72nd National Film Awards 2026: Article 370, Kalki 2898 AD, Amaran And Pushpa 2 Lead Winners List

The 72nd National Film Awards were announced on July 18, 2026, honouring outstanding contributions to Indian cinema across feature films, non feature films and writing on cinema. Films such as Article 370, Amaran, Kalki 2898 AD, Pushpa: The Rule and 35 Chinna Katha Kaadu emerged among the biggest winners, while leading actors, directors and technicians were recognised for their creative achievements.

The award for Best Feature Film was presented to Article 370 , produced by Jio Studios. Rajkumar Periasamy won Best Director for Amaran , while the Best Actor award was shared by Kartik Aaryan for Chandu Champion and Mammootty for Bramayugam . Yami Gautam received the Best Actress honour for Article 370 .

In the supporting categories, Sanjay Mishra won Best Supporting Actor for Bhakshak , while Ropashree Varkady for Mithya and Sachana Namidass for Maharaja jointly received the Best Supporting Actress award. The Best Child Artist honour was shared by Riddhiman Banerjee, Tapomoy Deb and Gitashree Chakraborty for Onko Ki Kothin, Arundev Pothula for 35 Chinna Katha Kaadu and Athish Shetty for Mithya .

35 Chinna Katha Kaadu , produced by S. Originals and Waltair Productions, won Best Children’s Film , while Kalki 2898 AD from Vyjayanthi Movies received the award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment . Randeep Hooda’s Swatantrya Veer Savarkar was honoured as Best Debut Film of a Director .

In screenplay and writing categories, Sukumar won Best Original Screenplay for Pushpa: The Rule , while Yogesh Deshpande received Best Adapted Screenplay for Swargandharva Sudhir Phadke . Venky Atluri won Best Dialogue for Lucky Baskhar .

Technical excellence was recognised across several categories. Shehnad Jalal won Best Cinematography for Bramayugam , while R. Kalaivannan received Best Editing for Amaran . Nitin Zihani Choudhary won Best Production Design for Kalki 2898 AD , while Deepali Noor and Sheetal Sharma received Best Costume Design for Pushpa: The Rule .

P Ravi Kumar won Best Makeup for Committee Kurrollu , while Vijay Ganguly received Best Choreography for the song Aaj Ki Raat from Stree 2 . Shaswat Sachdev won Best Music Direction for Songs for Article 370 , and GV Prakash Kumar received the award for Best Background Score for Amaran .

The music categories also recognised Manoj Muntashir , who won Best Lyrics for Maidaan . Abhay Jodhpurkar received Best Male Playback Singer for Gharat Ganpati , while Vaikom Vijayalakshmi won Best Female Playback Singer for ARM . Manas Choudhary won Best Sound Design for Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 , and Anl Arasu received Best Action Direction for Maharaja .

The award for Best Feature Film Promoting National, Social and Environmental Values went to Captain Miller produced by Sathya Jyothi Films. Special mentions were given to Meiyazhagan for Suren G, Sound Mix Engineer , and Captain Miller for Dhanush .

Among language categories, Juiphool won Best Feature Film in Assamese, Chalchitra Ekhon won in Bengali, Maaran in Gujarati, Srikanth in Hindi, Mithya in Kannada, Feminichi Fathima in Malayalam, Mukkam Post Bombilwadi in Marathi, Lahari in Odia, Raayan in Tamil and Committee Kurrollu in Telugu.

In the Non Feature Film Awards , Ram Nami won Best Documentary , while Anand Rai received Best Direction for Statue of Unity . Live in Loom won Best Cinematography , and Obur received the award for Best Script . Special mentions were given to The Chola Door and Sui and Bhadrakali Natakam .

For contributions to film literature and criticism, Sanjeev Shrivastava was honoured as Best Film Critic , while Pradeep Kumar Shetty won Best Book on Cinema for his Kannada work.

The 72nd National Film Awards celebrated the diversity of Indian filmmaking by recognising mainstream successes, regional cinema, technical innovation and socially significant storytelling across multiple languages.