Image caption Veteran film director Milos Forman has also written an autobiography, My Two Worlds

Milos Forman is to be honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the Directors' Guild of America.

The Czech-born film-maker, 80, won two Oscars for best director of 1975's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, starring Jack Nicholson, and 1984's Amadeus.

"Milos finds the universality of the human experience in every story," said Taylor Hackford, president of the Directors' Guild.

The awards ceremony takes place in Los Angeles on 2 February 2013.

Forman becomes the 34th recipient of the Directors' Guild honour, following in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick.

After graduating from the University of Prague's Film Institute, Forman was at the forefront of the Czechoslovak New Wave movement in the 1960s, with two of his early works, Black Peter, and satire The Fireman's Ball being banned for a period in Czechoslovakia.

Fireman's Ball was nominated for a best Foreign language film at the 1969 Oscars, two years after Forman's A Blonde in Love was nominated for the same award.

The global recognition prompted the director to move to the US, garnering worldwide acclaim with his 1975 hit One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which won all top five Academy Award categories, including best film, best director, best actor and best actress.

Later works include Hair in 1979, Valmont (1989) and 1996's The People vs. Larry Flynt, for which he received his third best director Oscar nomination.

Recent works include 2006's Goya's Ghosts - starring Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman - and the Czech musical A Walk Worthwhile, in 2009.