Adele Exarchopoulos (left) and Lea Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

The French drama Le Bleu Est une Couleur Chaude (Blue is the Warmest Color), an intimate love story about a teenage girl's love affair an older woman, has won the prestigious Palme d'Or for best film at the 66th Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.

Entertainment news website Variety.com has called the win a "history-making decision" as "the Steven Spielberg-led jury opted not only to give the first Palme d’Or to a gay romantic drama, but to present the accolade jointly to three artists: Tunisian-born director Abdellatif Kechiche and French actresses Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux."

The sex scenes in three-hour coming-of-age movie are said to have caused a controversy and shocked some some critics with Variety magazine saying it contained "the most explosively graphic lesbian sex scenes in recent memory".

The Hollywood Reporter said the "sprawling drama" would "raise eyebrows" as it crossed the barrier "between performance and the real deal" while the The Guardian described the film as "epic yet intimate".

The Reporter further noted that France's La Liberation newspaper called the win for Blue “a symbol” noting that the film. "After long weeks punctuated by outbursts of homophobic gay marriage debates, Blue is the Warmest Color looks directly at its two young heroines not as an anomaly or a curiosity but as a passion taking seed in eternal love," the paper said.

Blue is adapted from a graphic novel by Julie Martoh that was published in 2010 in France. The book is scheduled to be released in English this fall by Arsenal Pulp Press under the title "Blue Angel."