Golden Lion

Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Leone d'oro (Italian)
Location	Venice
Country	Italy
Presented by	Venice Film Festival
First awarded	1949
Currently held by	Happening (2021)
Website	labiennale.org/en/cinema

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 and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes.^[1] In 1970, a second Golden Lion was introduced; this is an honorary award for people who have made an important contribution to cinema.

The prize was introduced in 1949 as the Golden Lion of Saint Mark (the winged lion which had appeared on the flag of the Republic of Venice).^[2] In 1954, the prize was permanently named Golden Lion. Previously, the equivalent prize was the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. Before that, from 1934 until 1942, the highest awards were the Coppa Mussolini (Mussolini Cup) for Best Italian Film and Best Foreign Film.

History[]

Golden Lion prize trophy

The prize was first awarded in 1949. Previously, the equivalent prize was the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. No Golden Lions were awarded between 1969 and 1979. According to the Biennale's official website, this hiatus was a result of the 1968 Lion being awarded 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".^[3] Fourteen French films have been awarded the Golden Lion, more than that of any other nation. However, there is considerable geographical diversity in the winners. Seven American filmmakers have won the Golden Lion, with awards for John Cassavetes and Robert Altman (both times the awards were shared with other winners who tied), as well as Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain was the first winning US film not to tie), Darren Aronofsky, Sofia Coppola, Todd Phillips, and Chloé Zhao.

Although 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, which has only been awarded to five Asian filmmakers since 1980. The Golden Lion, by contrast, has been awarded to ten Asians during the same time period, with two of these filmmakers winning it twice. Ang Lee won the Golden Lion twice within three years during 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 also won the Golden Lion several times, including since the end of the USSR.

Still, to date 33 of the 54 winners were European men (including Soviet/Russian winners). Since 1949, only six women have ever won the Golden Lion for directing: Margarethe von Trotta, Agnès Varda, Mira Nair, Sofia Coppola, Chloé Zhao, and Audrey Diwan.

In 2019, Joker became the first movie based on original comic book characters to win the prize.^[4]

Golden Lion[]

Roberto Rossellini and Mario Monicelli winning the Golden Lion in 1959 for General Della Rovere and The Great War respectively.

Hou Hsiao-hsien won for A City of Sadness in 1989

Takeshi Kitano won for Hana-bi in 1997

Lorenzo Vigas won for From Afar in 2015

Todd Phillips won for Joker in 2019

The following films received the Golden Lions or the major awards of the Venice Film Festival:^[5]

