Ennio Morricone is set to receive an honorary Oscar for his amazing film compositions on films such as A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The awards ceremony arrives in February next year and according to the President of the Academy Awards, Sid Ganis, the award isn't for the volume of scores he's produced but how well they are loved and widely known.

From Reuters:

Morricone, 78, has composed more than 300 motion picture scores during his 45-year career, but had never won an Oscar. He was nominated five times, for "Days of Heaven" (1978), "The Mission" (1986), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Bugsy" (1991) and "Malena" (2000)...

...other credits include the scores for "Once upon a Time in America," "Cinema Paradiso," "Bulworth," "In the Line of Fire," "La Cage aux Folles" and the 2008 release "Leningrad."

I think this award really is well deserved, but there is part of me that feels honorary awards are usually a cop out for not awarding someone when they deserved it. However that said there's a lot of these awards that do go to talent that has been consistently strong throughout their career. Who was it that said the lifetime achienvement award is usually to show your career is over or you're almost dead...My mind is saying Connery, but I don't think it was.