The Festival de Cannes: history, red carpet and the films of the Riviera

From 1939 to today

The festival was conceived in 1938 and announced in June 1939 for an opening on 1 September; war broke out and it never took place. In 2002, 63 years later, its Palme d’or was awarded to Cecil B. DeMille’s Union Pacific at a tribute ceremony (festival-cannes.com).

The first festival proper opened on 20 September 1946. The 1948 and 1950 editions were cancelled for lack of funds, and from 1952 the festival moved to May. In 1955 a jury awarded the first Palme d’or in its history, to Delbert Mann’s Marty (festival-cannes.com).

The Palais and the red carpet

The 1982 festival ended with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the last screening in the old Palais Croisette. The new Palais des Festivals et des Congrès was completed in 1983 and opened with Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (festival-cannes.com). Its red-carpeted steps, “les fameuses 24 marches”, are where the films’ teams arrive each evening (Atout France).

The jury deliberates at the Villa Domergue, in the hills of Cannes (CNC).

Can you go?

The festival is above all a professional event, with accreditation for the film industry and the press. The festival’s own site explains the ways to take part under “Your Festival Experience”. Book a room very early if you plan to be in Cannes in May, and expect closures around the Palais.

Brigitte Bardot and the Riviera

Brigitte Bardot posed on the Carlton beach on 25 April 1953 and climbed the red carpet in 1956 and 1967. Et Dieu… créa la femme was filmed in Saint-Tropez, and she bought La Madrague there in 1958; she founded the Fondation Brigitte Bardot in 1986 and gave it the house in 1992 (regional tourism board). In 1955, during the filming, she suggested the name of the Tarte Tropézienne (the maison’s own history). She died on 28 December 2025, aged 91 (Ville de Saint-Tropez). Her golden statue, unveiled in 2017, stands on Place Blanqui.

Films shot on the Riviera

Cannes (CNC): La Main au collet (To Catch a Thief, 1954), with the Carlton hosting Hitchcock’s crew; Mélodie en sous-sol (1963) at the Palm Beach casino; La Bonne Année (1973) on La Croisette; Femme fatale (2002); Le Transporteur (2002), with sequels also filmed in the city; Quatre étoiles (2005) at the Carlton; De rouille et d’os (2012) on the Plage du Goéland; Une fille facile (2019).

The coast (regional tourism board; Atout France; Côte d’Azur France): the To Catch a Thief car chase on the Grande Corniche between Èze and La Turbie in June 1954; Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983) at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc; Ronin and Femme fatale at Le Majestic, with Ronin’s chase through Vieux Nice; GoldenEye on the Grande Corniche; Le Masque de fer (1929) at the Fort Royal on Sainte-Marguerite; and, at Nice’s Victorine studios, Les Enfants du paradis, La Nuit américaine and Le Testament d’Orphée.

Saint-Tropez (regional tourism board): Et Dieu… créa la femme, Bonjour tristesse, La Piscine (1968), La Scoumoune and the six Gendarme films with Louis de Funès, remembered at the Musée de la Gendarmerie et du Cinéma.

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