The film was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. In the end, it won the Special Jury Prize. Cannes jury president Francis Ford Coppola noted that "certain (jury) members did abstain very passionately" from endorsing Cronenberg's film, but added that it was important to give "Crash" an award, "even though in mining some truth of the human condition it offended (certain viewers)." However, other accounts have suggested it was Coppola himself who didn't like the film, with producer Jeremy Thomas later saying, "It touched a nerve with him." In a 2020 interview for the film's 4K restoration, Cronenberg said Coppola was the main dissent on the support for the film on the Cannes jury, adding that "he wouldn't hand me the award" and got someone else to do it.