MAIN Arts & Culture Movies 2012 Cannes Film Festival

It's the annual three-ring extravaganza of French Riviera glamour, cheesy publicity stunts, and otherwise serious promotion of film known the world over as Cannes.

This year, watch for the official lineup to be announced in mid-April, followed by the historic 65th edition of the Cannes Film Festival beginning on May 16, 2012 with the jury awarding the top Palme d'Or prize for best film on the final day of the festival on May 27.

All about Cannes

Since the first festival was organized in 1946, the major Cannes Film Festival award has been the Palme d’Or or Golden Palm (known as the Grand Prix until 1955) for best film.

Other awards include best direction, best screenplay, best actor, best actress, the Grand Jury Prize, the Special Jury Prize, the Critics Award, and the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film.

American entries that went on to receive top honors at Cannes have included Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), the Coen brothers' Barton Fink, (1991) and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994).

Most recently, the 2005 festival created a worldwide stir when incendiary director Michael Moore won the Palme d'Or for his documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11.

More about the Cannes Film Festival around the Web

Around the Web, check out this year's movie fest with the Cannes film lineup, related pictures, video clips, and industry gossip about the planet's most covered and controversial homage to film ...

Cannes Film Festival - The English language version of the official site featuring news, press releases, entry information, photos and video reports, interviews and year-by-year retrospectives, related resources.

Cannes - A Festival Virgin's Guide - The inside track on what to do and see for the beginner, including info on celeb-spotting, photo gallery, the latest news, FAQ.

The Cannes Festival Blog - Regular postings with opinion, predictions, rumor & gossip, with links to breaking news, archived coverage.

Palme d'Or - Wikipedia - The online encyclopedia with the full rundown of Cannes' top prize winners from its earliest days to the present - listed by year, film, director and country.

ROTTEN TOMATOES: Cannes Film Festival - Lists of winners by year or main category including the piece de resistance - links to what the major movie critics really thought.

2011 Cannes Film Festival Lineup & * Winners

OPENING FILM
"Midnight in Paris," Woody Allen

COMPETITION LINEUP AND WINNERS
PALME D'OR * The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
GRAND PRIX * The Kid with the Bike, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
BEST DIRECTOR * Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
BEST ACTOR * Jean Dujardin, The Artist
BEST ACTRESS * Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
SCREENWRITING * Joseph Cedar, Footnote
JURY PRIZE * "Polisse," Maiwenn Le Besco
"Hanezu no Tsuki," Naomi Kawase
"Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai," Takashi Miike
"L'apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close)," Bertrand Bonello
"Le Havre," Aki Kaurismaki
"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia," Nuri Bilge Ceylan
"Michael," Markus Schleinzer
"Pater," Alain Cavalier
"The Skin That I Inhabit," Pedro Almodovar
"Sleeping Beauty," Julia Leigh
"La Source des femmes," Radu Mihaileanu
"This Must Be the Place," Paolo Sorrentino
"We Have a Pope," Nanni Moretti
"We Need to Talk About Kevin," Lynne Ramsay

UN CERTAIN REGARD LINEUP AND WINNERS
WINNERS BEST PICTURE (TIE) * "Arirang," (Kim Ki-duk) and * "Halt auf freier Strecke" (Andreas Dresen)
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE * "Elena", Andrei Zvyagintsev
BEST DIRECTOR * Mohammad Rasoulof, "Bé Omid é Didar" (Goodbye),
"Bonsai," Cristian Jimenez
"The Day He Arrives," Hong Sang-soo
"Et maintenant on va ou?," Nadine Labaki
"Hors Satan," Bruno Dumont
"The Hunter," Bakur Bakuradze
"Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro," Robert Guediguian
"L'exercisce de l'etat," Pierre Schoeller
"Loverboy," Catalin Mitulescu
"Martha Marcy May Marlene," Sean Durkin
"Miss Bala," Gerardo Naranjo
"Restless," U.S., Gus Van Sant
"Oslo, August 31st," Joachim Trier
"Skoonheid," Oliver Hermanus
"Tatsumi," Singapore, Eric Khoo
"Trabalhar cansa," Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra
"Toomelah," Ivan Sen
"The Yellow Sea," Na Hong-jin

OUT OF COMPETITION
"The Beaver," Jodie Foster
"The Conquest," Xavier Durringer
"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," Rob Marshall

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
"Wu Xia," Peter Chan Ho-sun
"Dias de gracia," Everardo Gout

SPECIAL SCREENINGS
"Labrador," Frederikke Aspock
"Le maitre des forges de l'enfer," Rithy Panh
"Michel Petrucciani," Michael Radford
"Tous au Larzac," Christian Rouaud

also see -> Golden Globes | BAFTA Awards

FilmFare Awards | Critics Choice Awards | Movie Trailers

Tribeca Film Festival | Venice Film Festival