The panel of international critics, who scored each of the 22 films in competition on a scale from 4.0 (excellent) to zero (bad), gave top marks to Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or-winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days; and the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men, which left the festival empty-handed (rumour is that the Coen brothers were only just pipped by Gus Van Sant for the festival's special 60th anniversary award).
Other favourites for the Screen jury included David Fincher's Zodiac (3.1), Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (2.9 and winner of the festival's best director prize) and Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine on 2.8 (winner of the best actress prize). The lowest rated film, Christophe Honore's Love Songs, averaged 1.1.
This year's average score per film was 2.2 (average to good), the same as for 2006 and 2005. However, the 2007 line-up included the highest number of films to score an average of 3.0 (good) or better since 2002, reflecting the general critical consensus that this year's selection was the strongest for several years. No film in competition averaged 1.0 (poor) or less.
The jury was comprised of 10 international critics: Michel Ciment from Positif in France, Alberto Crespi from L'Unita in Italy, Bo Green Jensen from Weekendavisen Berlingske in Denmark, Jan Stuart from Newsday in the US, Jose Carlos Avellar from Cinemais in Brazil, Tobias Kniebe from Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Germany, Derek Malcolm from the Evening Standard in the UK, David Stratton from ABC TV and The Australian in Australia, Leonardo Garcia Tsao from La Jornada in Mexico and Screen International's individual critic for each film.
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