CANNES (REUTERS) - Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Palme d'Or at Cannes on Saturday (May 19) for Shoplifters, a movie that wowed audiences for its delicate portrayal of family life and surprising plot twists.

The win, by a director who has won prizes at the festival in previous years, defied speculation that the Palme would go to a woman director, with three strong contenders in a year when the Hollywood sexual harassment scandal was the talk of the town.

Spike Lee's political satire BlacKkKlansman, based on the true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, won the runner-up prize, the Grand Prix.

A woman director, Nadine Labaki from Lebanon, won the Jury Prize - effectively the bronze medal - for Capharnaum, a realist drama about childhood neglect in the slums of Beirut.

Poland's Pawel Pawlikowski won Best Director for Cold War, a romance that moves from the peasant farms of Poland to Paris jazz clubs and back from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Girl, a Belgian drama about a transgender teenage girl's quest to become a ballerina, won the Camera d'Or for the best directorial debut for director Lukas Dhont.