You may recall that crowds booed Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette when it debuted at Cannes Film Festival in May 2006. Critics weren’t much kinder when the boundary-pushing biopic hit theaters five months later. The zeitgeist, however, has since shifted. Now, Marie Antoinette is known as the cult classic film that scored an Academy Award for Best Costume Design—and introduced a new generation to the much-maligned monarch.

Come September, the Palace of Versailles will crown Coppola’s film with a show of its own, presenting the first-ever full-scale retrospective to the pop culture landmark on its 20th anniversary.

Film still from Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006). Photo courtesy of I Want Candy LLC. and Zoetrope Corp.

Titled “Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola,” the exhibition will unfold in the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s famed chateau on the Parisian palace’s outskirts. Her father-in-law, King Louis XV, originally had the elegant neoclassical retreat erected for his mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Alas, de Pompadour died in 1764—four years before construction concluded, and ten years before Marie Antoinette assumed the throne. Once there, the queen infamously made the space her own, outfitting it with delicately painted wallpaper and ornate floral furniture, for starters.

Centuries later, Coppola became the first director authorized to film at Versailles. “They let us shoot in places people weren’t allowed to normally, like Marie Antoinette’s private theater,” she remarked at the time. “They were like, ‘This is your home.'” The Versailles exhibition will screen several scenes from Coppola’s film in the very rooms where they were staged, highlighting the deep connection between these storied grounds and her acclaimed creation.

Behind the scenes shooting “Marie Antoinette” in the aughts. Photo: Palace of Versailles

As it stands, officials from Versailles are remaining tight-lipped regarding the precise layout for this autumn’s exhibition. For now, it promises the show will feature some of Milena Canonero’s award-winning original costumes, as well as filming accessories, storyboards, annotated scripts, set photographs, and set design sketches. “Several elements from the film will be shown to the public for the first time,” a press representative told me.

Coppola, meanwhile, has catalogued extensive ephemera from Marie Antoinette, as well as her other feature films, which appeared in her 2023 coffee table tome. Last year also saw the Victoria & Albert Museum in London stage an extravagant exhibition on the French queen, which brought together items from her wardrobe and even her deathbed relics.

“‘Marie Antoinette’ by Sofia Coppola” will be on view at the Palace of Versailles, Place d’Armes, France, September 22, 2026–January 24, 2027.