WATERVILLE — British actor Clive Owen will receive the 2025 Mid-Life Achievement Award this summer at the 28th annual Maine International Film Festival, the Maine Film Center announced.

Owen, 60, is an Academy Award-nominated performer who has appeared in many art house and mainstream films including “Closer,” “Children of Men,” “Croupier,” “Duplicity” and “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” all of which will be shown at the festival that kicks off its 10-day run July 11.

The festival will bring more than 100 American independent, international and repertory films to the city and typically draws film enthusiasts from all over the world. Festivalgoers get to meet actors, directors, producers and others during the event, which closes July 20. Films will be shown at the Waterville Opera House and Maine Film Center, located in the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.

“We are honored to welcome Clive Owen as the 2025 Mid-Life Achievement recipient at the 28th Maine International Film Festival, celebrating his remarkable contributions to cinema,” Mike Perreault, executive director of the Maine Film Center, said in a news release. The festival is a Maine Film Center project.

Perreault said Owen will be honored with the award — a MIFF Moose — July 15, to be accompanied by a screening of “Croupier,” featuring Owen in his breakout role. Describing Owen as having a “dynamic range and compelling screen presence that have left an indelible mark on audiences worldwide,” Perreault said festival officials look forward to celebrating Owen’s longstanding impact on film and storytelling.

Ken Eisen, a festival programmer and one of its founders, said he and others are thrilled to have Owen coming to Waterville for the event, which will showcase a diversity of films from around the world with a particularly strong concentration of movies from France and South America.

“The guy’s a real movie star in the classic sense,” Eisen said Thursday of Owen. “He’s charismatic, he’s handsome, a terrific actor. He’s all the things that a Cary Grant or a James Stewart, in many ways, are and were.”

Eisen said Owen will be at the festival July 15 and 16. He joins a long list of others who have received the annual award, including Glenn Close, Ed Harris, Jonathan Demme, Peter Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, Terrence Malick, Walter Hill, John Turturro, Keith Carradine and Thelma Schoonmaker.

Born in Coventry, England, Owen attended Binley Park Comprehensive School. He joined a youth theater at age 13 after performing the role of the Artful Dodger in “Oliver,” according to the Internet Movie Database. He graduated in 1987 from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and then joined the Young Vic Theatre Co., where he performed many Shakespeare roles.

Perreault, the Film Center director, said Owen has appeared in an expansive variety of films and television series, “often portraying characters with strong wills and even stronger senses of justice.”

“A capable leading man and unafraid of challenging roles, Owen brings a consistent composure, suaveness, gravitas and acting expertise to his work that has enraptured audiences for three decades and counting,” Perreault said.

Following the showing of “Croupier” and the acceptance of his award July 15, a reception will be held for Owen at Front & Main.

Festival passes and packages are available to preorder online at MIFF.org.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the number of films to be shown at the festival.