13th-century sword and sorcery epic follows the rise and fall of a villainous monarch, King Sedemondo of Kindaor (Gino Cervi). The eponymous iron cross, a gift to the pope from the Byzantine Emperor, was made from the metal of Roman swords and a nail from the Cross of Christ. The rightful sovereign recovers the iron cross, intending to return it to Italy, but he's soon slain by his corrupt brother, Sedemondo, who covets both power and the cross. This film was not seen in America until after the conclusion of World War II.
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1941 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film Ohm Krüger (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Germany Director Hans Steinhoff Rating: Undetermined
Paulus "Ohm" Krüger (Emil Jannings) was the leader of the Boers during the Boer War (1899-1902). Thought the Boers were defeated by the British, they fought bravely. The film served Nazi propaganda purposes by depicting the British as ruthless and duplicitous, effectively warning German audiences that they must not lose. The film includes a scene reminiscent of the Odessa steps scene in Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin, in which the British massacre women and children in a concentration camp.
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1942 The Mussolini Cup for Best Italian Film Bengasi (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Augusta Genina Rating: Undetermined
Fosco Giachetti stars as Captain Enrico Berti in this war drama written by Ugo Betti and Alessandro De Steffani. Giachetti won the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for his performance.
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1942 The Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film The Great King (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Germany Director Veit Harlan Rating: Undetermined
This Nazi propaganda film, "Der Große König" in German, tells the story of the Prussian King Friedrich the Second at the Battle of Kunersdorf, where the decimated German troops seems certain to fall to the superior Austrian forces, only to be saved by reinforcements sent by the Russia Czar Peter the Great. The film was released just as the initiative in World War II was beginning to slip away from the Germans. Otto Gebühr gives a strong performance as King Friedrich. Gustav Fröhlich, best known for his performance in Metropolis, plays Sergeant Treskow, who tries thinking for himself rather than simply following orders, with disastrous consequences.
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1946 The Grand International Prize of Venice for Best Film The Southerner (See Stephen Murray's Review.) Country: U.S. Director Jean Renoir Stephen Murray's Rating: * * *
In Renoir's social drama, Sam Tucker (Zachary Scott) and his wife Nora (Betty Field) are struggling to make a go of it on a southern farm. When their son grows ill, they turn to a neighbor, Henry Devers (J. Carrol Naish), for help, but are refused.
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1947 The Grand International Prize of Venice for Best Film Siréna (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Czechoslovakia Director Karel Steklý Rating: Undetermined
This communist propaganda film features a strike by workers at a Czech mine where working conditions are deplorable. Josef Bek stars as Karel Hampl.
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1948 The Grand International Prize of Venice for Best Film Hamlet (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: U.K. Director Laurence Olivier Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
Purists may balk at the cuts, but the narrative flows nicely in Olivier's rendition of the Bard's most famous play. Hamlet vows revenge when his father's ghost appears and informs the young man that his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius, who has since married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, and taken the throne. Olivier both stars and directs.
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1949 The Lion of San Marco for Best Film Manon (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: France Director Henri-Georges Clouzot Rating: Undetermined
Clouzot's Manon stars Cecile Aubry as Manon Lescaut. It opens with a flashback of Manon being condemned by the people of her village for her affair with Resistance fighter Robert Des Grieux (Michel Auclair). When the pair takes refuge in Paris with her brother Leon (Serge Reggiani), the brother forces Manon into prostitution. The young lovers attempt to escape to Israel, but are attacked by a band of Arabs.
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1950 The Lion of San Marco for Best Film Let Justice Be Done (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: France Director André Cayatte Rating: Undetermined
Sometimes called "Justice Is Done," this film examines the issue of euthanasia in the context of the French jury system. Michel Auclair plays Serve Kremer, a man on trial for the mercy killing of his ailing mistress. The film describes the court system of France and gives background on each of the seven jurors who will decide the case. The performances are excellent. The bizarre method of execution used by the French is also depicted.
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1951 The Lion of San Marco for Best Film Rashômon (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Japan Director Akira Kurosawa Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
Akira Kurosawa's brilliantly constructed gem examines the issue of point-of-view through the apparently contradictory accounts of the rape of a woman and murder of her husband in the forest. This 11th century tale uses the framing device of a conversation between three observers of the trial, a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), a priest (Minoru Chiaki), and a commoner (Kichijiro Ued), as they take refuge under the ruins of the Rashomon gate during a torrential downpour. The "truth" of the crime is presented from the viewpoints of the victim of the rape, Masago (Machiko Kyo), the bandit Tajomaru (Toshirô Mifune), the woodcutter who witnessed the event from a distance, and the spirit of the samurai husband, Takehiro (Masayuki Mori), conjured from the dead by a medium.
