Harvey Weinstein has been awarded an honorary CBE for outstanding contribution to the British film industry.

The award is conferred by the Queen to those who have made an important contribution to British interests. Miramax Films, the company Weinstein founded with his brother Bob, said it has invested more than £600 million in films made with British production entities.

'My life and my career have been greatly influenced and enriched by great British filmmakers and authors and so I am especially honoured and humbled to be receiving the CBE,' Weinstein said.

Along with backing more recent successes such as Shakespeare In Love, Wings Of The Dove and Dirty Pretty Things, Miramax supported risky UK titles such as The Crying Game in its earlier days. That film's success as the then biggest arthouse hit ever in the US was a massive boost to the company's bottom-line and profile as it closed a deal to be bought by the Walt Disney Co, its parent today.

'I am delighted that Harvey Weinstein's contribution to film-making in general, and the British cinema in particular, has been recognised in this way,' said Thomas Harris, the British Consul-General in New York.