Magritte Awards

A Magritte Award, also known as René, is an accolade presented by the Académie André Delvaux of Belgium to recognize cinematic achievement in the film industry. Modelled after the French César Award, the formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is one of the most prominent award ceremonies in Belgium. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette. The awards, first presented in 2011, are considered the Belgian equivalent of the Academy Awards in the United States.
Historically given during the first quarter of the new year, the awards honor achievements for cinematic accomplishments for the preceding year. The 14th Magritte Awards ceremony was held on 22 February 2025 at the Flagey, in the historic site of Place Eugène Flagey, Ixelles.

History

Founded in 2010, the Académie André Delvaux was established at the request of the Francophone Film Producers Association and Pro Spère, to unite the five branches of the film industry, including actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers. The Académie aims to recognize excellence in Belgian cinematic achievements in order to have a Belgian counterpart to the César Awards of France. After the cancellation of the Joseph Plateau Awards ceremony, which was absorbed into the Film Fest Ghent in 2007, a national film award was missing in Belgium. This led the Académie André Delvaux to establish the Magritte Award. An accolade for artistic and technical merit in the Flemish film industry was launched a year earlier as part of the Ostend Film Festival and called Ensor Award.
The name of the award came from the painter René Magritte. Charly Herscovici, who created the Magritte Foundation, allowed the Académie to use the name of the artist. The awarding statuette was created by designer and sculptor Xavier Lust, who drew inspiration from a poster entitled Moments inoubliables du cinema created by René Magritte in 1958 for a film festival. The 1st Magritte Awards ceremony took place on 5 February 2011 at the Square Meeting Centre in Brussels. During the ceremony, the Académie André Delvaux presented Magritte Awards in twenty categories. Film director Jaco Van Dormael presided the ceremony, while actress Helena Noguerra hosted the evening. The ceremony, televised in Belgium by BeTV, was produced by José Bouquiaux and directed by Vincent J. Gustin.
At the 2nd ceremony, held on 4 February 2012, the Magritte Award for Best Film in Coproduction was split in Best Foreign Film in Coproduction and Best Flemish Film in Coproduction. The latter was renamed Best Flemish Film in 2015. An Audience Award was presented to a Belgian film personality in 2011 and 2012, before being replaced by Best First Feature Film in 2013; its winner, however, was first announced during the 66th Cannes Film Festival, three months after the Magritte Awards ceremony. In 2016, it became a merit category, with the audience award being finally retired. The same year, Best Short Film was split in Best Live Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. The 8th ceremony was the first to be aired on La Deux, after RTBF took over broadcast rights from BeTV.
From 2022 onward, the ceremony experienced a decline in viewership alongside changes to its broadcast format. That year, it was aired on La Trois and attracted only 26,880 viewers, down from a peak of 169,363 in 2019. The following year, the event continued to be broadcast on La Trois, while also being made available on radio via La Première and online through Auvio. It took place at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles and featured a segmented broadcast format, with only the main artistic awards being televised while technical categories were made available exclusively online, reaching a total audience of 43,817 viewers.
In 2025, the ceremony was relocated to Flagey and broadcast exclusively on Auvio, resulting in a further drop to 15,220 viewers. According to La Libre Belgique and La Dernière Heure, the audience had by then shifted toward a predominantly professional audience from within the film industry. The edition drew attention for several political statements, particularly regarding Belgium's responsibility in the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Host Charline Vanhoenacker and actor Arieh Worthalter also publicly addressed Reformist Movement party president Georges-Louis Bouchez following his remarks questioning public funding for culture. In the aftermath of these controversies, Charly Herscovici, who holds the intellectual property rights to Magritte's work, criticized what he described as the political instrumentalization of the ceremony and considered withdrawing the painter's name from the awards. This decision drew criticism from industry observers, who argued that such a move placed personal interests above the national and communal purpose of the awards.
In response, in early 2026 the Académie André Delvaux announced that, starting with the fifteenth edition, the award would be renamed René. The name retains a reference to the artist while severing any connection with Herscovici's Magritte Foundation, and forms part of a broader reform aimed at expanding the ceremony to include television series. This change coincided with a leadership transition at the academy, with president Patrick Quinet stepping down and being succeeded by Kassandra Decloux, alongside Jean-Yves Roubin and François Touwaide.

Rules and voting

The Académie André Delvaux, a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of 800 as of 2015. It is divided into different branches, with each representing a different discipline in film production. All members must be invited to join by the Board of Directors. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contribution to the field of motion pictures. To be eligible for nomination, a film must be a Belgian production and open in the previous calendar year in Belgium and play for seven consecutive days.
In December, the Académie reveals the list of eligible releases; a DVD set with the catalog of films is also sent to the electors. Voters use an instant run-off voting ballot, with potential nominees rewarded in the single transferable vote tally for having strong supporters who rank them first. The winners are then determined by a second round of voting. All members are allowed to vote in most categories, except for the Honorary Magritte Award, whose recipients are determined by the Board of Directors of the Académie. After the nominations are revealed, in January, special screenings of the nominated films are shown.

Ceremony	Date	Venue	President	Host	Best Film winner
1st	5 February 2011	Square			Mr. Nobody
2nd	4 February 2012	Square
3rd	2 February 2013	Square			Our Children
4th	1 February 2014	Square			Ernest & Celestine
5th	7 February 2015	Square			Two Days, One Night
6th	6 February 2016	Square			The Brand New Testament
7th	4 February 2017	Square			The First, the Last
8th	3 February 2018	Square			Insyriated
9th	2 February 2019	Square	and Stéphane Aubier		Our Struggles
10th	1 February 2020	Square		Kody	Mothers' Instinct
11th	12 February 2022	Square			Madly in Life
12th	4 March 2023	Théâtre National			Nobody Has to Know
13th	9 March 2024	Théâtre National			Love According to Dalva
14th	22 February 2025	Flagey			Night Call
15th	7 March 2026	Flagey

Magritte Awards

History

Rules and voting

Categories

Awards ceremonies