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1952 The Lion of San Marco for Best Film Forbidden Games (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: France Director René Clément Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
This great film about the fantasy world of children features one of the best performances ever recorded by a child, Brigitte Fossey, playing a war orphan, Paulette, who is taken in by a family of peasants (Lucien Hubert and Suzanne Courtal). Paulette spends many hours playing with the 11 year-old Michel (Georges Poujouly), as they erect a cemetery for dead moles, chickens, and insects.
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1954 The Golden Lion for Best Film Romeo and Juliet (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Italy/U.K. Director Renato Castellani Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
Italian director Castellani shot this British production entirely on location in Italy. It is praised especially for its visual beauty, thanks mainly to the painterly texture of the costumes and sets provided by Italian surrealist painter Leonor Fini. Laurence Harvey stars as Romeo and Susan Shentall (in her only screen appearance) as Juliet. Most of the cast was composed of nonprofessionals.
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1955 The Golden Lion for Best Film Ordet (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Denmark Director Carl Theodor Dreyer Metalluk's Rating: * *
Set in a staunchly religious Danish village, this film explores the conflict between institutionalized religion and personal faith. Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg) and his three sons are all wrestling with religious questions one way or another. One son, Mikkel (Emil Hass Christensen) harbors doubts, a second, Anders (Cay Kristiansen), is in love with a girl who belongs to another denomination, but the off-kilter Johannes (Preben Lerdorff-Rye) actually believes himself to be the Christ.
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1957 The Golden Lion for Best Film Aparajito (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: India Director Satyajit Ray Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
The middle part of the Apu trilogy is the least affecting of the three, though marvelous in its own way. The young Apu (Penaki SenGupta) and his widowed mother (Karuna Banerjee) must struggle to survive, but when Apu reveals special scholastic aptitude, he is sent to school and wins a scholarship to the University in Calcutta. Caught up in the hectic life of the city, Apu gradually begins to lose contact with his mother. Ravi Shankar's sitar score is one of the marvels of the Apu trilogy.
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1958 The Golden Lion for Best Film Rikisha-Man (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: Japan Director Hiroshi Inagaki Rating: Undetermined
Toshirô Mifune stars as Matsugoro, a poor riskshaw driver whose spirited optimism makes him a favorite in his hometown. After Matsugoro comes to the aid of an injured boy, Toshio (Kenji Kasahara), his parents hire the rickshaw man to drive the boy back and forth from the doctor's office. When the boy's father dies, Matsugoro becomes the lad's surrogate father and falls in love with his mother, Yoshiko (Hideko Takamine), but the gap in their social classes precludes realization of a more profound relationship.
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1959 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Great War (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: Italy Director Mario Monicelli Rating: Undetermined
This war comedy finds Giovanni Busacca (Vittorio Gassman) having to enlist in the army to avoid criminal prosecution. In the army, Busacca teams up with Oreste Jacovacci (Alberto Sordi) to evade duties as best they can. Busacca ends up on the front in a bloody battle, after a prostitute, Constantina (Sylvano Magnano) steals his wallet, but when he later confronts the prostitute, he falls in love with her. After their unit is wiped out while the two soldiers are AWOL, Busacca and Jacovacci are mistaken for surviving heroes and sent on a dangerous mission.
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1959 The Golden Lion for Best Film General della Rovere (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Italy Director Roberto Rossellini Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
Rossellini didn't really want to make this movie, but the result was a triumph. Victorio Emanuele Bardone (Vittorio De Sica), an amoral swindler is imposed upon to impersonate a leader of the Resistance, General Della Rovere, after the latter is accidentally murdered by Gestapo troops. Bardone is sent to a Milan jail where he is to make contact with a partisan leader. Bardone gradually begins to identify with the imprisoned men of the Resistance and the moral position of the man whose identity he has assumed.
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1960 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Crossing of the Rhine (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director André Cayatte Rating: Undetermined
After the fall of France to Germany during World War II, two French soldiers (Charles Aznavour and Georges Rivière) are taken prisoner and interred as forced laborers on a German farm. Gradually they become fully enmeshed in the lives of their captors.
