Cannes Film Festival Awards Michael Haneke with Palme D'Or for the Second Time in Three Years

Sunday, the Cannes Film Festival awarded its prestigious Palme d'Or to "Amour" at its esteemed award ceremony at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.

The win marked the second Palme victory for "Amour" director Michael Haneke, who also won for his previous film "The White Ribbon" in 2009. Haneke now joins directors Alf Sjoberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Bille August, Emir Kusturica, Shohei Imamura, and Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne in winning the prize two times. Haneke's win also made history as he became the first director to win a pair of Palmes just three years apart. The previous record holder was August, who won in 1988 for "Pelle the Conqueror" and 1992 for "The Best Intentions." Previous to his Palme wins, Haneke had already won the directing nod for 2005's "Cache" and the Grand Prix for 2001's "The Piano Teacher."

"Amour" will be released by Sony Classic Pictures in the USA later this fall and has drawn universal critical acclaim.

Other big winners included Christian Mungiu's "Beyond the Hills", which won the screenplay award and its two young actresses, Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur, took home the best actress award and Matteo Garrone's "Reality" from Italy won the Grand Prix award. The win marked Garrone's second Grand Prix award. He previously won for his study on the Italian Mafia "Gommorah." The best actor award went to Mads Mikkelsen for Thomas Vinterberg's "The Hunt."             

The award for Director went to Carlos Reygadas. According to the Hollywood Reporter this was the most unexpected winner because his film "Post Tenebras Lux" was initially staggering,  and ultimately perplexing. The film was embraced to varying degrees by critics because of its extraordinary images and ideas, even if its meanings remained elusive and arguable to many.

While there were many winners, some of the most talked about films went home empty handed. The biggest loser according toHolly Reporter was Leos Carax's "Holy Motors." The film created more debate than any other film.

Other losers included the three French films in competition, despite the significant attention they received. Jacques Audiard's "Rust and Bone," a Sony Classics pickup, drew acclaim for its performances by Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard and were expected to win awards and Alain Resnais' "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!" was expected to draw recognition for the 89-year-old auteur. Ironically the Palme went to "Amour," a Paris-set, French-lingo drama helmed by an Austrian director.

Other huge disappointments were that despite five US films in competition the jury picked none of them for awards. The films were Wes Anderson's critically loved "Moonrise Kingdom," Lee Daniels' "The Paperboy," Andrew Dominik's "Killing Them Softly," John Hillcoat's "Lawless" and Jeff Nichols' "Mud." Other star-packed English-language films that went home empty-handed included "On the Road," from Brazil's Walter Salles, and "Cosmopolis," from Canada's David Cronenberg.

The only award for the U.S. was outside the main competition, as the Camera d'Or jury was presented to Ben Zeitlin's Un Certain Regard entry, "Beasts of the Southern Wild." The Louisiana-set coming-of-age film had already won the grand prize jury award for Dramatic film at Sundance and was picked up for release by Fox Searchlight.

This year's awards reinforced that U.S. films rarely fare well with Cannes juries, despite last year's strong showing where "The Tree of Life," "Drive" and actress Kirsten Dunst ("Melancholia") all garnered awards. By contrast, this year's jury awarded the small pool of largely Europe-financed entries that played to favorable critical response but considerably less pre-fest attention than their starrier counterparts.

The jury was headed by Nanni Moretti, Andrea Arnold, Jean Paul Gauthier, Alexander Payne, Hiam Abbass, Emmanuelle Devos,  Diane Kruger, Ewan McGregor and Raoul Peck.

MAIN JURY PRIZES (From Variety.com)

Palme d'Or: "Amour" (Michael Haneke, France-Germany-Austria)

Grand Prix: "Reality" (Matteo Garrone, Italy-France)

Director: Carlos Reygadas, "Post tenebras lux" (Mexico-France-Germany-Netherlands)

Jury prize: "The Angels' Share" (Ken Loach, U.K.-France-Belgium-Italy)

Actor: Mads Mikkelsen, "The Hunt" (Denmark-Sweden)

Actress (tie): Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan ("Beyond the Hills," Romania-France-Belgium)

Screenplay: Cristian Mungiu ("Beyond the Hills," Romania-France-Belgium)

UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY PRIZES

Main prize: "After Lucia" (Michel Franco, Mexico)

Jury prize: "Le grand soir" (Benoit Delepine and Gustave Kervern, France)

Actress (tie): Emilie Dequenne ("Our Children," Belgium-Luxembourg-France-Switzerland) and Suzanne Clement, "Laurence Anyways" (Canada-France)

Special distinction of the jury: "Children of Sarajevo" (Aida Begic, Bosnia-Herzegovina-Germany-France-Turkey)

OTHER JURY PRIZES

Camera d'Or: "Beasts of the Southern Wild" (Benh Zeitlin, U.S.)

Directors' Fortnight Art Cinema Award: "No" (Pablo Larrain, Chile-U.S.-France)

Directors' Fortnight Europa Cinemas Label: "The Repentant" (Merzak Allouache, Algeria-France)

Directors' Fortnight SACD Prize: "Camille Rewinds" (Noemie Lvovsky, France)

Critics' Week Grand Prix: "Here and There" (Antonio Mendez Esparza, Spain-U.S.-Mexico)

Critics' Week Visionary Prize: "Sofia's Last Ambulance" (Ilian Metev, Germany-Bulgaria-Croatia)

Critics' Week ACID/CCAS Distribution Support: "The Wild Ones" (Alejandro Fadel, Argentina)

Short Films Palme d'Or: "Silence" (Rezan Yesilbas, Turkey)

Ecumenical Jury Prize: "The Hunt" (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark-Sweden)

FIPRESCI AWARDS

Competition: "In the Fog" (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany-Russia-Latvia-Netherlands-Belorussia)

Un Certain Regard: "Beasts of the Southern Wild" (Benh Zeitlin, U.S.)

Directors' Fortnight: "Hold Back" (Rachid Djaidani, France)