"I have to say how humbly grateful and how surprised I am to receive this award. It means a lot to me for many reasons. It is a rare thing as an actor to take a moment and look back at sometime, you always tend to think ahead to the future," the 44-year-old actor added at a press conference.
The Donostia Award -- the Basque name for the coastal city San Sebastian -- has been given out each year at the festival since 1986 to "a great film personality in recognition for their work and career."
Past recipients include Gregory Peck, Bette Davis, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Richard Gere and Robert De Niro.
Jackman toured San Sebastian, a picturesque seaside resort on the northwest Atlantic coast of Spain, by bicycle for several hours before picking up his award.
Wearing jeans and a black blazer, he smiled and posed with fans after his film "Prisoners" was screened out of competition at the festival, the oldest and most prestigious event of its kind in the Spanish speaking world.
Directed by Canada's Denis Villeneuve the nearly two and a half hour long movie tells the story of a distraught father, played by Jackman, who holds captive and tortures the troubled young man he believes kidnapped his six-year-old daughter.
Jackman, the father of two children with his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, said he researched the part by learning about kidnapping experiences and drawing on his own experiences as a parent.
"It is the most difficult research I've ever done," he said.
"I knew a film like this would take an unconventional director like Denis," added Jackman, who will play Wolverine for the seventh time in next year's "X-Men: Days of Future Past".
"Prisoners" is the first Hollywood effort by Villeneuve, who was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film for his 2010 film "Incendies".
"Cinema for me is a tool to explore deep fears," Villeneuve told reporters after "Prisoners" was screened.
The 45-year-old director's erotic thriller "Enemy" is one of the 13 films in the race for the Golden Shell award for best film at the 61th San Sebastian film festival which wraps up on Saturday.
Last year's Golden Shell for best film went to French director Francois Ozon's account of a high school teacher's friendship with an unusual pupil "In the House".
The festival was originally intended to honour Spanish-language films but it has established itself as one of the most important movie festivals in the world.
It hosted the world premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's spy thriller "North by Northwest" in 1959 and Woody Allen's "Melinda and Melinda" in 2004.
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