I’ve watched all twenty-one films in competition this year and must give credit to Thierry Frémaux and his team for having put together such a strong program. I room with one of France’s most eminent TV critics and there’s been some grousing coming from him and from some around the press rooms about the questionable quality of the films this year. But it seems to me that every year people are complaining about the mediocrity, the unequal nature of the films presented in competition. And yet, in ten years of coming to Cannes I’ve rarely seen such a strong selection. Sure, we can agree, however, that this year hasn’t seen the one film everyone in the press can agree is a shoo-in for the Palme D’Or, like when “La Vie D’Adèle” came up in 2013.

I bagged the competition program’s last film this morning, the Paul Verhoeven-directed “Elle.” The review went up a couple hours ago. With that in mind, here are the films which, if I were George Miller, I’d convince my jury to give the prizes to:

PALME D’OR
“American honey”

GRAND PRIX
“Toni Erdmann”

JURY’S PRIZE
“Forushande”

BEST DIRECTOR
Park Chan-Wook for “Mademoiselle”

BEST SCREENPLAY
“Baccalaureat”

BEST MALE ACTOR
Shahab Hosseyni, “Forushande”

BEST FEMALE ACTRESS
Charlize Theron, “The last face”