South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho's Parasite, concerning a family of con-artists and their slow insinuation into an extremely wealthy Korean family, took the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, at a prizegiving ceremony held at the Palais des Festivals tonight, the 25th. And for the second year in a row, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival went to an Asian film about a close-knit family of grifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda's thematically similar Shoplifters taking the 2018 award.

Headed by director Alejandro G. Inarritu, the festival jury also comprised five other directors on the nine-person panel: Pawel Pawlikowski, Kelly Reichardt, Robin Campillo, Yorgos Lanthimos and Alice Rohrwacher, along with actresses Elle Fanning and Maimouna N'Diaye, and author Enki Bilal.

The jury's second place award, The Grand Prix, went to Mati Diop, for the French / Senegalese / Belgian production Atlantique / Atlantics.

Antonio Banderas won the Best Actor prize for his performance as an introspective, fading and possibly dying film director, obviously based on its's creator, in Pedro Almodovar's drama Dolor Y Gloria / Pain And Glory. Emily Beecham won the Best Actress award for her portrayal of a biologist specialising in plants involved in an innovative but deeply dangerous genetic experiment in Austrian writer / director Jessica Hausner's English language debut Little Joe.

The Jury Prize was shared by both Ladi Ly's Les Miserables and Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles' violent sci-fi tinged drama Bacurau / Nighthawk. The jury also created a special mention award for Elia Suleiman's dryly comic It Must Be Heaven.

In a surprise move, the jury awarded the Best Director gong to the veteran Dardenne brothers for Le Jeune Ahmed / Young Ahmed, a portrait of a young radicalised Muslim teen in a small Belgian town, was regarded by many as one of their weakest productions. One of the festival's most widely acclaimed films, Portrait De La Jeune Fille En Feu / Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, written and directed by Celine Sciamma, won the Best Screenplay award, with many critics saying it was in close contention for the Palme d'Or itself.

The Camera d'Or, awarded to the best first film from any section of the festival, went to the International Critics' Week entrant Nuestras Madres / Our Mothers, by Cesar Diaz.

Some critics were surprised by the omission of Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood from the awards roster, while several films tipped to do well before the festival, including Terrence Malick's long-delayed, true story-based A Hidden Life, Ken Loach's social drama Sorry We Missed You, Xavier Dolan's Matthias & Maxime, and Corneliu Porumboiu's crime caper Fluier?torli The Whistlers were all regarded as disappointments to one extent or another. Abdellatif Kechiche's two-hundred-and-four minute Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo, described by one critic as ‘three-hours-plus of jiggling female butts' was largely accepted to be the worst film shown at this year's Festival. with many critics asking why it was selected at all.

The Cannes winners:

Palme d'Or: Gi-Saeng-Chung / Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, South Korea

Grand Prix: Atlantique / Atlantics, Mati Diop, France / Senegal / Belgium

Best Director: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Le Jeune Ahmed / Young Ahmed, France / Belgium / Italy

Best Screenplay: Celine Sciamma for Portrait De La Jeune Fille En Feu / Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, France

Best Actor: Antonio Banderas for Dolor Y Gloria / Pain And Glory, Spain

Best Actress: Emily Beecham for Little Joe, Austria / UK / Germany

Jury Prize: Tie between Bacurau / Nighthawk, Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles,  France / Brazil, and Les Miserables, Ladj Ly, France

Special Mention: Elia Suleiman for It Must Be Heaven, France / Qatar / Germany / Canada / Turkey / Palestine

Camera d'Or: Nuestras Madres / Our Mothers, Cesar Diaz, Belgium / Guatemala / France

Palme d'Or, Short Film: La Distance Entre Le Ciel Et Nous / The Distance Between Us And The Sky, Vasilis Kekatos, France / Greece

Short Film, Special Mention: Monstruo Dios / Monster God, Agustina San Martin, Argentina