The longest film festival standing ovations of all time, ranked
The absurd film festival tradition is only getting longer and more elaborate
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YOU KNOW THAT BOGUS hack of how it takes “23,000 slaps to cook a chicken”? Well, suppose we were to translate that into claps (one person averaging 160 claps per minute), and instead of a commercial kitchen we’re in the Salle Lumière theatre at Cannes (with a capacity for 2,300 people): an 11-minute standing ovation at the Riviera film festival will cook 176 chickens per minute. And by that rate, the longest film festival standing ovation ever will pump out 7,744 cooked chickens. Your local Coles or Woolies will never have a shortage again.
That’s absurd, of course, but I hope that demonstrates the ridiculousness of this film festival practice to signal approval of the best performances. But this wasn’t always to case. Clapping in the time of, say, Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander at the 1984 Venice festival was a polite and proper tradition.
Related: The 8 biggest films premiering at the 2025 Venice Film Festival
Since trade publications started timing the duration of these claps and standing ovations, it quickly devolved into a measure of how good the flick was. And as you’ll see by some of the entries, that is definitely not the case.
Film festivals hit peak standing ovation last year with Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door, clocking in at 18 minutes, the longest in the festival’s history. (Having recently watched it on an international flight, I give it a nah.) At Cannes earlier this year, the home of gentility, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value set the record for 2025 at 19 minutes. (It’s a TBC on my judgement; it doesn’t come out in Australia until January 2026.)
(Yes, you can watch all of Sentimental Value‘s 19-minute standing ovation.)
With Venice on the horizon, its jam-packed program, from Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and The Rock’s The Smashing Machine, will surely set some new records. Our advice to those attending: rest up, and book an appointment with your physio.
Below, we rank the longest film festival standing ovations of all time.
The longest film festival standing ovations of all time, ranked
23. Inglorious Basterds (dir. Question Tarantino)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2009
Standing ovation duration: 11 minutes
22. Emilia Pérez (dir. Jacques Audiard)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2024
Standing ovation duration: 11 minutes
21. The Artist (dir. Michel Hazanavicius)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2011
Standing ovation duration: 12 minutes
20. Elvis (dir. Baz Luhrmann)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2022
Standing ovation duration: 12 minutes
19. Bowling for Columbine (dir. Michael Moore)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2002
Standing ovation duration: 13 minutes
18. The Banshees of Inisherin (dir. Martin McDonagh)
Festival: Venice
Year: 2022
Standing ovation duration: 13 minutes
17. Mommy (dir. Xavier Dolan)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2014
Standing ovation duration: 13 minutes
16. The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet)
Festival: Venice
Year: 2024
Standing ovation duration: 13 minutes
15. Belle (dir. Mamoru Hosoda)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2021
Standing ovation duration: 14 minutes
14. Blonde (dir. Andrew Dominik)
Festival: Venice
Year: 2022
Standing ovation duration: 14 minutes
13. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (dir. Mohammad Rasoulof)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2024
Standing ovation duration: 14 minutes
12. Motel Destino (dir. Karim Aïnouz)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2024
Standing ovation duration: 14 minutes
11. Once Upon a Time in America (dir. Sergio Leone)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 1984
Standing ovation duration: 15 minutes
10. The Paperboy (dir. Lee Daniels)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2012
Standing ovation duration: 15 minutes
9. Two Days, One Night (dirs. Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2014
Standing ovation duration: 15 minutes
8. Capernaum (dir. Nadine Labaki)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2018
Standing ovation duration: 15 minutes
7. Happy as Lazzaro (dir. Alice Rohrwacher)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2018
Standing ovation duration: 15 minutes
6. The Neon Demon (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2016
Standing ovation duration: 17 minutes
5. Mud (dir. Jeff Nichols)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2012
Standing ovation duration: 18 minutes
4. The Room Next Door (dir. Pedro Almodovar)
Festival: Venice
Year: 2024
Standing ovation duration: 18 minutes
3. Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2025
Standing ovation duration: 19 minutes
2. Fahrenheit 9/11 (dir. Michael Moore)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2004
Standing ovation duration: 20 minutes
1. Pan’s Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
Festival: Cannes
Year: 2006
Standing ovation duration: 22 minutes
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