Legendary actor/director Clint Eastwood was jury president.

Actress Catherine Deneuve was jury vice president.

Ranked #15 in our all-time top 250 as of May 2019.

Nobody thought Pulp Fiction—our highest rated Palme d’Or winner—could win. Odds were on Krzysztof Kieślowski’s final film Three Colours: Red. Jury president Clint Eastwood initially considered an award solely for the ensemble cast, but the film’s originality inspired the jury. Tarantino also credits his cast for the film’s success, saying: “When they were finished, they turned a pretty good script into an obsolete document.”

Pulp Fiction’s victory—to a chorus of boos (Tarantino responded with a middle finger)—came off the back of a string of independent films that focused on the seedy underbelly of American life. 1989 to 1991’s winners were Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies and videotape, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and Joel Coen’s Barton Fink. 25 years later, it’s Pulp Fiction that stands as perhaps the most influential film of the decade.

No film has more fans on Letterboxd (that’s the number of members with the film as one of their four favorites)—even co-screenwriter Roger Avary contributes to its monumental haul. Ten months after the ceremony, Kieślowski and Tarantino would compete again in 1994’s Best Director and Best Original Screenplay categories at the Academy Awards, but it was Pulp Fiction that walked away with an Oscar, this time solely for its iconic writing. Nobody booed.

Classics in competition: Exotica, To Live, Three Colours: Red, Through the Olive Trees.