New York  - Oscar-winner Tom Hanks on Monday was honoured at New York's Lincoln Center with the Film Society's 36th Annual Gala, receiving the society's Chaplin Prize.

Hollywood stars including actresses Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron, director Steven Spielberg and singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen lauded two-time Oscar winner Hanks, 52, who has the reputation of being Hollywood's "Mr Nice Guy."

Hanks won the Academy Award in 1993 for Philadelphia and 1994's Forrest Gump.

Previous winners of the prize, named after silent-film legend Charlie Chaplin - who was the first laureate in 1972 after his return from exile - include Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor and Meryl Streep.