Leonardo DiCaprio, everyone’s favorite yacht enthusiast and occasional Oscar-winner, hit the stage at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival to hand over the Honorary Palme d’Or—aka the “Lifetime Achievement, You’re Basically a Cinema God” award—to the living legend, Robert De Niro.
De Niro, 81 years young and still scowling better than anyone in Hollywood, accepted the golden leaf trophy with his partner Tiffany Chen and his tiny tot daughter Helen watching proudly. Yes, De Niro is still winning awards and changing diapers—iconic.
But this wasn’t just a sweet old man moment. Oh no. Bobby D had something to say. And by “something,” we mean a fire-breathing roast of Donald Trump that left the Croisette sizzling.
He called Trump a “philistine president,” which is basically a polite way of saying, “this dude wouldn’t know culture if it hit him in the face with a baguette.” (And yes, Cannes is in France, so we’re sticking with baguette analogies.)
Then De Niro dropped the real drama bomb:
“Now, he has announced a 100% tariff on films produced outside the U.S. Let that sink in for a minute.”
Oh, it sunk. Like a low-budget submarine movie.
“You can’t put a price on creativity,” De Niro said, channeling every artist ever, “but apparently you can slap a tariff on it like a clearance sticker at Walmart.”
He didn’t stop there. He called out political attacks on the arts, said this wasn’t just an American problem but a “global” one, and basically turned his acceptance speech into a rallying cry for freedom, culture, and standing up to big orange energy—without violence, but with a lot of passionate finger-wagging.
“It’s time for everyone who cares about liberty to organize, to protest, and of course—to vote,” De Niro said, proving once again that no one can go from sweet grandpa to fiery revolutionary quite like him.
He wrapped it up by praising the Cannes Film Festival as a 12-day global celebration of art, cinema, and people who can sit through 4-hour-long subtitled movies without checking their phones.
TL;DR:
Leo handed De Niro a shiny leaf.
De Niro handed Trump a verbal flamethrower.
Cannes applauded. France probably offered De Niro citizenship.
And somewhere, Trump is googling “what is a philistine?” and yelling at Alexa.
