The prize jury praised the 73-year-old for “successive performances in which she brings life to richly complex female characters.”

“The honesty and responsibility she brings to her choice of roles, at the service of inspiring and exemplary narratives, reach out beyond the screen,” it added in a statement.

Streep has performed in more than 60 movies, acquiring iconic status for roles from a Nazi concentration camp survivor to an ABBA-singing mother.

She won her most recent Oscar in 2012 for her role as Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady”.

Before that, she won in 1980 for “Kramer v. Kramer” and in 1983 for “Sophie’s Choice”.

The €50,000 ($55,000) award is one of eight prizes covering the arts, science and other areas that are handed out annually by the foundation named for Spanish Crown Princess Leonor.

Past winners of the arts prize include US directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke and American architect Frank Gehry.

The awards will be handed out at a ceremony hosted by Spain’s King Felipe VI and broadcast live on Spanish television in October.