The overindulgent — but undoubtedly significant — tradition of the standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival has sparked polarizing feelings among filmmakers, critics and industry executives alike.
“I hate it because it reduces a movie to a single data point, but it’s a very sticky data point,” an executive at a major U.S. indie distributor told The Hollywood Reporter in May. “People remember, ‘That film got a 10-minute standing ovation in Cannes.’ ”
Despite the fact the procedure is often mocked, it inarguably has become a barometer of how films are perceived. There is no exact science as to how the standing ovation gets recorded, however, premieres are largely attended by industry professionals who time the applause with a stopwatch. Different critics have various rules and regulations for how they clock each respective audience.
For THR, the guidelines are to “start the clock the moment people jump to their feet — usually after the house lights come up — and stop when most people begin to sit down or when the film’s director is given the mic since the crowd stops clapping to listen.”
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Filmmakers and actors can also have sway on how long their applause lasts. At this year’s festival, Nicolas Cage reportedly encouraged the crowd to yell “The Surfer!” in unison to make the moment last. (The ovation ultimately clocked in at six minutes.)
While long standing ovations used to be reserved for only the most anticipated films of the year — Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth holds the longest record for 22 minutes in 2006 — the tradition is seemingly becoming much more commonplace. This year, the running winner remains the Coralie Fargeat-directed body horror film The Substance, which stars Demi Moore and received a 13-minute round of applause from the crowd.
Not everyone is vehemently against the practice. Many of those on the creative side can find value in what a long standing ovation means. Selena Gomez reportedly wept after her film Emilia Pérez was celebrated for 11 minutes this year, while David Kajganich, writer and producer of Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All — a movie that got 10 minutes at the 2022 Venice Film Festival — thinks standing ovations help gauge an emotional response to a film.
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“When people stand for ovations at the end, they’re partly standing for how they were made to feel by the film, but they’re also standing for their excitement for the people involved,” Kajganich told THR in 2022. “To me, it’s more about the people than about the film.”
Keep scrolling for all the longest standing ovations at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival so far:
‘The Substance’
Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Ray Liotta
Synopsis: A fading celebrity (Moore) decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.
Standing Ovation: 13 minutes
‘Emilia Pérez’
Starring: Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, Edgar Ramírez, Adriana Paz, Mark Ivanir, Karla Sofía Gascón
Synopsis: In this musical comedy, lawyer Rita (Saldaña) receives an unexpected offer to help a feared cartel boss retire from his business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamed of being.
Standing Ovation: 11 minutes
‘Horizon: An American Saga’
Starring: Kevin Costner, Sienna Miller, Jamie Campbell Bower, Sam Worthington, Jenna Malone, Ella Hunt
Synopsis: The Western epic, which Costner cowrote, directed and stars in, follows families, friends and foes as they discover the lure of the Old West through overlapping stories of American settlers and Indigenous people in the Civil War era.
Standing Ovation: 10 minutes
‘The Apprentice’
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong
Synopsis: The biographical drama follows a young Donald Trump’s (Stan) rise to power as a New York businessman in the 1980s under the influence of his attorney Roy Cohn (Strong).
Standing Ovation: 8 Minutes
‘Megalopolis’
Starring: Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito
Synopsis: Considered to be director Francis Ford Coppola’s swan song, the science fiction drama – which he also wrote and produced — follows an architect wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating disaster.
Standing Ovation: 7 minutes
‘Bird’
Starring: Barry Keoghan, Nykiya Adams, Jason Buda
Synopsis: Bailey (Adams) lives with her brother Hunter (Buda) and her father Bug (Keoghan), who raises them alone in a squat in northern Kent. When Bug doesn’t have much time to devote to them, Bailey looks for attention and adventure elsewhere.
Standing Ovation: 7 minutes
‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’
Starring: Anya-Taylor Joy, Chris Hemsworth
Synopsis: Expanding George Miller’s franchise, Mad Max’s fifth installment follows a young Furiosa (Joy) who falls into the hands of a great biker horde led by Dr. Dementus (Hemsworth). As they sweep through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel, presided over by the Immortan Joe (Hulme). As the two tyrants fight for dominance, Furiosa soon finds herself in a nonstop battle to make her way home.
Standing Ovation: 6 minutes
‘Kinds of Kindness’
Starring: Jesse Plemons, Joe Alwyn, Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Hunter Schafer, Willem Dafoe
Synopsis: The film follows three simultaneous and overlapping stories; a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
Standing Ovation: 6 minutes
‘The Surfer’
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Charlotte Maggi, Julian McMahon, Finn Little
Synopsis: Cage plays a man who leaves the United States to return to his Australian hometown and ends up getting humiliated in front of his teenage son by a gang of surfers at his localized home break. For payback, he decides to remain at the beach and wage war against the gang.
Standing Ovation: 6 minutes