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1961 The Golden Lion for Best Film Last Year at Marienbad (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: France Director Alain Resnais Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
This unique film stretches the language of cinema to present an opaque mystery involving three main characters identified simply as A (Deophine Seyrig), X (Giorgio Albertazzi), and M (Sacha Pitoeff). The setting, a luxurious estate with a casino, is very nearly another character in the film. M might or might not be A's husband and X may or may not have previously met A, possibly at Marienbad the preceding year. X feels certain they had a previous affair, but A denies any recollection of it. Viewers are challenged to make sense out of the film's relentless ambiguities.
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1962 The Golden Lion for Best Film My Name Is Ivan (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: U.S.S.R. Director Andrei Tarkovsky Rating: Undetermined
Tarkovsky's first feature film is a cinematic poem recounting the terrible influence of war on the innocence of youth. Ivan (Kolya Burlyayev), a 12-year-old already part of a Russian intelligence unit, treks through a murky swamp to gain information on German troop movements. Having lost his father, mother, and sister when the Germans overran his hometown, Ivan's only remaining reason for existence is his mission. The Venice Film Festival dished out not only the Golden Lion for this film, but also rewarded the director and lead actor with Best Director and Best Actor trophies.
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1962 The Golden Lion for Best Film Family Diary (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: France/Italy Director Valerio Zurlini Rating: Undetermined
Two twin brothers, Enrico (Marcello Mastroianni) and Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin), are separated when their parents die. The grandmother adopts Enrico but Lorenzo is raised by a butler. Lorenzo is spoiled by growing up in a wealthy household and finds himself unable to earn a living. The two brothers are ultimately reunited, but Enrico is unable to save Lorenzo from a melodramatic ending.
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1963 The Golden Lion for Best Film Hands Over the City (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy/France Director Francesco Rosi Rating: Undetermined
This drama, exposing the political power plays rampant in the Naples Chamber of Deputies, stars Rod Steiger as Nottola, a corrupt counselor who lands an important post by outmaneuvering his opponents. Though technically brilliant, the film plays out in a rather simplistic way, much like a Hollywood Western.
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1964 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Red Desert (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Italy Director Michelangelo Antonioni Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
Antonioni uses the titular color to reveal the emotional strain of alienation experienced by the protagonist, Giuliani (Monica Vitti), in an industrial town in northern Italy dominated by a grim landscape. Giuliani's husband, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) fails to understand his wife's depression, but Giuliani finds something of a soul mate in South American recruiter Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris). This visually intense film reveals the destructive potential of technology.
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1965 The Golden Lion for Best Film Sandra of a Thousand Delights (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Luchino Visconti Rating: Undetermined
Claudia Cardinale stars as Sandra, who returns to the small town, Volterra, in Tuscany, where she spent her childhood. Accompanied by her American husband, Andrew (Michael Craig), Sandra has returned to participate in a ceremony honoring her late father, who was killed at Auschwitz. There, Andrew meets his wife's brother, Gianni (Jean Sorel), a suicidal writer, and learns that Sandra and Gianni share a passionate secret. Also complicating the family relationships is Sandra's suspicion that her mother (Marie Bell) engineered her father's deportation in order to marry Gilardini (Renzo Ricci), the former estate administrator.
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1966 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Battle of Algiers (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Algeria Director Gillo Pontecorvo Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
This film details the struggle for Algerian independence from France. It is 1957 and a tortured Arab prisoner has informed on the last surviving member of the Algerian Liberation Front, Ali la Pointe (Brahim Haggiag). From the brutal showdown at La Pointe's home, the film flashes back to 1954, when the Battle of Algiers first erupted. The film has a documentary-like verisimilitude and strong editing technique and features themes as important today as they were fifty years ago.
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1967 The Golden Lion for Best Film Belle de Jour (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: France Director Luis Buñuel Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
Catherine Deneuve is magnificent as Severine, a woman torn between her staid middle-class marriage and persistent fantasies of sexual eroticism. She eventually takes work as a high-class prostitute, but only in the afternoons to avoid making her husband suspicious. The film opens with a remarkable scene in which Severine is raped against a tree by the carriage men, as her husband looks on, only for it to be revealed as the woman's idle afternoon fantasy as she lounges about in her bed.
