THIS year’s Cannes felt like a vital reminder of the power of cinema. The 72nd edition of the world’s most famous film festival featured some marvellous movies – and, for once, the jury agreed.

Headed by the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, the nine-strong jury chose South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite as the winner of the coveted Palme d’Or. Marking the second Asian film in a row to take the top prize, after Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shopkeepers last year, Bong’s movie was, frankly, a flat-out masterpiece.

Arriving on the second Tuesday, a week after the festival opened, it played directly after Quentin Tarantino’s super-hyped Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. More on Tarantino’s odyssey later, but suffice it to say, Bong’s film trumped it. A finely constructed tale of social inequality, about a poverty-stricken family that moves into domestic positions in the household of a wealthy CEO, it featured a remarkable screenplay that veers between black farce and tragedy, and somehow holds it all together.

For me, it was the best film I saw at the festival – the sort where you can’t stop imploring others to make sure they go and see it. What it did mean was that the jury sidelined Portrait of a Lady on Fire, written and directed by Céline Sciamma, the French filmmaker behind Girlhood and Tomboy. For many, this 18th century-set story of a painter (Noémie Merlant) and her relationship with her subject (Adèle Haenel) would’ve been a worthy Palme d’Or recipient.

The jury ended up awarding Sciamma the prize for best screenplay, ensuring that Jane Campion remains the only woman still to take home the Golden Palm (for 1993’s The Piano). Was it a missed opportunity? Maybe, but there can be no denying that Parasite is a perfect film. After Bong’s last film Okja – a Netflix-backed title that caused all manner of complaints from French exhibitors irked by the streaming giant playing in Cannes competition – this must feel like a vindication for the South Korean.

This year, Netflix was still largely absent from the Croisette – with its big forthcoming titles, including Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman apparently not ready. The streaming company did have a minor presence with Babab Anvari’s Wounds playing in Director’s Fortnight after its premiere at Sundance earlier this year. A grim-but-gripping horror, starring Armie Hammer as a bartender who finds a phone filled with gruesome images, the fact that it wasn’t playing in official competition kept the complaints to a minimum.

It was actually a good year for genre fare; the middle Sunday brought Robert Eggers’ splendid psychodrama The Lighthouse, also in Director’s Fortnight, and the buzz was audible as soon as the first screening ended. “Insane” one colleague told me, and that’s putting it mildly. By the time I caught a repeat screening on the final Friday, ticket holders and those with press and industry passes were queuing round the block to catch Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in arguably their best roles in years.

In the case of Dafoe, that’s coming off back-to-back Oscar nominations for The Florida Project and At Eternity’s Gate, but this role as an ageing lighthouse keeper situated on an isolated island with just his junior (Pattinson) for company is far stronger. Shot in moody black-and-white, the period detail and early 20th century vernacular is simply astonishing, as these two salty sea-dogs begin a gradual descent into madness. Expect to hear much more about this film as the year unfolds.

Until The Lighthouse started blowing audiences away, the hottest ticket was obviously Tarantino’s love-letter to 1960s movies and television. Unveiled practically25 years to the day since Pulp Fiction – just his second movie, which went on to win the Palme d’Or – it was a late entry into the festival, and one Cannes really needed to boost its star quota. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie heading an all-star cast, it was undoubtedly the glamour moment of the festival.

Curiously, while it was dubbed the director’s closest film to Pulp Fiction, Once Upon a Time… emerges as more akin to his Second World War drama Inglourious Basterds, his last film in Cannes which also starred Pitt. To explain more would enter into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that this wild ride into 1969 Los Angeles, just months before the Manson murder, heralds a shift away from hippie innocence and idealism to something more sinister and proves to be one of Tarantino’s more emotional experiments.

While it didn’t win a prize, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You was another typically powerful film from the director and his long-time Scottish screenwriter, Paul Laverty. A companion to Loach’s last work, the Palme d’Or-winning I, Daniel Blake, while that dealt with the bureaucracy of the benefits system, this took on the gig economy. Kris Hitchen and Debbie Honeywood were both heartbreaking as a married couple, struggling to make ends meet as a delivery driver and carer respectively.

Loach’s Belgian compatriots Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne – who often produce his films – were also in competition, and walked away with best director(s) for their film, Young Ahmed. At 85 minutes, it was the tightest movie in the official selection – a trim story of a 13-year-old Belgian-Arab boy (Idir Ben Addi), who becomes so immersed in Muslim extremism that he sets out to kill his female teacher. Sounds like it should’ve whipped up controversy, but the Dardennes handled it with sensitivity and assurance.

Another masterful work was Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory. The sort of film that feels like a filmmaker’s reckoning with his own great career, this semi-autobiographical tale starred an imperious Antonio Banderas as Salvador, a filmmaker in a creative hole. Funny, tragic and beautifully staged, it touches on so many of the themes – including his deep relationship with his mother – that have filtered across Almodóvar’s body of work. Deservedly, Banderas took home Best Actor.

Meanwhile, Best Actress went to British star Emily Beecham, who already made a distinct impression as the title character in Daphne, which played at the Edinburgh International Film Festival two years ago. Now she’s the lead in Little Joe, an off-kilter tale from Austrian director Jessica Hausner, making her first English-language film. All set in a pristine, antiseptic world, Beecham plays a scientist who develops a new strain of flower that begins to have strange side effects on those around it.

Another film where the two main performers – August Diehl and Valerie Pachner – could easily have claimed the acting honours was Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life. Like Tarantino, this was the elusive director’s ninth film (and his first in Cannes since winning the Golden Palm for The Tree of Life in 2011). This was a rather more conventional story, telling of Franz Jägerstätter, a farmer and conscientious objector. Moreover, it saw Malick reign in his recent experimental tendencies to deliver something heartfelt and dignified.

The biggest disappointment of the festival? Well, that probably goes to Gaspar Noé’s rather pointless Lux Æterna, a 50-minute backstage drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle that finishes with a headache-inducing 15-minute flashing strobe sequence. After his film Climax was the talk of last year’s festival, this was a total let-down.

But putting this aside, this year’s Cannes showed just how alive the medium of cinema still is.