Hollywood actor Johnny Depp will be given a lifetime achievement award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival next month.

The Spanish film festival announced today it will present Depp with its highest accolade, the Donostia Award that recognises “outstanding contributions to the film world.”

Organisers of the festival called Depp “one of contemporary cinema’s most talented and versatile actors” when it announced that he will be given the gong on September 22.

Depp will receive his Donostia Award in San Sebastian on Wednesday, the festival announced on its website.

This is despite Depp’s fall from grace as one of Hollywood’s most successful and bankable actors following his failed libel suit against The Sun newspaper in which the British High Court upheld the tabloid newspaper’s depiction of him as “a wife beater “ and ruled that he had assaulted his former wife actor Amber Heard on numerous occasions.

The ruling led to Warner Brothers dumping him from its Fantastic Beasts franchise and replacing him with Mads Mikkelsen in the role of evil wizard Grindelwald.

Meanwhile, the festival director José Luis Rebordinos told The Hollywood Reporter: “The role of a film festival is not to judge the conduct of members of the film industry.

"The role of a film festival is to select the most relevant and interesting films of the year and to extend recognition to those who have made an extraordinary contribution to the art of film.

“The Donostia Award to Johnny Depp is our recognition of a great actor, a man of cinema with a great career, who visited us last year as producer of the film Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan by Julien Temple, which won the Special Jury Prize.”

American screen legend Gregory Peck was the first actor to receive the Donostia Award when it was first unveiled in 1986.

Other Hollywood legends to receive the honour include Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep and Donald Sutherland.