Cannes 2017: Ruben Östlund's Brilliant 'The Square' Wins Palme d'Or

What a year! Winners of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival awards, including the coveted Palme d'Or, were revealed at a glamorous ceremony in Cannes featuring Monica Bellucci as the host. The big winner of Palme d'Or is Swedish director Ruben Östlund (seen screaming above) with his new film The Square, which makes fun of the art world and brilliantly criticizes modern society. In addition, Nicole Kidman received a special 70th Anniversary award for her many outstanding contributions to cinema over the years, including appearing in 3 films at this year's festival: The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Beguiled, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties (as well as "Top of the Lake: China Girl"). Lynne Ramsay's fantastic You Were Never Really Here also picked up two awards, including Best Actor. No one knew what to expect, but these winners rule.

Here's the full list of Cannes 2017 winners, with most of the key awards listed below, including Un Certain Regard. I'll get into my own commentary after the winners. Head to the official Cannes website for more.

Palme d'Or (Golden Palm):
The Square directed by Ruben Östlund

Grand Prix (Runner Up):
120 Beats Per Minute directed by Robin Campillo

70th Anniversary Award:
Nicole Kidman

Best Director:
Sofia Coppola for The Beguiled

Jury Prize:
Loveless (Nelyubov) directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

Best Screenplay:
Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou for The Killing of a Sacred Deer
(tied with) Lynne Ramsay for You Were Never Really Here

Camera d'Or (First-Time Filmmaker):
Montparnasse Bienvenue (Jeune Femme) directed by Léonor Serraille

Best Lead Actor:
Joaquin Phoenix in Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here

Best Leading Actress:
Diane Kruger in Fatih Akin's In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts)

Un Certain Regard

Un Certain Regard Prize:
A Man of Integrity (Lerd) directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

Jury Prize:
April's Daughter (Las Hijas de Abril) directed by Michel Franco

Special Prize for the Best Poetic Narrative:
Barbara directed by Mathieu Amalric

Best Directing Prize:
Taylor Sheridan for Wind River

Best Actress Prize:
Jasmine Trinca for Fortunata directed by Sergio Castellitto

That's the full list for this year. Congrats to all of the winners! This is an exciting year. The Square was one of my favorite films of the festival (read my review here) and I loved pretty much all of the winners this year in every single category. Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here is also one of my favorites (read my review here) and I enjoyed The Beguiled, 120 Beats Per Minute, and The Scared Killing of a Deer (read my review here). It's great to see female directors winning a number of awards. I'm also happy about Taylor Sheridan winning an Un Certain Regard award for Wind River. Though I'm not a fan of A Man of Integrity. I'm also overjoyed to see Diane Kruger win, she's excellent in the film In the Fade, and Nicole Kidman was great in all three of her films. Overall, I honestly think this is one of the best sets of Cannes winners in years.

This year's jury was lead by director Pedro Almodóvar and included: Will Smith, Maren Ade, Fan Bingbing, Park Chan-wook, Jessica Chastain, Agnès Jaoui, Paolo Sorrentino, and Gabriel Yared. This is the beginning of the end of our 2017 coverage, another year at the Cannes Film Festival wraps up with the Palme awards.