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1968 The Golden Lion for Best Film Artist in the Circus Dome: Clueless (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: West Germany Director Alexander Kluge Rating: Undetermined
Kluge's film has more to do with ethics than entertainment. When a philosophical old circus owner, Manfred Peickert (Sigi Graue), falls from a trapeze and breaks his neck, his daughter, Leni (Hannelore Hoger) auditions candidates to revive the circus with a new look. Voiceover narrators provide dense philosophical speculations about life and death, politics and economics, spirituality and space travel.
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1980 The Golden Lion for Best Film Atlantic City (See BrianKoller's Review.) Country: U.S. Director Louis Malle BrianKoller's Rating: * * *
Director Louis Malle provides a European's viewpoint on the dismal life of a small-time hoodlum in Atlantic City. Lou (Burt Lancaster) and his moll (Kate Reid) become involved with a drug dealer (Robert Joy) and the man's estranged wife and croupier Sally (Susan Sarandon). Lancaster provides a fine performance.
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1980 The Golden Lion for Best Film Gloria (See ising's Review.) Country: U.S. Director John Cassavetes isinga's Rating: * * * *
The director's wife, Gena Rowlands, gives a stirring performance as Gloria Swenson, a middle-aged former prostitute who lives alone with her cats. The mafia wipes out a neighboring family, after they've left their eight-year-old son Philip Dawn (Juan Adames) in Gloria's care. Gloria has to rise to the occasion and find a way to protect the boy from mafia hit men.
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1981 The Golden Lion for Best Film Marianne and Juliane (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: West Germany Director Margarethe von Trotta Rating: Undetermined
Marianne (Barbara Sukowa) and Juliane (Jutta Lampe) are two German sisters who follow different paths in their politics of protest during the mid-seventies. Marianne joins a terrorist group and asks Juliane to adopt her young son, but the latter refuses. Marianne's husband later commits suicide and the boy becomes a ward of the state. Juliane, who takes the more deliberate approach of writing articles in opposition to the government, is wracked with guilt when her sister dies mysteriously while in jail.
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1982 The Golden Lion for Best Film The State of Things (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: West Germany Director Wim Wenders Rating: Undetermined
Wenders examines the contrast between the European auteur-based style of filmmaking and the more commercially driven Hollywood approach. As German director Friedrich Monro (Patrick Bauchau) is shooting a low-budget American-sponsored film in Portugal, the project has to be shut down when the production team runs out of film. Monro tracks down the producer, Gordon (Allen Garfield), in Hollywood, and discovers that the mob financiers withdrew financial support when they discovered the film was to be shot in black-and-white and would lack a Hollywood-style narrative.
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1983 The Golden Lion for Best Film First Name: Carmen (See michael_a's Review.) Country: France Director Jean-Luc Godard michael_a's Rating: * * *
Arguably the least "faithful" adaptation in film history, Godard's version of the Carmen story uses Beethoven string quartets in place of Bizet. Carmen (Maruschka Detmers) is now a femme fatale planning a bank robbery behind the cover of making a film. She enlists the aid of her deranged uncle (Godard) who had once been a famous director but now resides in a mental asylum.
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1984 The Golden Lion for Best Film A Year of the Quiet Sun (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Poland Director Krzysztof Zanussi Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
In 1946, in a Polish town previously part of eastern Germany, Emilia (Maja Komorowska) and her mother (Hanna Skarzanka) struggle to survive in their small apartment in a bomb-damaged building. An American soldier, Private First Class Norman (Scott Wilson), employed as a driver, falls in love with Emilia, despite the fact that he speaks only English and she only Polish. Love is difficult under the best of circumstances, but can it survive in the midst of postwar devastation and without the benefit of both parties speaking the same language?
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1985 The Golden Lion for Best Film Vagabond (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: France Director Agnès Varda Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
Varda uses a documentary style approach to this fictional story about the last weeks in the life of a young female vagabond, Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire), found frozen to death in a ditch. Bonnaire won a French Cesar award for her remarkable performance in this cold but atmospheric picture.
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1986 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Green Ray (Summer) (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: France Director Eric Rohmer Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
As the sun sets on a flat horizon, one can sometimes spot a momentary glimpse of a green ray, as the last tip of the solar disk sinks out of sight. Rohmer actually caught such an event on film for the final segment of this film. The story concerns a young, introverted, single woman, Delphine (Marie Rivière), who works in Paris as a secretary. Her hopes for a joyous summer vacation are blown to bits when her fiancé breaks up with her and her best friend cancels out on their plan to travel together in Greece. This is my favorite Rohmer film.
