Cannes Film Festival: 20 Best Palme D'Or Winners Ever

Francis Ford Coppola's first Palme d'Or winner came in 1974 with his timeless drama The Conversation, a masterful paranoid thriller which follows surveillance veteran Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) as his morality is tested by his latest assignment.

At once a subtle study of a haunted man trapped in a seemingly impossible situation, The Conversation is also a striking assessment of the surveillance state and a tantalising mystery which comes to a head with one or cinema's most devastating and left-field plot twists.

Acted by perfection by Gene Hackman - in perhaps his best role - and directed with relentless energy and ambiguity by Coppola, the film was inspired by fellow Palme d'Or winner Blow-Up and helped define an entire era of post-Watergate thrillers, though it was never truly surpassed by any of its contemporaries.

Though he also directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, The Conversation might just be Coppola's greatest cinematic achievement. It really is that good.