Tree of Life, Kirsten Dunst big winners at the Cannes Film Festival

Hollywood was a big winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with Fox Searchlight’s THE TREE OF LIFE taking home the Palme d’Or and Kirsten Dunst winning Best Actress for her role in Lars von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA. Terrence Malick’s latest film, which stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, divided critics both here and in Cannes, but the Hollywood heavy jury – Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman and Jude Law were all members – felt it had the right stuff.

The Best Actress win was a return to form for the once-promising Dunst who has only appeared in two films since 2007’s SPIDER-MAN 3. The actress, who suffered from depression and entered rehab in 2008, sparked to Von Trier’s meditation on the end of the world (a rather thinly veiled metaphor for depression), and by all accounts gave the best performance of her career.

Accolades aside, Dunst’s win was still a shock as many thought Tilda Swinton’s performance in the heavily buzzed WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN was not only the best performance at Cannes but an early frontrunner for this year’s Oscars.

Other notable wins were Nicolas Winding-Refn who won Best Director for the Ryan Gosling thriller DRIVE. The film was once set to be distributed in the US by Universal but was dropped and later picked up by FilmDistrict who will release later this year.

Below is a full list of winners from this year’s Cannes Film Festival.Palme d’Or: THE TREE OF LIFE

Grand Prix (tie): ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA and THE KID WITH A BIKE

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn (DRIVE)

Jury Prize: Polisse (MAIWENN)

Actor: Jean Dujardin (THE ARTIST)

Actress: Kirsten Dunst (MELANCHOLIA)

Screenplay: Joseph Cedar (FOOTNOTE)

Camera d’Or: Las acacias (Pablo Giorgelli, Argentina-Spain)

Palme d’Or, short films: “Cross” (Maryna Vroda)