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1987 The Golden Lion for Best Film Au Revoir les Enfants (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: France Director Louis Malle Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
This beautifully rendered reflection on childhood memories shaped by war and loss finds Julien Quentin (Gaspard Manesse) at a Catholic boarding school in German occupied France in 1944, desperately trying to grasp the enormity of the secret of his classmate and friend, Jean Bonnet (Raphael Fejto).
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1988 The Golden Lion for Best Film Legend of the Holy Drinker (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Italy Director Ermanno Olmi Rating: Undetermined
Rutger Hauer, Jean-Maurice Chanet and Sandrine Dumas star in this gentle film about human frailty, adapted from a novella by Joseph Roth. Hauer plays a homeless Parisian with a criminal past and a taste for booze, suddenly given a large sum of money by a stranger who intends it as a gift to a holy shrine.
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1989 The Golden Lion for Best Film City of Sadness (Not listed at Epinions.) Country: Taiwan Director Hsiao-Hsien Hou Rating: Undetermined
Taiwanese director Hsiao-Hsien Hou portrays a 1947 tragedy in which some 28,000 people were massacred in Taiwan under the authority of the ruling government. The film personalizes the story by focusing on one particular family.
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1990 The Golden Lion for Best Film Rosencrantz Guildenstern Are Dead (See Vormancian's Review.) Country: U.K. Director Tom Stoppard Vormancian's Rating: * * * * *
Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth) are actors who play two of the minor characters in Hamlet, but who soon find themselves caught up in the court intrigues of Elsinor, observing the unfolding of the play with which they are so intimately familiar. Predictably, King Claudius (Donald Sumpter) and Queen Gertrude (Joanna Miles) are conspiring to rid themselves of the increasingly deranged Prince Hamlet (Ian Glen) by shipping him off to England. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves on board ship bearing the letter that instructs the English king to behead Hamlet, but Hamlet substitutes another letter instructing the king to hang Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead.
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1991 The Golden Lion for Best Film Close to Eden (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: France/U.S.S.R. Director Nikita Mikhalkov Rating: Undetermined
This ode to the vanishing life of the Mongol tribesmen finds the amorous Gombo (Bayaertu) ambushing his beautiful wife, Pagma (Badema), with an "urga" (a long pole with a noose for corralling errant livestock). She's resistant to his intentions, however. They already have three children, one more than Chinese law allows. When an outsider, Sergei (Vladimir Gostukhin), a Russian laborer working on a transcontinental road through Mongolia, drives his truck off the road, he spends a night at Gombo's homestead, observing the local customs, such as the skinning of a lamb and a drunken revelry. Sergei later teaches Gombo about two precious inventions of Western civilization: condoms and television.
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1992 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Story of Qiu Ju (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: China Director Zhang Yimou Metalluk's Rating: * * *
Beautiful Gong Li is anything but glamorous in this role as a very pregnant farm laborer. Qiu Ju becomes obsessed with seeking justice after the village elder, Shantung (Lei Laosheng), kicks her husband, Wan Qing Lai (Liu Pieqi), in that place that really hurts. Wan Qing Lai, it seems, had mocked the elder for his inability to produce a son. The film follows Qiu Ju as she wends her way through various levels of the labyrinthine Chinese bureaucracy.
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1993 The Golden Lion for Best Film Short Cuts (See JohTurner's Review.) Country: U.S. Director Robert Altman JohTurner's Rating: * * * * *
As he did in his 1975 triumph, Nashville, Altman introduces an ensemble of folks with intertwined lives, this time in Southern California. The numerous characters include Doreen (Lily Tomlin), a waitress whose husband Earl (Tom Waits), may have come on to her daughter Honey (Lili Taylor), who is married to makeup artist Bill (Robert Downey Jr.). Bill's pal Jerry (Chris Penn) runs a pool cleaning service and is upset because his wife makes her living providing phone sex. It's a complex film with about a dozen stories running through the narrative. The soundtrack is outstanding.