Year	Film	Original title	Director(s)	Country of origin
1940s
1946: Awarded as "Best Feature Film"
1946 (7th)	The Southerner		Jean Renoir	United States
1947–1948: Awarded as "Grand International Prize of Venice"
1947 (8th)	The Strike	Siréna	Karel Steklý	Czechoslovakia
1948 (9th)	Hamlet		Laurence Olivier	United Kingdom
1949–1953: Awarded as "Golden Lion of Saint Mark"
1949 (10th)	Manon		Henri-Georges Clouzot	France
1950s
1950 (11th)	Justice Is Done	Justice est faite	André Cayatte	France
1951 (12th)	Rashomon	羅生門	Akira Kurosawa	Japan
1952 (13th)	Forbidden Games	Jeux interdits	René Clément	France
1953 (14th)	No award because the jury was unable to decide the winner. The prize was declared void.^[6]^[7]
1954–present: Awarded as "Golden Lion"
1954 (15th)	Romeo and Juliet		Renato Castellani	United Kingdom
1955 (16th)	Ordet		Carl Theodor Dreyer	Denmark
1956 (17th)	No award because 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. The prize was declared void.^[8]
1957 (18th)	Aparajito	Ôporajito	Satyajit Ray	India
1958 (19th)	Rickshaw Man	無法松の一生	Hiroshi Inagaki	Japan
1959 (20th)	General Della Rovere ^#	Il generale della Rovere	Roberto Rossellini	France, Italy
1959 (20th)	The Great War ^#	La grande guerra	Mario Monicelli	France, Italy
1960s
1960 (21st)	Tomorrow Is My Turn	Le Passage du Rhin	André Cayatte	France
1961 (22nd)	Last Year at Marienbad	L'année dernière à Marienbad	Alain Resnais	France
1962 (23rd)	Family Diary ^#	Cronaca familiare	Valerio Zurlini	Italy
1962 (23rd)	Ivan's Childhood ^#	Ива́ново де́тство	Andrei Tarkovsky	Soviet Union
1963 (24th)	Hands over the City	Le mani sulla città	Francesco Rosi	Italy
1964 (25th)	Red Desert	Il deserto rosso	Michelangelo Antonioni	Italy
1965 (26th)	Sandra	Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa ...	Luchino Visconti	Italy
1966 (27th)	The Battle of Algiers	La battaglia di Algeri	Gillo Pontecorvo	Algeria, Italy
1967 (28th)	Belle de Jour		Luis Buñuel	France
1968 (29th)	Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed	Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos	Alexander Kluge	West Germany
1969 (30th)	No award because this edition of the festival was not competitive.^[9]
1970s
1970 (31st)	No award because this edition of the festival was not competitive.^[10]
1971 (32nd)	No award because this edition of the festival was not competitive.^[10]
1972 (33rd)	No awards because this edition of the festival was not competitive.^[10]
1973	The festival was not organized.^[11]
1974 1975 1976	The festival was not organized. During these years, a cinema section within the Biennale was organized with "proposals for new films", tributes, retrospectives, and conventions, including some screenings.^[10]
1977	The festival was not organized. There was an event integrated into the Biennale project on "cultural dissent" focused on cinema in Eastern Europe.^[10]
1978	The festival was not organized.^[10]
1979 (36th)	No award because this edition of the festival was not competitive.^[12]
1980s
1980 (37th)	Atlantic City ^#		Louis Malle	Canada
1980 (37th)	Gloria ^#		John Cassavetes	United States
1981 (38th)	Marianne and Juliane	Die Bleierne Zeit	Margarethe von Trotta	West Germany
1982 (39th)	The State of Things	Der Stand der Dinge	Wim Wenders	West Germany
1983 (40th)	First Name: Carmen	Prénom Carmen	Jean-Luc Godard	France
1984 (41st)	A Year of the Quiet Sun	Rok spokojnego słońca	Krzysztof Zanussi	Poland
1985 (42nd)	Vagabond	Sans toit ni loi	Agnès Varda	France
1986 (43rd)	The Green Ray	Le Rayon vert	Éric Rohmer	France
1987 (44th)	Au revoir les enfants		Louis Malle	France, West Germany
1988 (45th)	The Legend of the Holy Drinker	La leggenda del santo bevitore	Ermanno Olmi	Italy, France
1989 (46th)	A City of Sadness	悲情城市	Hou Hsiao-hsien	Taiwan
1990s
1990 (47th)	Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead		Tom Stoppard	United Kingdom, United States
1991 (48th)	Close to Eden	У́рга — территория любви	Nikita Mikhalkov	Soviet Union
1992 (49th)	The Story of Qiu Ju	秋菊打官司	Zhang Yimou	China
1993 (50th)	Short Cuts ^#		Robert Altman	United States
1993 (50th)	Three Colours: Blue ^#	Trois couleurs: Bleu	Krzysztof Kieślowski	France, Poland
1994 (51st)	Before the Rain ^#	Пред дождот	Milčo Mančevski	North Macedonia
1994 (51st)	Vive L'Amour ^#	愛情萬歲	Tsai Ming-liang	Taiwan
1995 (52nd)	Cyclo	Xích lô	Anh Hung Tran	Vietnam, France
1996 (53rd)	Michael Collins		Neil Jordan	Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
1997 (54th)	Hana-bi	はなび	Takeshi Kitano	Japan
1998 (55th)	The Way We Laughed	Così ridevano	Gianni Amelio	Italy
1999 (56th)	Not One Less	一個都不能少	Zhang Yimou	China
2000s
2000 (57th)	The Circle	دایره	Jafar Panahi	Iran
2001 (58th)	Monsoon Wedding		Mira Nair	India
2002 (59th)	The Magdalene Sisters		Peter Mullan	Ireland, United Kingdom
2003 (60th)	The Return	Возвращение	Andrey Zvyagintsev	Russia
2004 (61st)	Vera Drake		Mike Leigh	United Kingdom
2005 (62nd)	Brokeback Mountain		Ang Lee	United States
2006 (63rd)	Still Life	三峡好人	Jia Zhangke	China
2007 (64th)	Lust, Caution	色，戒	Ang Lee	Taiwan, China, United States
2008 (65th)	The Wrestler		Darren Aronofsky	United States
2009 (66th)	Lebanon	לבנון	Samuel Maoz	Israel
2010s
2010 (67th)	Somewhere ^§		Sofia Coppola	United States
2011 (68th)	Faust ^§		Alexander Sokurov	Russia
2012 (69th)	Pietà	피에타	Kim Ki-duk	South Korea
2013 (70th)	Sacro GRA		Gianfranco Rosi	Italy
2014 (71st)	A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence	En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron	Roy Andersson	Sweden
2015 (72nd)	From Afar	Desde allá	Lorenzo Vigas	Venezuela
2016 (73rd)	The Woman Who Left	Ang Babaeng Humayo	Lav Diaz	Philippines
2017 (74th)	The Shape of Water		Guillermo del Toro	United States
2018 (75th)	Roma		Alfonso Cuarón	Mexico
2019 (76th)	Joker		Todd Phillips	United States
2020s
2020 (77th)	Nomadland		Chloé Zhao	United States
2021 (78th)	Happening ^§	L'Événement	Audrey Diwan	France

