Peter Jackson to Receive 2026 Cannes Film Festival Honorary Palme d’Or

The "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker joins the company of Agnès Varda, Marco Bellocchio, Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and more.

The 2026 Cannes Film Festival is coming into focus, with Park Chan-wook set to serve as the competition jury president, and April 9 set as the official announcement date for this year’s lineup.

As announced on Thursday, iconic Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson will receive the festival’s Honorary Palme d’Or “in recognition of a body of work that blends Hollywood blockbusters and films d’auteur with extraordinary artistic vision and technological audacity,” per the festival. Jackson is, of course, the director behind the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” film series, as well as early cult favorites like “Bad Taste” and “Heavenly Creatures,” 2022’s documentary “The Beatles: Get Back,” the “King Kong” remake, and more.

Jackson will be feted at the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 12.

Festival president Iris Knobloch said the festival “welcomes and thanks a filmmaker of boundless creativity who has brought prestige to the heroic fantasy genre.”

Festival director Thierry Frémaux added that there is “clearly a before and an after Peter Jackson. Larger-than-life cinema is his trademark, and his all-encompassing art of entertainment is particularly ambitious. He has permanently transformed Hollywood cinema and its conception of the spectacle. But Peter Jackson is not only a great technician; he is above all a tremendous storyteller. And an unpredictable artist: what will his next universe be?”

“To be honoured with an Honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes is one of the greatest privileges of my career,” Peter Jackson said in a statement shared by Cannes Film Festival representatives. “Cannes has been a meaningful part of my filmmaking journey. In 1988, I attended the Festival Marketplace with my first movie, ‘Bad Taste,’ then in 2001 we screened a preview sequence from ‘The Fellowship of the Ring,’ both of which were important milestones in my career. This festival has always celebrated bold, visionary cinema, and I’m incredibly grateful to the Festival de Cannes for being recognised among the filmmakers and the artists whose work continues to inspire me.”

The Honorary Palme d’Or soft-launched as the “Palme des Palmes” in 1997 with a prize for Ingmar Bergman. The non-competitive honor officially began in 2002, with an award to Woody Allen. Jackson joins the company of Jane Fonda, Agnès Varda, Alain Delon, Jodie Foster, Tom Cruise, Forest Whitaker, Meryl Streep, George Lucas, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington, and more.