The National Film Award for Best Screenplay is one of the categories in the National Film Awards presented annually by the National Film Development Corporation of India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). The award is announced for films produced in a year across the country, in all Indian languages. , the award comprises a Rajat Kamal, a certificate, and a cash prize of 2,00,000.
The National Film Awards were established in 1954 to "encourage production of the films of a high aesthetic and technical standard and educational and culture value" and also planned to include awards for regional films. The awards were instituted as the "State Awards for Films" but were renamed to "National Film Awards" at the 15th National Film Awards in 1967 and a new category of award for Best Screenplay was introduced, presented with a plaque and a cash prize. At the 57th National Film Awards in 2009, the Screenplay award was reclassified into three different awards: Screenplay Writer (Original), Screenplay Writer (Adapted), and Dialogues. Although the Indian film industry produces films in around twenty languages and dialects, as of 2022 edition, the seventy-three unique writers who have been awarded, have worked in nine major languages: Hindi (twenty awards), Malayalam (twelve awards), Bengali (eleven awards), Tamil and Marathi (nine awards) respectively, Telugu (six awards), Kannada (five awards), English (two awards), Sanskrit and Assamese (one award each).
The inaugural award, in 1967, of this category was presented to S. L. Puram Sadanandan for the Malayalam film Agniputhri. No award was presented at the 23rd National Film Awards (1975). , Malayalam author and screenplay writer M. T. Vasudevan Nair holds the record of winning maximum awards in category with four wins for the films: Oru Vadakkan Veeragadha (1989), Kadavu (1991), Sadayam (1992), and Parinayam (1994). Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray was presented the award in 1993 posthumously for the film Uttoran; he had earlier received awards for Pratidwandi (1970) and Sonar Kella (1974). At the 59th National Film Awards in 2011, Girish Kulkarni was awarded both the Best Actor and Best Dialogue Awards for the Marathi film Deool. The film was itself was adjudged the Best Feature Film. In 2015 at the 63rd ceremony, the awards for both Original Screenplay and Dialogue were jointly presented to Juhi Chaturvedi and Himanshu Sharma for their films Piku and Tanu Weds Manu: Returns, respectively.
, sixty-nine awards have been presented for Original Screenplay writing, eighteen for Adapted Screenplay writing, and fourteen for dialogue.
Award The first recipient of the award, S. L. Puram Sadanandan, was presented with a plaque and 5000 cash prize. The award was revised in 1973 at the 21st ceremony to include 10,000 cash, a silver medal and a certificate. It was shared by Mrinal Sen and Ashish Burman for their Bengali film Padatik. At the 54th awarding ceremony in 2006, the next revision of the award was declared to include cash remuneration of 50,000 which was presented to Abhijat Joshi, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra for their Hindi film Lage Raho Munna Bhai in which Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence was depicted. At the 70th National Film Awards (2022), the cash prize was revised to 2,00,000.
For fourteen times, multiple writers were awarded for their work in a single film; Mrinal Sen and Ashish Burman for Padatik (1973), Satyadev Dubey, Shyam Benegal, and Girish Karnad for Bhumika (1977), T. S. Ranga and T. S. Nagabharana for Grahana (1978), Ashok Mishra and Saeed Akhtar Mirza for Naseem (1995), Manoj Tyagi and Nina Arora for Page 3 (2004), Prakash Jha, Shridhar Raghavan, and Manoj Tyagi for Apaharan (2005), Abhijat Joshi, Rajkumar Hirani, and Vidhu Vinod Chopra for Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), Gopal Krishan Pai and Girish Kasaravalli for Kanasemba Kudureyaneri (2009), P. F. Mathews and Harikrishna for Kutty Srank (2009), Anant Mahadevan and Sanjay Pawar for Mee Sindhutai Sapkal (2010), Vikas Bahl, Nitesh Tiwari, and Vijay Maurya for Chillar Party (2011), Bhavesh Mandalia and Umesh Shukla for OMG – Oh My God! (2012), Sriram Raghavan, Arijit Biswas, Yogesh Chandekar, Hemanth Rao, Pooja Ladha Surti for Andhadhun (2018), Sudha Kongara and Shalini Ushadevi for Soorarai Pottru (2020).
Shyamoli Banerjee Deb, one of the jury members at the 53rd National Film Awards, filed a petition objecting to the selections in five awards categories; the Best Feature Film in Hindi, the Best First Film of a Director, the Best Actress, the Best Screenplay, and the Best Special Effects. Deb challenged the decision to confer the award to Prakash Jha, Shridhar Raghavan, and Manoj Tyagi for the Hindi film Apaharan and claimed that the film was not in the primary selection list. The Delhi High Court put a stay on the announcement and requested a reply from the Directorate of Film Festivals. Fourteen months later, Justice B. D. Ahmed removed the stay and the award was announced for Apaharan.