Notes: ^# Denotes ex-aequo win; ^§ Denotes unanimous win

Multiple winners[]

Four directors have won the award twice:

André Cayatte (1950 & 1960)
Louis Malle (1980 & 1987)
Zhang Yimou (1992 & 1999)
/ Ang Lee (2005 & 2007)

Golden Lion Honorary Award[]

Marcello Mastroianni receiving the prize in 1990

Steven Spielberg receiving the prize from Gillo Pontecorvo in 1993

Martin Scorsese receiving the prize from Monica Vitti, 1995

Omar Sharif receiving the prize in 2003

Year	Winner(s)
1969	Luis Buñuel^[13]
1970	Orson Welles
1971	Ingmar Bergman, Marcel Carné and John Ford
1972	Charlie Chaplin, Anatoli Golovnya and Billy Wilder
1982	Alessandro Blasetti, Luis Buñuel, Frank Capra, George Cukor, Jean-Luc Godard, Sergei Yutkevich, Alexander Kluge, Akira Kurosawa, Michael Powell, Satyajit Ray, King Vidor and Cesare Zavattini
1983	Michelangelo Antonioni
1985	Manoel de Oliveira, John Huston and Federico Fellini
1986	Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani
1987	Luigi Comencini and Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1988	Joris Ivens
1989	Robert Bresson
1990	Marcello Mastroianni and Miklós Jancsó
1991	Mario Monicelli and Gian Maria Volonté
1992	Jeanne Moreau, Francis Ford Coppola and Paolo Villaggio
1993	Steven Spielberg, Robert De Niro, Roman Polanski and Claudia Cardinale
1994	Al Pacino, Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Ken Loach
1995	Woody Allen, Monica Vitti, Martin Scorsese, Alberto Sordi, Ennio Morricone, Giuseppe De Santis, Goffredo Lombardo and Alain Resnais
1996	Robert Altman, Vittorio Gassman, Dustin Hoffman and Michèle Morgan
1997	Gérard Depardieu, Stanley Kubrick and Alida Valli
1998	Warren Beatty, Sophia Loren and Andrzej Wajda
1999	Jerry Lewis
2000	Clint Eastwood
2001	Éric Rohmer
2002	Dino Risi
2003	Dino De Laurentiis and Omar Sharif
2004	Stanley Donen and Manoel de Oliveira
2005	Hayao Miyazaki and Stefania Sandrelli
2006	David Lynch
2007	Tim Burton and Bernardo Bertolucci (for the last 75 years of the history of cinema)
2008	Ermanno Olmi
2009	John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
2010	John Woo
2011	Marco Bellocchio
2012	Francesco Rosi
2013	William Friedkin
2014	Thelma Schoonmaker and Frederick Wiseman
2015	Bertrand Tavernier
2016	Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jerzy Skolimowski
2017	Jane Fonda and Robert Redford
2018	David Cronenberg and Vanessa Redgrave
2019	Julie Andrews and Pedro Almodóvar
2020	Ann Hui and Tilda Swinton^[14]
2021	Roberto Benigni and Jamie Lee Curtis

References[]

^ "25 Must-See Films That Won the Venice Film Festival". IndieWire. 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
^ "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Forties and Fifties". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-28.
^ "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Sixties and Seventies". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-28.
^ Donaldson, Kayleigh (September 11, 2019). "Joker's Insane Venice Film Festival Win Explained". Screen Rant. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
^ "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. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
^ Zacharek, Stephanie (September 5, 2013). "Venice update: Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves, James Franco's Child of God, and more". LA Weekly. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
^ Roos, Fred (Spring 1957). "Venice Film Festival, 1956" (PDF). The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television. University of California Press. 11 (3): 249. doi:10.2307/1209744. Retrieved April 5, 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. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Venice Film Festival History 1932-2019: The 70s". La Biennale di Venezia. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
^ "The Post-war period: 1948 - 1973". La Biennale di Venezia. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
^ "Venice Film Fete in Quest of Glamour". The New York Times. August 28, 1979. Retrieved April 24, 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
^ "The awards of the Venice Film Festival". La Biennale di Venezia. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
^ Vivarelli, Nick (2020-07-20). "Venice Film Festival to Honor Tilda Swinton, Ann Hui With Golden Lions for Career Achievement". Variety. Retrieved 2020-07-23.

