Johnny Depp will receive a lifetime achievement award from a leading film festival.

The Hollywood star will be honoured with the Donostia Award at the 69th San Sebastian film festival in Spain next month.

Organisers described Mr Depp as “one of contemporary cinema’s most talented and versatile actors”, adding he “has played writers, undercover cops or outlaws, almost always misfits” over his illustrious yet controversial career.

Previous recipients of the Donostia Award include Glenn Close, Sir Ian McKellen, Penélope Cruz, Denzel Washington, Dame Judi Dench and Julia Roberts.

The news comes after the Pirates of the Caribbean star lost a blockbuster libel trial against The Sun newspaper, with a London judge finding that an April 2018 column calling him a “wife-beater” was “substantially true”.

The judge ruled Mr Depp assaulted ex-wife Amber Heard, 35, on a dozen occasions and put the actress in “fear for her life” three times.

The 58-year-old was later refused permission to appeal against the decision.

We compared the following “best of” lists taking into account how many times each movie was mentioned—and its ranking—to compile our own list of the 100 greatest films of all time.

Days after the ruling in November, Mr Depp announced he had been asked by Warner Brothers to resign from his role in the Harry Potter spin-off franchise Fantastic Beasts.

He was replaced in the role of evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.

San Sebastian International Film Festival director José Luis Rebordinos told the Hollywood Reporter that it’s not his place 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,” Mr Rebordinos told the outlet.

“The Donostia Award to Johnny Depp is our recognition of a great actor, a man of cinema with a great career.”

The US actor attended last year’s San Sebastian film festival to present Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan with director Julien Temple.

San Sebastian International Film Festival has been approached for comment.