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We present the luminosity function (LF) of star clusters in M51 based onHST/ACS observations taken as part of the Hubble Heritage project. The clustersare selected based on their size and with the resulting 5990 clusters wepresent one of the largest cluster samples of a single galaxy. We find that theLF can be approximated with a double power-law distribution with a break aroundM_V = -8.9. On the bright side the index of the power-law distribution issteeper (a = 2.75) than on the faint-side (a = 1.93), similar to what was foundearlier for the ``Antennae'' galaxies. The location of the bend, however,occurs about 1.6 mag fainter in M51. We confront the observed LF with the modelfor the evolution of integrated properties of cluster populations of Gieles etal., which predicts that a truncated cluster initial mass function would resultin a bend in, and a double power-law behaviour of, the integrated LF. Thecombination of the large field-of view and the high star cluster formation rateof M51 make it possible to detect such a bend in the LF. Hence, we concludethat there exists a fundamental upper limit to the mass of star clusters inM51. Assuming a power-law cluster initial mass function with exponentionalcut-off of the form NdM ~ M^-b * exp(-M/M_C)dM, we find that M_C = 10^5 M_sun.A direct comparison with the LF of the ``Antennae'' suggests that there M_C =4*10^5 M_sun.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. A&A Letters, accepte

Observational evidence for a truncation of the star cluster initial mass function at the high mass end