The 12th Cannes Film Festival was held from 30 April to 15 May 1959. The Palme d'Or went to the Orfeu Negro by Marcel Camus. The festival opened with Les Quatre Cents Coups, directed by François Truffaut and closed with The Diary of Anne Frank, directed by George Stevens.
In 1959, the Marché du Film (lit. Film Market) was established as the business counterpart of the Cannes Film Festival, with the aim of helping meet the needs of film industry professionals. Before this year the market was held unofficially in the cinemas of the rue d'Antibes in Cannes. Another important development of that year for the Festival, was that the French cinema moved away from the Ministry of Industry and became part of Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
Jury
The following people were appointed as the Jury of the 1959 competition:
Feature films
Marcel Achard (France) Jury President
Antoni Bohdziewicz (Poland) Michael Cacoyannis (Greece) Carlos Cuenca (Spain) Pierre Daninos (France) Julien Duvivier (France) Max Favalelli (France) Gene Kelly (USA) Carlo Ponti (Italy) Micheline Presle (France) Sergei Vasilyev (Soviet Union) Short films Philippe Agostini (France) Antonin Brousil (Czechoslovakia) Paula Talaskivi (Finland) Jean Vivie (France) (CST official) Véra Volmane (France) (journalist)
Feature film competition
The following feature films competed for the Palme d'Or:
The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) by François Truffaut
Araya by Margot Benacerraf
Arms and the Man (Helden) by Franz Peter Wirth
Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) by Marcel Camus
Bloody Twilight (Matomeno iliovasilemma) by Andreas Labrinos
The Chasers (Jakten) by Erik Løchen
Compulsion by Richard Fleischer
Court Martial (Kriegsgericht) by Kurt Meisel
Desire (Touha) by Vojtěch Jasný
The Diary of Anne Frank by George Stevens
Édes Anna by Zoltán Fábri
Eva (Die Halbzarte) by Rolf Thiele
Fanfare by Bert Haanstra
Hiroshima Mon Amour by Alain Resnais
A Home for Tanya () by Lev Kulidzhanov
Honeymoon (Luna de Miel) by Michael Powell
Lajwanti by Narendra Suri
Middle of the Night by Delbert Mann
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Sen noci svatojanske) by Jiří Trnka
Miss April (Fröken April) by Göran Gentele
Nazarín by Luis Buñuel
Policarpo (Policarpo, ufficiale di scrittura) by Mario Soldati
Portuguese Rhapsody (Rapsódia Portuguesa) by João Mendes
Room at the Top by Jack Clayton
The Snowy Heron (Shirasagi) by Teinosuke Kinugasa
The Soldiers of Pancho Villa (La Cucaracha) by Ismael Rodríguez
Stars (Sterne) by Konrad Wolf
Sugar Harvest (Zafra) by Lucas Demare
Tang fu yu sheng nu by Tien Shen
Train Without a Timetable (Vlak bez voznog reda) by Veljko Bulajić
Short film competition
The following short films competed for the Short Film Palme d'Or: