National Film Award for Best Screenplay

National Film Award for Best Screenplay
Awarded by Directorate of Film Festivals
Type	National
Category	Indian Cinema
Description
Description	Best screenplay for a feature film for a year
Medal	Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus)
Statistics
Instituted	1967 (Screenplay Writer (Original)) 2009 (Screenplay Writer (Adapted)) 2009 (Dialogues)
First awarded	1967 (Screenplay Writer (Original)) 2009 (Screenplay Writer (Adapted)) 2009 (Dialogues)
Last awarded	2015
Total awarded	62 (Screenplay Writer (Original)) 10 (Screenplay Writer (Adapted)) 8 (Dialogues)
Cash award	₹50,000 (US$740)
First awardee(s)	S. L. Puram Sadanandan
Recent awardee(s)	• Juhi Chaturvedi Screenplay Writer (Original)  • Himanshu Sharma Screenplay Writer (Original)  • Vishal Bhardwaj Screenplay Writer (Adapted)  • Juhi Chaturvedi (Dialogues)  • Himanshu Sharma (Dialogues)

This is the list of the National Film Awards (India) for Best Screenplay presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation established by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus).

The award was instituted in 1967, at 15th National Film Awards and awarded annually for films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages.

Since the 57th National Film Awards in 2009, the award has been sub-categorized into Screenplay Original, Screenplay Writer (Adapted) and Dialogues.

Winners

Awards legends
	Screenplay Writer (Original)
	Screenplay Writer (Adapted)
	Dialogues

Award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus) and cash prize. Following are the award winners over the years:

List of award recipients, showing the year (award ceremony), film(s), language(s) and citation
Year	Recipient(s)	Film(s)	Language(s)	Citation	Refs.
1967 (15th)	S. L. Puram Sadanandan	Agniputhri	Malayalam	–	[1]
1968 (16th)	Pandit Anand Kumar	Anokhi Raat	Hindi	–	[2]
1969 (17th)	Puttanna Kanagal	Gejje Pooje	Kannada	–	[3]
1970 (18th)	Satyajit Ray	Pratidwandi	Bengali	–	[4]
1971 (19th)	Tapan Sinha	Ekhonee	Bengali	–	[5]
1972 (20th)	Gulzar	Koshish	Hindi	–	[6]
1973 (21st)	• Mrinal Sen  • Ashish Burman	Padatik	Bengali	–	[7]
1974 (22nd)	Satyajit Ray	Sonar Kella	Bengali	–	[8]
1975 (23rd)	No Award				[9]
1976 (24th)	Vijay Tendulkar	Manthan	Hindi	–	[10]
1977 (25th)	• Satyadev Dubey  • Shyam Benegal  • Girish Karnad	Bhumika	Hindi	For powerfully recreating the biography of an actress, for its rare, psychological insights and understanding of human relationships, for the complex integration of theme, style and dramatic situation into an engrossing whole, which provokes the spectator into a new awareness of the predicament of the working woman in Indian society.	[11]
1978 (26th)	• T. S. Ranga  • T. S. Nagabharana	Grahana	Kannada	For maintaining taunt narrative line without resorting to melodrama and retaining a firm grip on the central idea in an action packed film.	[12]
1979 (27th)	Sai Paranjpye	Sparsh	Hindi	–	[13]
1980 (28th)	Mrinal Sen	Akaler Sandhane	Bengali	For effectively combining the terse and pithy dialogue with creation of well-defined, lively characters to convey a poignant story which leaves a lasting impression.	[14]
1981 (29th)	K. Balachander	Thanneer Thanneer	Tamil	For translating the suffering of the people in drought-affected areas into a gripping visual narrative.	[15]
1982 (30th)	Mrinal Sen	Kharij	Bengali	For its economy of expression in the treatment of a sensitive theme.	[16]
1983 (31st)	G. V. Iyer	Adi Shankaracharya	Sanskrit	For its rich texture, lyricism and cinematic elegance in its presentation of Shankaracharya as an embodiment of greatness.	[17]
1984 (32nd)	Adoor Gopalakrishnan	Mukhamukham	Malayalam	–	[18]
1985 (33rd)	Bhabendra Nath Saikia	Agnisnaan	Assamese	For the powerful rendering of the saga of a woman who goea through the revolution against the prevailing social mores and comesto terms with herself.	[19]
1986 (34th)	Buddhadeb Dasgupta	Phera	Bengali	For its penetrative and sensitive screenplay depicting the trauma faced by an artist in search of his identity in relation to his professional and personal life.	[20]
1987 (35th)	Adoor Gopalakrishnan	Anantaram	Malayalam	For the precision in structuring a very complex narrative content requiring both exceptional dramatic and literary skills.	[21]
1988 (36th)	Arundhati Roy	In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones	English	For capturing the anguish prevailing among students of professional institutions.	[22]
1989 (37th)	M. T. Vasudevan Nair	Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha	Malayalam	For the gripping plot, clearly etched characterisations and the brilliant portrayal of life in Kerala a few hundred years ago.	[23]
1990 (38th)	K. S. Sethumadhavan	Marupakkam	Tamil	For depicting a simplistic story, capturing the various levels of philosophy, psychology, tradition and relationships perfectly.	[24]
1991 (39th)	M. T. Vasudevan Nair	Kadavu	Malayalam	For its sensitive and poetic treatment of disillusionment of an underprivileged adolescent.	[25]
1992 (40th)	M. T. Vasudevan Nair	Sadayam	Malayalam	For an extremely well structured script.	[26]
1993 (41st)	Satyajit Ray (Posthumously)	Uttoran	Bengali	For designing and structuring a screenplay from an imaginative and aesthetic angle, with a superb control over the unity of impressions.	[27]
1994 (42nd)	M. T. Vasudevan Nair	Parinayam	Malayalam	For his masterly use of fiction in cinema, reconstructing pre-1940s Kerala through sharply defined characters and remarkable control over dialogue.	[28]
1995 (43rd)	• Ashok Mishra  • Saeed Akhtar Mirza	Naseem	Hindi	For their masterly and sensitive visual narration of a volatile and confused situation of the year 1992 in India with great depth and simplicity of words.	[29]
1996 (44th)	Agathiyan	Kadhal Kottai	Tamil	For tightly knit and smooth flowing plot with excellent dialogues and razor-sharp tuning.	[30]
1997 (45th)	Rituparno Ghosh	Dahan	Bengali	For tactfully crafting a sensitive theme that dwells upon an incident which raises issues of social responsibility and personal awareness.	[31]
1998 (46th)	Ashok Mishra	Samar	Hindi	For Hindi film Samar where he has used a unique structure to ekplore the complek contradictions of urban/rural, rich/poor, pcwerful/dcwntrodden in a simple story line laced with poignant Moments of humour and irony for a perceptive insight into contemporary indian life.	[32]
1999 (47th)	Madampu Kunjukuttan	Karunam	Malayalam	For expressing with extreme economy and skilful cinematic treatment a story based on a sensitive screenplay woven around an old couple.	[33]
2000 (48th)	P. Bharathiraja	Kadal Pookkal	Tamil	For focusing, in present times of degeneration, on love, sacrifice and family values.	[34]
2001 (49th)	G. Neelakanta Reddy	Show	Telugu	For the film, which seems to probes a real – unreal dramatic situation involving two characters full of emotion and conflicts, with a rare touch of artistic sensitivity.	[35]
