Movies by Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard and Marianne Faithfull are in line for the Golden Bear prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Tuya's Marriage, a Chinese film about a woman who has to survive in the steppe of Mongolia, has won the Berlin Film festival's top honour, the Golden Bear.
Critics have praised Damon in Robert De Niro's CIA drama The Good Shepherd, while French actress Cotillard received praise as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.
Accepting the award, director Wang Quan'an said he could not imagine a better gift for Chinese New Year.
Festival audiences cheered Faithfull's role as a prostitute in Irina Palm.
Joseph Cedar won best director for his Middle East war drama "Beaufort.
German film The Counterfeiters, based on a real-life Nazi plot, is another favourite among the 22 eligible films.
The award for best actor went to Argentina's Julio Chavez in The Other, while Nina Hoss of Germany scooped best actress for her role in Yella.
It tells of a plan to disrupt Britain's wartime economy by flooding the country with forged banknotes made by Jewish craftsmen in a concentration camp.
The awards were announced on Saturday evening as the 11-day festival headed towards its conclusion.
Cotillard plays Piaf, who endured tragedy as well as great successThe winner of the Golden Bear, for best picture, will be announced on Saturday evening as the 11-day festival heads towards its conclusion.
An international jury led by screenwriter and director Paul Schrader has chosen the winner.
Its members include actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Willem Dafoe, plus Hong Kong producer Nansun Shi.
Critically panned
Also in contention is Hallam Foe, which stars Billy Elliot actor Jamie Bell as a social misfit obsessed with the death of his mother.
Czech film I Served the King of England was described as "beguiling" by Variety magazine's critic at the festival.
Faithfull's character turns to sex to raise money for a relative's surgeryIt portrays a man who worked his way up from being a waiter to a millionaire hotel owner, but ended up being imprisoned in a communist jail.
American stars Sharon Stone and Jennifer Lopez featured in two movies which were not received well by critics, however.
Stone appeared in When a Man Falls in the Forest, the story of three men whose lives became connected.
Many cinemagoers walked out of that movie - and the Hollywood Reporter described it as "a dire affair".
And Lopez was seen in Bordertown, a drama based on the real-life murder of young Mexican women.
