American director Terrence Malick's expansive drama The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, has won the top honour at the Cannes Film Festival, while Kirsten Dunst took the best-actress prize for the apocalyptic saga Melancholia.
The Palme d'Or prize was accepted on Sunday by two Tree of Life producers, Sarah Green and Bill Pohlad, for the notoriously press-shy Malick, who has skipped all public events at the glamorous Cannes festival.
Malick is "infamously shy and low profile ... (but) I know he would be thrilled with this", Pohlad said.
The Tree of Life stars Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain in a far-flung story of family life that plays out against a cosmic backdrop, including glorious visuals of the creation of the universe and the era of dinosaurs.
Dunst won for her role in the end-of-the-world tale Melancholia, whose director, Denmark's Lars von Trier, was banned from the festival after sympathetic remarks for Adolf Hitler at a movie press conference.
"Wow, what a week it's been," said Dunst, who plays a deeply depressed woman coping with her family's foibles as a rogue planet bears down on a possible collision course with Earth.
"It's an honour that is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for an actress," said Dunst, who thanked festival organisers for allowing Melancholia to remain in the competition after von Trier's Nazi remarks and offered warm words for her director.
"I want to thank Lars for giving me the opportunity to be so brave."
Jean Dujardin claimed the best-actor prize for the silent film The Artist, in which he plays a 1920s Hollywood star whose career crumbles as talking pictures become the norm. In keeping with his singing, hoofing character, Dujardin did a little tap dance as he took to the Cannes stage.
Prizes were awarded by a nine-member jury headed by Robert De Niro. The panel included actors Uma Thurman and Jude Law.
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