An Israeli animated documentary probing massacres in Lebanon and a Clint Eastwood drama starring Angelina Jolie led the running at Cannes on Sunday as the festival prepared to crown the best film.

The competition for the coveted Palme d'Or at the 61st edition was marked by hard-hitting pictures grappling with war, poverty and corruption.

But the world's top movie showcase made plenty of room for glitz, glamour and Hollywood largesse with the premiere of the first Indiana Jones movie in two decades and hordes of champagne-swigging producers wheeling and dealing.

In what many critics called an under-par year for the competition, 'Waltz With Bashir' appeared to be leading the pack with its unflinching look at Israel's indirect involvement in the 1982 slaughter of Palestinian refugees in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila camps.

Israeli director Ari Folman, a former soldier, unravels his own repressed memories of the horror of the killings and breaks new ground stylistically with the first-ever animated documentary at Cannes.

"I hope young people will watch this film, I hope they might be moved by the animation, the music, and I hope it might help them see that war really is about them just being used as pawns by other people," Folman told AFP.

Audiences also embraced 'The Exchange' featuring Jolie as a mother battling police incompetence and corruption to learn the fate of her kidnapped son.

In happier vein, a heavily pregnant Jolie made a second Cannes appearance on the red carpet with partner Brad Pitt to promote 'Kung Fu Panda', a cartoon kids movie in which she lends her voice to a tiger.

She was considered a hot pick for best actress honours in a year marked by a series of strong female performances.

Puerto Rican-born Benicio del Toro led tips for best actor for his turn as Latin American revolutionary Ernesto Guevara in the four-hour-plus epic 'Che' by Steven Soderbergh.

Italy's Toni Servillo was also in the running for his riveting performance as seven-time prime minister Giulio Andreotti.

Other highlights came outside the competition, including 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona', a warmly received Woody Allen comedy starring Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson, and a moving Madonna film on Aids orphans in Malawi.

Argentinian soccer legend Maradona and former bad-boy boxer Mike Tyson also turned up on the French Riviera for flattering biopics on their chequered careers.

Despite the lighter moments, Cannes opened on a sombre note with many participants including jury president Sean Penn paying tribute to the victims of the devastating earthquake in China and the cyclone in Myanmar.

The opening film by Fernando Meirelles, 'Blindness', offered up an apocalyptic vision of the future starring Julianne Moore.

The competition went to offer looks at dysfunctional families in Turkey and France, kids lured into a life of crime in Italy and Brazil, and the state bulldozing through citizens' lives in China.

And as in every year, there were a few howlers that left audiences baffled about their selection, including 'Serbis', a Filipino picture set in a porn cinema, and French drama 'Frontier of Dawn' which Variety magazine called "a risible slice of pretentious hokum".

Politically minded Penn said he thought the nine-member jury should crown a groundbreaking, unconventional film with an impact.

"The best way to be honest is to try to emancipate ourselves from the effects of fashion, to try to find what will stay with us forever," he said in an interview with French daily Le Monde.

And he regretted the fact that "there weren't a few more comedies in competition", citing the films of Woody Allen as among his favourites.

AFP