Winners Following are the award winners over the years:
Awards legends
List of award recipients, showing the year (award ceremony), film(s) and language(s) Year Recipient(s) Film(s) Language(s) 1967 S. L. Puram Sadanandan Agniputhri Malayalam 1968 Pandit Anand Kumar Anokhi Raat Hindi 1969 Puttanna Kanagal Gejje Pooje Kannada 1970 Satyajit Ray Pratidwandi Bengali 1971 Tapan Sinha Ekhonee 1972 Gulzar Koshish Hindi 1973 Mrinal Sen Padatik Bengali Ashish Burman 1974 Satyajit Ray Sonar Kella 1975 No Award 1976 Vijay Tendulkar Manthan Hindi 1977 Satyadev Dubey Bhumika Shyam Benegal Girish Karnad 1978 T. S. Ranga Grahana Kannada T. S. Nagabharana 1979 Sai Paranjpye Sparsh Hindi 1980 Mrinal Sen Akaler Sandhane Bengali 1981 K. Balachander Thanneer Thanneer Tamil 1982 Mrinal Sen Kharij Bengali 1983 G. V. Iyer Adi Shankaracharya Sanskrit 1984 Adoor Gopalakrishnan Mukhamukham Malayalam 1985 Bhabendra Nath Saikia Agnisnaan Assamese 1986 Buddhadeb Dasgupta Phera Bengali 1987 Adoor Gopalakrishnan Anantaram Malayalam 1988 Arundhati Roy In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones English 1989 M. T. Vasudevan Nair Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha Malayalam 1990 K. S. Sethumadhavan Marupakkam Tamil 1991 M. T. Vasudevan Nair Kadavu Malayalam 1992 M. T. Vasudevan Nair Sadayam 1993 Satyajit Ray Uttoran Bengali 1994 M. T. Vasudevan Nair Parinayam Malayalam 1995 Ashok Mishra Naseem Hindi Saeed Akhtar Mirza 1996 Agathiyan Kadhal Kottai Tamil 1997 Rituparno Ghosh Dahan Bengali 1998 Ashok Mishra Samar Hindi 1999 Madampu Kunjukuttan Karunam Malayalam 2000 Bharathiraja Kadal Pookkal Tamil 2001 G. Neelakanta Reddy Show Telugu 2002 Aparna Sen Mr. and Mrs. Iyer English 2003 Gautam Ghose Abar Aranye Bengali 2004 Manoj Tyagi Page 3 Hindi Nina Arora 2005 Prakash Jha Apaharan Shridhar Raghavan Manoj Tyagi 2006 Abhijat Joshi Lage Raho Munnabhai Rajkumar Hirani Vidhu Vinod Chopra 2007 Feroz Abbas Khan Gandhi, My Father 2008 Sachin Kundalkar Gandha Marathi 2009 P. F. Mathews Kutty Srank Malayalam Harikrishna Gopalakrishna Pai Kanasemba Kudureyaneri Kannada Girish Kasaravalli Pandiraj Pasanga Tamil 2010 Vetrimaaran Aadukalam Anant Mahadevan Mee Sindhutai Sapkal Marathi Sanjay Pawar Sanjay Pawar Mee Sindhutai Sapkal 2011 Vikas Bahl Chillar Party Hindi Nitesh Tiwari Vijay Maurya Avinash Deshpande Nigdi Shala Marathi Girish Kulkarni Deool 2012 Sujoy Ghosh Kahaani Hindi Bhavesh Mandalia OMG - Oh My God! Umesh Shukla Anjali Menon Ustad Hotel Malayalam 2013 P. Sheshadri December-1 Kannada Panchakshari Prakruti Sumitra Bhave Astu Marathi 2014 Srijit Mukherji Chotushkone Bengali Joshy Mangalath Ottaal Malayalam Vishal Bhardwaj Haider Hindi 2015 Juhi Chaturvedi Piku Himanshu Sharma Tanu Weds Manu Returns Vishal Bhardwaj Talvar 2016 Syam Pushkaran Maheshinte Prathikaaram Malayalam Sanjay Krishnaji Patil Dashakriya Marathi Tharun Bhascker Dhaassyam Pelli Choopulu Telugu 2017 Sajeev Pazhoor Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum Malayalam Jayaraj Bhayanakam Sambit Mohanty Hello Arsi Oriya 2018 Rahul Ravindran Chi La Sow Telugu Sriram Raghavan Andhadhun Hindi Arijit Biswas Yogesh Chedekar Hemanth Rao Pooja Ladha Surti Churni Ganguly Tarikh Bengali 2019 Kaushik Ganguly Jyeshthoputro Srijit Mukherji Gumnaami Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri The Tashkent Files Hindi 2020 Sudha Kongara Soorarai Pottru Tamil Shalini Ushadevi Madonne Ashwin Mandela 2021 Shahi Kabir Nayattu Malayalam Sanjay Leela Bhansali Gangubai Kathiawadi Hindi Utkarshini Vashishtha Prakash Kapadia2022 Anand EkarshiAattamMalayalam Arpita MukherjeeGulmoharHindi Rahul V. Chittella 2023 Sai Rajesh BabyTelugu Ramkumar Balakrishnan ParkingTamil Deepak Kingrani Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi HaiHindi 2024 Sukumar Pushpa 2: The Rule Telugu Yogesh Deshpande Swargandharva Sudhir Phadke Marathi Venky Atluri Lucky Baskhar Telugu
References
External links Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India National Film Awards Archives