Hollywood star Denzel Washington was in for a surprise at the ongoing edition of the Cannes Film Festival. He was feted with the lifetime award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The actor, 70, was moved when his frequent collaborator Spike Lee helped present the two-time Academy Award-winning actor with an honorary Palme d'Or in Cannes in France, reports ‘People’ magazine.
The award was presented to him after the pair presented their new movie “Highest 2 Lowest” out of competition."Sit down, please”, Washington told the audience after the movie's screening. "This is a total surprise for me so I'm a little emotional, but from the bottom of my heart, I thank you all. It was a great opportunity to collaborate with my brother once again, brother from another mother, Spike”.
"To be here once again in Cannes, you know, we're a very privileged group in this room that we get to make movies and wear tuxedos and nice clothes and dress up and get paid for it as well”, Washington added, to some laughter in the room. "You know, we're just blessed beyond measure, I'm blessed beyond measure, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you all. Thank you”.
As per ‘Variety’, Cannes typically presents a select few major film industry figures with honorary Palme d'Or awards each year.Leonardo DiCaprio presented his two-time co-star Robert De Niro with De Niro's honorary Palme d'Or to kick the festival off on Tuesday, May 13, where he stated that meeting De Niro, 81, in the early 1990s "changed my life forever”.
Washington and Lee, 68, teamed up for the fifth time in their careers for Highest 2 Lowest, their first collaboration since 2006's heist thriller Inside Man. Their new movie is a "reinterpretation" of the famed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's 1963 crime thriller “High and Low”.