Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro at the Killers of the Flower Moon premiere at the 76th Festival de Cannes. Picture (Paul Smith / Featureflash | dp)

Actor, director and producer Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d’or for lifetime achievement at the opening ceremony of the 78th Cannes Film Festival.

“I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes…” he declared on hearing of his honorary Palme d’or. “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.”

Robert De Niro will receive the Honorary Palme d’or of the Festival de Cannes on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, during the opening ceremony, and the following day, on Wednesday May 14, he will meet festival-goers for a masterclass on the stage of the Debussy Theatre.

His screen debut sealed the fate of a historic generation of directors in New York City, who would become the next generation of Hollywood filmmakers. From the very first films of a just-graduated Brian De Palma, Robert De Niro lent his features to anti-hero characters. The Wedding Party, Greetings and Hi, Mom! give form to Brian De Palma’s style as much as to Robert De Niro’s acting, in which violence springs from a charismatic calm. From his bohemian youth as the son of painters in New York, he drew on a streetwise attitude which, with its codes of conduct and ethics, would spice up his early performances and later blossom in front of Martin Scorsese’s camera. This legendary cinematic friendship began in 1973 with Mean Streets, in which they depict their Little Italy neighborhood.

De Niro has a long relationship with the festival, in 1976, he presented two films in the Official Selection: Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d’or.

The King of Comedy opened the Festival de Cannes in 1983, and the following year he presented Once Upon a Time in America, Sergio Leone’s last film, before returning with Roland Joffé’s The Mission.

More recently, in 2011 he Presided over the Jury and premiered Killers of the Flower Moon at the 2023 festival.

The 78th Cannes Film Festival takes place from May 13 to May 24, 2025.

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