Robert De Niro awarded Honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes 2025

Legendary Hollywood actor Robert De Niro was awarded the honorary Palme d’Or Lifetime Achievement at the Cannes Film Festival award 2025, for his excellence in cinema for decades. The ‘Taxi Driver’ actor has delivered some of the more remarkable performances in his career garnering ardent fandom and critical success as one of the reliable artists of his generation and beyond. 

Robert De Niro was awarded the Palme d’Or for Lifetime Achievement by actor Leonardo DiCaprio at the 78th Cannes Festival Opening Ceremony. His ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ co-star DiCaprio joined him on stage, presenting him the award, saying “Thanks Kiddo”. The ‘Heat’ actor was emotional as he also shared a heartfelt hug of gratitude with DiCaprio, as the audience were giving him a long standing ovation. 

Robert De Niro attended the Cannes Red Carpet with his girlfriend of ten years, Tiffany Chen as the couple stood hand in hand posing for the crowd. Robert De Niro thanked the Cannes board and the selectors and the jury for presenting the award. 

De Niro just like before maintained his critical opinion and also slammed the US President Donald Trump on stage, commenting on his Tariff breakdown for production of movies outside of the USA. 

“Art is the truth. Art embraces diversity. And that’s why art is a threat to the autocrats and the fascists of the world,” said Robert De Niro during the ceremony, calling him a ‘threat’ to art. He also labelled Trump as “America’s Philistine President”, and slammed the 100% Tariff on movie production saying, “He (Trump) has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education. And now he announced a 100% tariff on films made outside the United States. You can’t put a price on connectivity.”