Lumière Award 2025
Press release
After Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and Tim Burton, another legendary name in Hollywood cinema will receive the Lumière Award this year.
LYON, FRANCE. He is a great American artist, whose immense career spans over 40 years of cinema, during which he has directed some of the greatest screen legends: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Cruise, James Caan, Natalie Portman, or Gong Li.
He is both rooted in a strong Hollywood tradition and embodies a personal and innovative cinema through his choice of subjects, his approach to directing, storytelling, and aesthetics. With true independence—and at times a certain solitude— he is one of the most important filmmakers in the history of cinema.
Combining the rigor of an auteur with the pleasure of popular cinema, he has enjoyed great public success in the United States, in France, and around the world, while critics have praised his outstanding contribution to the 7th art.
Michael Mann,
author of Heat, The Last of the Mohicans,
The Insider, and Collateral,
will receive the 17th Lumière Award.
TOMMASO BODDI/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES
Originally from Chicago but trained in London, at the London Film School, he was culturally and politically involved in the European spirit of the late 1960s.
Returning to the US, he found his first successes in television, as a writer, then as a director and producer with the Emmy and DGA winning, The Jericho Mile.
In 1981, Thief, his first feature film, in which he directed James Caan, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. This was followed by The Keep, an ambitious fantasy film long unavailable (rediscovered in 2025), and then Manhunter, starring Billy Petersen with the first on-screen appearance of the character Hannibal Lecter, played by Brian Cox.
But it was at the turn of the 1990s that Michael Mann achieved massive popular success, a decade during which he created three masterpieces: The Last of the Mohicans, a historical epic starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe; Heat, the first on-screen meeting of the De Niro / Pacino duo, which remains one of the greatest thrillers in history and a model for many filmmakers; and The Insider, a major political film featuring standout performances by Russell Crowe and Al Pacino and the recipient of seven Academy Award nominations.
After directing Ali, a biopic of Muhammad Ali starring Will Smith, Michael Mann returned to the forefront with Collateral in 2004. Praised by critics worldwide for its power and modernity, and a major box office success, this face-off between Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx is also considered a milestone in contemporary cinema.
Shot in 2006, Miami Vice, his adaptation of the TV series Miami Vice, which he originally executive produced, has become a cult film—particularly in its Director’s Cut version—as has Public Enemies, where he directed Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard.
In 2023, Adam Driver portrayed Formula 1 legend Enzo Ferrari in the biopic Ferrari, alongside Penelope Cruz. At the same time, Michael Mann returned to television, directing the pilot for the acclaimed series Tokyo Vice.
As a novelist, Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner’s Heat 2 was a #1 New York Times best seller and Heat 2 is currently in preparation as his next feature film.
Moreover, Michael Mann is an artist committed to defending his profession, a man attentive to his peers, and a demanding cinephile.
He previously visited Lyon in 2017 for a screening of Heat introduced by Guillermo del Toro. Mann responded to the Lumière Festival's invitation by saying: "The answer is : great, I’d love to do it. The previous Lumière with Guillermo was a brilliant night. Pure cinema. And a great time. It all sounds brilliant. I’m in."
Festival Director Thierry Frémaux said, “To honour Michael Mann with the Lumière Award on the rue du Premier-Film is both a dream and a source of pride. Straight out of Hollywood mythology, he is a major artist whose mark on cinema is everlasting. 'We’ve lost count of his masterpieces,' said Bertrand Tavernier of him.” Frémaux continued, “A stylist and an auteur, Michael Mann has infused his films with a vision of the world and of history that is inseparable from a dazzling cinematic style. Welcoming him to Lyon this October will be a major event for all lovers of cinema.”
By receiving the Lumière Award, on Friday, October 17, 2025, Michael Mann will succeed Clint Eastwood, Milos Forman, Wong Kar-wai, Jane Fonda, Ken Loach, Jane Campion, Catherine Deneuve, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino and to 2024’s awardee Isabelle Huppert.
The Lumière Award honors a figure for their entire body of work and their connection to the history of cinema. Over the years, it has become one of the most prestigious awards, recognized by the industry and the international press.