External links[]

La Biennale di Venezia official website / Cinema history

[1] "25 Must-See Films That Won the Venice Film Festival". IndieWire. 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-08.

[2] "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Forties and Fifties". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-28.

[3] "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Sixties and Seventies". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-28.

[4] Donaldson, Kayleigh (September 11, 2019). "Joker's Insane Venice Film Festival Win Explained". Screen Rant. Retrieved April 25, 2020.

[5] "Golden Lions and major awards of the Venice Film Festival". labiennale.org. Archived from the original on 7 June 2017. Retrieved 31 December 2019.

[6] "14. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia". La Biennale di Venezia (in Italian). Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee. Retrieved April 23, 2020.

[7] Zacharek, Stephanie (September 5, 2013). "Venice update: Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves, James Franco's Child of God, and more". LA Weekly. Retrieved April 5, 2020.

[8] Roos, Fred (Spring 1957). "Venice Film Festival, 1956" (PDF). The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television. University of California Press. 11 (3): 249. doi:10.2307/1209744. Retrieved April 5, 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.

[9] "30. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia". La Biennale di Venezia (in Italian). Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee. Retrieved April 23, 2020.

[history-10] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Venice Film Festival History 1932-2019: The 70s". La Biennale di Venezia. Retrieved April 23, 2020.

[11] "The Post-war period: 1948 - 1973". La Biennale di Venezia. Retrieved April 23, 2020.

[12] "Venice Film Fete in Quest of Glamour". The New York Times. August 28, 1979. Retrieved April 24, 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

[13] "The awards of the Venice Film Festival". La Biennale di Venezia. Retrieved 2017-01-01.

[14] Vivarelli, Nick (2020-07-20). "Venice Film Festival to Honor Tilda Swinton, Ann Hui With Golden Lions for Career Achievement". Variety. Retrieved 2020-07-23.

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v t Venice Film Festival
Awards	Golden Lion Grand Jury Prize Special Jury Prize Silver Lion (for Best Direction) Volpi Cup for Best Actor Volpi Cup for Best Actress Golden Osella Marcello Mastroianni Award
Independent awards	Queer Lion Venice Days Young Cinema Award
By year	1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
List of Venice Film Festival jury presidents

v t Venice Film Festival Golden Lion
1946–1968	The Southerner (1946) The Strike (1947) Hamlet (1948) Manon (1949) Justice Is Done (1950) Rashomon (1951) Forbidden Games (1952) Romeo and Juliet (1954) Ordet (1955) Aparajito (1957) Rickshaw Man (1958) General Della Rovere (1959) The Great War (1959) Tomorrow Is My Turn (1960) Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Family Diary (1962) Ivan's Childhood (1962) Hands over the City (1963) Red Desert (1964) Sandra (1965) The Battle of Algiers (1966) Belle de Jour (1967) Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (1968)
1980–2000	Atlantic City (1980) Gloria (1980) Marianne and Juliane (1981) The State of Things (1982) First Name: Carmen (1983) A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984) Vagabond (1985) The Green Ray (1986) Au revoir les enfants (1987) The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988) A City of Sadness (1989) Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) Close to Eden (1991) The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) Short Cuts (1993) Three Colours: Blue (1993) Before the Rain (1994) Vive L'Amour (1994) Cyclo (1995) Michael Collins (1996) Hana-bi (1997) The Way We Laughed (1998) Not One Less (1999) The Circle (2000)
2001–present	Monsoon Wedding (2001) The Magdalene Sisters (2002) The Return (2003) Vera Drake (2004) Brokeback Mountain (2005) Still Life (2006) Lust, Caution (2007) The Wrestler (2008) Lebanon (2009) Somewhere (2010) Faust (2011) Pietà (2012) Sacro GRA (2013) A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) From Afar (2015) The Woman Who Left (2016) The Shape of Water (2017) Roma (2018) Joker (2019) Nomadland (2020) Happening (2021)