The flamboyant auteur, who made his name with a string of colourful and melodramatic black comedies including "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!", said, "I am grateful, honoured and a bit overwhelmed."
He is the first Spaniard to preside over the world's top film event in its 70-year history.
"I can only tell that I'll devote myself, body and soul, to this task, that it is both a privilege and a pleasure," the 67-year-old director added.
Although Almodovar won the best foreign film Oscar for his powerful 1999 drama "All About My Mother", which also won him best director at Cannes, he has never taken its top prize, the Palme d'Or.
The man who would become known as the "Tennessee Williams of La Mancha", first began to make his mark during the "Movida", the hedonistic Madrid-led cultural revival that followed the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975.
"Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" (1988) brought him a cult international following, and his movies are often marked by the strength and warmth of his leading women, played by Carmen Maura, Victoria Abril, Rossy de Palma and Marisa Paredes.
