Controversial French drama, Blue is the Warmest Colour, collects Palme d’Or at Cannes

Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Colour has collected the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, as selected by a jury led by Steven Spielberg and comprised of such industry luminaries as Ang Lee, Christoph Waltz, Nicole Kidman, Christian Mungiu, and Lynn Ramsay.

The sexually explicit French drama set tongues wagging on the Croisette with its lengthy love-making sequences between stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux.

There are already concerns as to whether or not the Australian classification board will allow the film to debut on our shores uncensored.

It dominated much of the Cannes conversation in the festival’s waning days; perhaps what tipped it over other similarly acclaimed but ultimately unexciting entries.

The Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis collected the Grand Prix – second place – marking their first major Cannes victory since Barton Fink claimed the Palme back in 1991.

Bérénice Bejo was named Best Actress for her turn in Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, the Iranian filmmaker’s follow-up to Oscar winner A Separation.

Bruce Dern earned the Best Actor accolade by playing a doddering alcoholic in Alexander Payne’s black-and-white Nebraska.

Best Director went to Amat Escalante for Heli; a controversial decision given the critical panning it received from some corners. Even Escalante expressed his shock when collecting the award.

Of the Competition titles, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives received the lion’s share of the critical drubbing, however. Despite winning Best Director for Drive two years ago, his latest was unsurprisingly snubbed.

The Camera d’Or for Best First Feature was collected by Anthony Chen for Ilo Ilo.