'Titane' gets top Cannes Film Festival honor, selected by Spike Lee and festival jury

“Titane” has won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making Julia Ducournau the second female filmmaker to win the festival’s top honor in its 74 year history.

The win was mistakenly announced by jury president Spike Lee at the top of the show, unleashing a few moments of confusion. Ducournau did not immediately come to the stage to accept the award, instead waiting until the formal announcement at the end of the ceremony.

At the end, the win for “Titane” was announced by Lee and presenter Sharon Stone.

After the flub, the ceremony continued and other awards were handed out while Lee was seen with his head in his hands.

The Grand Prix award was a joint honor split between the Iranian drama “A Hero” and Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s “Apartment No. 6.”

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Best director was awarded to Leos Carax for “Annette,” the fantastical musical that opened the festival. The award was accepted by the musical duo Sparks, who wrote the script and music for the film.

Cannes red carpet looks:See Rosamund Pike, Sharon Stone, Regina King, more at 2021 Cannes Film Festival

Nadav Lapid’s “Ahed’s Knee” won the jury prize, while Caleb Landry Jones took home the best actor prize. Renate Reinsve won best actress for Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World.”

The Croatian coming-of-age drama “Murina,” by Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, took the Camera d’Or award, a non-jury prize, for best first feature. Kusijanović was absent from the ceremony after giving birth a day earlier.

Cannes’ closing ceremony caps 12 days of red-carpet premieres, regular COVID-19 testing for many attendees and the first major film festival to be held since the pandemic began in almost its usual form. With smaller crowds and mandated mask-wearing in theaters, Cannes pushed forward with an ambitious slate of global cinema. Last year’s Cannes was completely canceled by the pandemic.

Twenty-four movies were in contention for the Palme. The jury’s deliberations are private and unknown, but that never stops a wide spectrum of predictions, guesses and betting odds. This year featured a strong slate of many top international filmmakers, but no movie was viewed as the clear favorite.

'Stillwater' at Cannes:Matt Damon teared up debuting the film, see what critics say about the movie

Among the best-received films at the festival were: Ducournau’s wild, high-octane and violent serial killer film “Titane”; Asghar Farhadi’s portrait of honor and social media “A Hero”; Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s abortion drama “Lingui”; Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s meditative, Tilda Swinton-led “Memoria”; Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” follow-up, “Red Rocket”; Japan’s Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Haruki Murakami adaptation, “Drive My Car”; and Russian director Kirill Serebennikov’s influenza tale “Petrov’s Flu.”

More:Cannes Film Festival lineup features Wes Anderson, Sean Penn

In 2019, the Palme went to Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which later took best picture at the Academy Awards, too. Only one female filmmaker has ever won Cannes top award (Jane Campion for “The Piano”), so a win for Ducournau or Mia Hansen-Løve (“Berman Island”) would be history making. If Haroun were victorious, it would be the second time a film from Africa won.

Lee was the first Black jury president at Cannes. His fellow jury members are: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Song Kang-ho, Tahar Rahim, Mati Diop, Jessica Hausner, Kleber Mendonça Filho and Mylène Farmer.

Before the ceremony, Lee and the jury posed for photographers holding hands on the red carpet.