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1993 The Golden Lion for Best Film Three Colors: Blue (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: France Director Krzysztof Kieslowski Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
In the first segment of his Three Colors trilogy, Kieslowski gives us one of cinema's finest heroines in Julie (Juliette Binoche), who has to cope with the aftermath of a car accident that killed her husband, classical composer Patrice (Hugues Quester), and young son. Julie attempts suicide and, failing that, abandons the family estate to begin a new life in an apartment in a neighborhood where no one recognizes her. Olivier (Benoit Regent), her former lover and friend of her husband, gradually draws Julie into recovering from her emotional scars by involving her in the completion of her dead husband's last score. Julie also discovers that her deceased husband had a mistress and seeks her out.
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1994 The Golden Lion for Best Film Before the Rain (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Macedonia Director Milcho Manchevski Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
The first ever feature film from Macedonia examines some of the remnants of the genocidal conflicts of the Balkans. With segments in both Macedonian and London, Manchevski provides a grim portrait of a war-scarred people. Rade Serbedzija stars as a Macedonian photographer and Katrin Cartlidge as his sometimes girlfriend in London.
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1994 The Golden Lion for Best Film Vive L'Amour (There are no reviews. See Listing.) Country: Taiwan Director Ming-liang Tsai Rating: Undetermined
This artsy Taiwanese film follows a homeless gay man, Hsiao-kang (Lee Lang-sheng), who steals a key to an empty apartment and ends up unintentionally observing the clandestine affair between the real estate agent, May (Yang Kuei-mei), and her lowlife boyfriend, Ah-jung (Chen Chao-jung).
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1995 The Golden Lion for Best Film Cyclo (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Vietnam Director Tran Anh Hung Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
In his second feature film, Vietnam-born director Tran Anh Hung combines urban drama with psychedelic surrealism. When the bicycle taxi of Cyclo (Le Van Loc) is stolen, he finds himself without a livelihood and desperate enough to fall under the influence of a gangster known as The Poet (Tony Leung). Cyclo's loss of income also drives his sister into prostitution, with The Poet acting as her pimp. They're all soon in over their heads.
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1996 The Golden Lion for Best Film Michael Collins (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: U.K. Director Neil Jordan Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
Irish director Neil Jordan tells the story of Michael Collins (Liam Neeson), the co-founder of the IRA and the man most responsible for the terrorist tactics that helped gain the Irish their independence by leveling the playing field against the better trained and better equipped British soldiers. Collins also finds himself as one corner of a love triangle involving his best friend, Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn), and the lovely Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts). This largely accurate historical portrayal is a nice introduction to the Irish independence movement.
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1997 The Golden Lion for Best Film Fireworks (See Mike Bracken's Review.) Country: Japan Director Takeshi Kitano Mike Bracken's Rating: * * * * *
Police detective Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) is tough as nails but worn down by the death of a colleague, Tanaka (Makoto Ashikawa), the terminal illness of his wife Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto), and having to chase down hoodlums all day long. His best friend, Horibe (Ren Osugi), is depressed and suicidal, having been abandoned by his family after being sadistically paralyzed. Nishi cooks up a plan to rob a bank so he can take his dying wife on one last vacation.
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1998 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Way We Laughed (See knilaus's Review.) Country: Italy Director Gianni Amelio knilaus's Rating: * * * *
Two Sicilian brothers, Pietro (Francesco Guiffrida) and Giovanni (Enrico Lo Verso) Scordia, abandon their hometown for life in the city of Turin. The film follows the two over a six-year time span, devoting each of six separate film chapters to one pivotal day in each year. Older brother Giovanni protects and pampers the teenaged Pietro, fussing over him like a mother hen, but the over-protective care suffocates Pietro, rendering him unfit to succeed in school.
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1999 The Golden Lion for Best Film Not One Less (See Stephen Murray's Review.) Country: China Director Yimou Zhang Stephen Murray's Rating: * * * *
Provincial education in China is the topic of this film. When a family crisis forces teacher Gao (Gao Enman) to take a leave of absence, 13-year-old Wei Minzhi (Wei Minzhi) takes his place, even though she's only a bit older and more educated than her students. The school has been losing students at an alarming pace and the mayor tells Minzhi that she'll only be paid the 50 yuans salary if all 28 remaining students are still there when Gao returns. When a rascally 10-year-old runs off to the city, Minzhi sets out to bring him back.
