72nd National Film Awards 2026: Winners List

The National Film Awards handed out their 72nd edition on 18 July 2026, and the list they produced is already being argued over in every film circle in the country. A political thriller beat a science fiction spectacle to the top prize, two actors from completely different industries were told to share the same trophy, and a former NASA scientist turned director story from over a decade ago suddenly feels relevant again once you notice how often this jury keeps rewarding unconventional paths into filmmaking.

Unlike the glittering film award nights built around advertising slots and popularity votes, the National Film Awards are decided by an eleven member jury working under the National Film Development Corporation of India and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. There is no red carpet vote, no audience choice category. The jury watches, argues and decides behind closed doors, and this year that process ran through more than four hundred feature film submissions before a single winner was named.

The biggest talking point of the 72nd National Film Awards was not a single winner. It was the jury choosing to split the Best Actor trophy between a mainstream Hindi star and a veteran Malayalam actor picking up his fourth National Award.

How the announcement unfolded

The results had been expected earlier in the month, with several reports pointing to a 3 July 2026 announcement date that came and went without any confirmation from the government. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting eventually called the press conference for 18 July 2026 at 5.30 pm, streamed live through PIB India, and the room stayed packed well past the scheduled hour as category after category was read out.

This edition honours films certified by the Central Board of Film Certification between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024, a rule that has stayed consistent across recent editions and explains why several late 2024 festival titles were held back for the following cycle rather than competing this year.

The complete winners list

Here is every major category from the 72nd National Film Awards gathered in one place, so you do not have to piece it together from a dozen scattered live blogs.

Category	Winner
Best Feature Film	Article 370
Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment	Kalki 2898 AD
Best Director	Rajkumar Periasamy, Amaran
Best Actor (shared)	Kartik Aaryan, Chandu Champion and Mammootty, Bramayugam
Best Actress	Yami Gautam, Article 370
Best Supporting Actor	Sanjay Mishra, Bhakshak
Best Supporting Actress (shared)	Rupashree Warkade, Mithya and Sachana Namidass, Maharaja
Best Children's Film	35 Chinna Katha Kaadu
Best Debut Film of a Director	Randeep Hooda, Swatantrya Veer Savarkar
Best Original Screenplay	Sukumar, Pushpa 2 The Rule
Best Adapted Screenplay	Yogesh Deshpande, Swaragandharva Sudhir Phadke
Best Dialogue	Venky Atluri, Lucky Bhaskar
Best Cinematography	Shehnad Jalal, Bramayugam
Best Editing	R Kalaivanan, Amaran
Best Music Direction Background Score	GV Prakash Kumar, Amaran
Best Music Direction Songs	Shashwat Sachdev, Article 370
Best Lyrics	Manoj Muntashir, Maidaan
Best Male Playback Singer	Abhay Jodhpurkar, Gharat Ganpati
Best Female Playback Singer	Vaikom Vijayalakshmi, ARM
Best Choreography	Vijay Ganguly, Stree 2

The wins that will define this edition

Article 370 taking the top honour reflects a jury willing to reward a film built around a sensitive and recent political subject, the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, handled through a thriller structure rather than a documentary tone. Its director Aditya Suhas Jambhale and the film's team had already built strong critical goodwill through the year, and this win confirmed it at the highest level available to Indian cinema.

The Best Actor tie between Kartik Aaryan and Mammootty is the detail everyone is still discussing. Kartik Aaryan earned his recognition for Chandu Champion, a demanding physical transformation role built around a real life para athlete, while Mammootty picked up his fourth career National Award for a completely different kind of performance in the black and white horror production Bramayugam. Two actors, two industries, two acting styles, one trophy split between them.

Yami Gautam's Best Actress win for the same film that took Best Feature Film is a rare double for a single production, and it places her firmly among the year's most recognised performers across any language.

Regional film winners across languages

South Indian cinema had one of its strongest showings in years, with Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada productions collecting honours across acting, technical and regional categories. Dhanush had a particularly memorable outing, with his directorial debut Raayan winning Best Tamil Film while Captain Miller, which he also headlined as an actor, picked up a special mention for its sound work.

Regional wins rarely make national headlines the way a Best Actor tie does, yet they usually represent the most technically disciplined filmmaking of the year, made on a fraction of the budget of a single big release song sequence.

More Details

A handful of facts around this edition rarely surface once the headline categories are covered, even though they explain a great deal about how the jury was thinking.

The eleven member jury was chaired by veteran Malayalam filmmaker Jayaraj, whose own body of work is built on exactly the kind of quiet, craft first cinema that this award has historically rewarded over louder commercial titles.

Randeep Hooda's Best Debut Film of a Director win for Swatantrya Veer Savarkar arrived more than a decade after Bedabrata Pain, a former NASA scientist, won the same category for Chittagong at an earlier edition of this award, a reminder that the National Film Awards have a long history of embracing directors who arrive from entirely unconventional backgrounds.

The Best Supporting Actress category was shared this year between Rupashree Warkade for the Kannada courtroom drama Mithya and Sachana Namidass for Maharaja, a joint win that barely registered outside regional entertainment coverage despite both performances anchoring award winning films.

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