New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson is set to receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year in recognition of his contribution to cinema. The director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy called it "one of the greatest privileges of my career".
After Clint Eastwood, Agnès Varda, Meryl Streep, George Lucas, and last year Robert De Niro, it's Peter Jackson's turn to be celebrated by France's biggest film festival.
"Cannes has been a meaningful part of my filmmaking journey," Jackson said, recalling that he showed his first movie, Bad Taste, at the festival in 1987.
"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 director told organisers.
Also a producer and screenwriter, Jackson won critical acclaim with Heavenly Creatures in 1994 – based on a true murder case and starring Kate Winslet in her first cinema role. It went on to win the Silver Lion award in Venice the same year.
But Jackson's big break came in 2001, when his team showed a preview sequence from The Fellowship of the Ring at the Cannes Film Festival.
The adaptation of JRR Tolkien's monumental work of fantasy literature was only 26 minutes long, with the rest still on the editing table, but it made a lasting impression at the press screening.
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Legendary trilogy
Filmed entirely in New Zealand, the post-production took place over several years at Wētā FX, Jackson's special effects studio in Wellington, which would later work on James Cameron's Avatar.
The complete trilogy – The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003) – went on to win 17 Oscars, including 11 for the last instalment, and made $3 billion in revenue.
Using a combination of digital and analogue techniques to recreate epic crowd and battle scenes, the Lord of the Rings trilogy revolutionised the way stories were told on the big screen.
The director of the Cannes festival, Thierry Frémaux, said there was "clearly a before and after Peter Jackson".
"He has permanently transformed Hollywood cinema and its conception of 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?"
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Pioneering documentaries
In 2005, Jackson remade the legendary King Kong. He returned to Tolkien's Middle Earth to direct The Hobbit trilogy between 2012 and 2014.
Jackson has also worked on several documentary projects over the years, notably They Shall Not Grow Old (2018), which restored original footage of World War I to bring soldiers' experiences to life.
His miniseries The Beatles: Get Back (2001) featured 60 hours of previously unseen footage from the recording of the album Let It Be in 1969.
Jackson will receive his honorary Palme d'Or during the opening ceremony of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, which runs from 12 to 23 May.