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2000 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Circle (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: Iran Director Jafar Panahi Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
Panahi used an interesting device for transitioning between segments in this multi-layered story. He simple lets his camera shift from one character to an apparent bystander and then takes up the bystander's story. Women in Iran, especially single ones, are second class citizens, and here we follow the story of several of them, including a pair fresh out of prison, Nargess (Nargess Mamizadeh), who wants to return to her idyllic small rural town, but, without a proper I.D., cannot purchase the bus ticket, and Arezou (Mariam Palvin Almani), who turns a trick to raise money for her friend. Another, Pari (Fereshteh Sadr Orfani), needing a place to escape persecution by her brothers, seeks the help of former prisoner, Elham (Elham Saboktakin), but Elham is mainly concerned with hiding her past from her husband, a respectable physician.
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2001 The Golden Lion for Best Film Monsoon Wedding (See beckytcy's Review.) Country: India Director Mira Nair beckytcy's Rating: * * * * *
Aditi Verma (Vasundhara Das) decides that the best way to get over her infatuation with a married television personality, Vikram Mehta (Sameer Arya), is to marry, so despite being attuned to the modern global world, she agrees to let her parents, Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah) and Pimmi (Lillete Dubey), arrange a marriage for her with Hemant Rai (Parvin Dabas), an engineer living in Houston, Texas. Soon, the two families are awash in elaborate Punjabi wedding preparations, even employing the services of wedding planner P.K. Dube (Vijay Raaz). Tensions run high after Aditi runs off for a last fling with Vikram.
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2002 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Magdalene Sisters (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: U.K. Director Peter Mullan Metalluk's Rating: * * * *
This film follows the plight of women in Ireland. Three girls are committed to one of Ireland's Magdalene Sanctuaries during the 1960's, where they will be expected to wash clothes 364 days a year with no compensation, as "penitence" for such sins as having a child out of wedlock, being deemed a temptress, or flirting. The film begins by recounting the circumstances that resulted in each of the three being incarcerated before turning to the drudgery and brutal mistreatment that the girls receive at the hands of the nuns who operate the facility.
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2003 The Golden Lion for Best Film The Return (See trust1234's Review.) Country: Russia Director Andrei Zvyagintsev trust12345's Rating: * * * *
In the Karelian region of northern Russia, two teenage boys, Andrey (Vladimir Garin) and Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov), are being raised by their mother (Natalya Vdovina) and grandmother (Galina Petrova). When their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) returns after an absence of twelve years, his presence in the household creates a plethora of conflicting emotions for the boys. Matters come to a head when the father takes the two sons on a fishing trip. His suspicious behavior causes tensions, which come to a boil on a deserted island of Lake Lagoda.
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2004 The Golden Lion for Best Film Vera Drake (See Metalluk's Review.) Country: U.K. Director Mike Leigh Metalluk's Rating: * * * * *
In the 1950's abortion was illegal in England, though wealthy women could easily circumvent the restrictions. This film follows the story of a sweet and kindly woman, Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton), who performs abortions gratis to help out young girls and poor mothers who have gotten themselves pregnant but lack the economic wherewithal to cope with another mouth to feed. None of her family knows about her sideline and they're shocked when the bulwark of their family is arrested and put on trial.. Staunton won the Best Actress award from the Venice Film Festival for her marvelous performance.
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2005 The Golden Lion for Best Film Brokeback Mountain (See trust12345's Review.) Country: U.S. Director Ang Lee trust12345's Rating: * * * * *
Ang Lee adapts a story by Annie Proulx published in New Yorker magazine about the affable Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and the tense Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) who become lovers, though Ennis is less committed to the idea than Jack. After an idyllic summer herding sheep and making whoopee together, the two men part company, only to meet again four years later. Both are now married, Ellis to Alma (Michelle Williams) and Jack to Lureen (Anne Hathaway), but that doesn't stop the pair from occasionally running off to the Wyoming mountains in a futile effort to recapture the magic of their previous relationship.
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You may also enjoy my other lists of award-winning films:
Celebrating the Oscars: All Seventy-Seven Best Picture Oscar Winners (with links to full reviews)
Celebrating the Oscar Divas: All Seventy-Seven Best Actress Oscar Winners (with links to full reviews)
All Fifty-Six Best Foreign Film Oscar Winners
All Seventy-Seven Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Winners
National Society of Film Critics' Awards for Non-English Language Films
New York Film Critics' Circle Awards for Foreign Films (1935-2004)
Los Angeles Film Critics' Award Winners in the Best Foreign Film Category
London Critics' Circle Awards for Best Foreign Film
British Films Selected by the London Critics' Circle as Best Film or Best British Film
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