2002 (50th)	Aparna Sen	Mr. and Mrs. Iyer	English	For its fluid narration of the nuances of an ambiguous relationship in troubled times.	[36]
2003 (51st)	Gautam Ghose	Abar Aranye	Bengali	For weaving together the strands of time creating a resonant dialogue between the past and the present.	[37]
2004 (52nd)	• Manoj Tyagi  • Nina Arora	Page 3	Hindi	For telling a complex story in a stunningly simple manner. It takes you into the empty shallow world of Page 3, in a manner which is funny yet deeply empathetic.	[38]
2005 (53rd)	• Prakash Jha  • Shridhar Raghavan  • Manoj Tyagi	Apaharan	Hindi	For creating a crisp screenplay that is riveting and renders pace to the entire film.	[39]
2006 (54th)	• Abhijat Joshi  • Rajkumar Hirani  • Vidhu Vinod Chopra	Lage Raho Munna Bhai	Hindi	For the original vision with which Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence is given life in popular parlance.	[40]
2007 (55th)	Feroz Abbas Khan	Gandhi, My Father	Hindi	For the imaginative and emotional handling of uncompromisingly steadfast side of the Father of the Nation with special reference to his relationship with his troublesome son.	[41]
2008 (56th)	Sachin Kundalkar	Gandha	Marathi	For its remarkable integration of three different plots using the sense of smell at as a liet motif to focus sensitively on human relationships.	[42]
2009 (57th)	• P. F. Mathews  • Harikrishna	Kutty Srank	Malayalam	For the mysterious narrative that weaves together multiple perspectives to create a coherent whole, and yet leaves a haunting ambiguity.	[43]
2009 (57th)	• Gopal Krishan Pai  • Girish Kasaravalli	Kanasemba Kudureyaneri	Kannada	For linking the theme of death and its inevitability through a narrative style that presents two versions of the same event, not necessarily in chronological order.
2009 (57th)	Pandiraj	Pasanga	Tamil	For the conversational quality with its cutting edge wit and life like freshness.
2010 (58th)	Vetrimaaran	Aadukalam	Tamil	For its kaleidoscopic variety that uses realism, tradition and contemporaneity, soaked in local flavour on an infinite canvas.	[44]
2010 (58th)	• Anant Mahadevan  • Sanjay Pawar	Mee Sindhutai Sapkal	Marathi	For retaining the concerns and values of a biographical account while translating it into the cinematic medium and honouring the essence of the original.
2010 (58th)	Sanjay Pawar	Mee Sindhutai Sapkal	Marathi	For bringing to life the textures of various characters through articulating their emotion and thought process.
2011 (59th)	• Vikas Bahl  • Nitesh Tiwari  • Vijay Maurya	Chillar Party	Hindi	For a charming and utterly professional construct of an engaging middle class urban narrative that neatly delivers the values of compassion, friendship, loyalty, commitment and imagination in the world of children. They use familiar spaces, characters and situations to create an entertaining and surprising fabric of a caring society that still believes in what is good and right.	[45]
2011 (59th)	Avinash Deshpande Nigdi	Shala	Marathi	For the cinematic adaptation of a literary work that encompasses several issues and characters is always a challenging task. He skilfully transforms the descriptive power of the literary text into a cinematic narrative of layered and tender moments. Despite a range of characters and subplots, the screenplay engagingly links the lives of its teenage protagonists to the repressive context of the National Emergency.
2011 (59th)	Girish Kulkarni	Deool	Marathi	For its immensely varied and textured use of language that is both an authentic and an energetic reflection of the different sections of life shown in the film: the language of the village, of politicians, of the scholar and much else. His dialogues – robustly rustic yet influenced by urban vocabulary – is characteristic of the Indian scene today.
2012 (60th)	Sujoy Ghosh	Kahaani	Hindi	A well structured screenplay that formed the heart of an edge of the seat suspense film.	[46]
2012 (60th)	• Bhavesh Mandalia  • Umesh Shukla	OMG – Oh My God!	Hindi	A carefully crafted screenplay dealing with a social satire with shades of oriental philosophy.
2012 (60th)	Anjali Menon	Ustad Hotel	Malayalam	Easy flowing, yet down to earth dialogues complement the well mounted entertainer with a social message.
2013 (61st)	P. Sheshadri	December-1	Kannada	For its kaleidoscopic variety that uses realism and colloquialism that is soaked in a contemporary flavour.	[47]
2013 (61st)	Panchakshari	Prakruti	Kannada	For retaining the concerns and values of an original work by a celebrated author while adapting it into the cinematic idiom.
2013 (61st)	Sumitra Bhave	Astu	Marathi	For an extraordinary blend in language and conversations that cover philosophy day-to-day anxieties and emotions in a most compelling manner.
2014 (62nd)	Srijit Mukherji	Chotushkone	Bengali	Chotushkone for the masterful telling of a taut suspense thriller which weaves a sinister web around the journey and lives of four egotistical characters.	[48]
2014 (62nd)	Joshy Mangalath	Ottaal	Malayalam	Ottal for beautifully transposing Anton Chekov’s short story onto a canvas of nature that enhances the shades of the original.
2014 (62nd)	Vishal Bhardwaj	Haider	Hindi	Haider for the multi layered and resonant dialogues that evoke angst and passion with crispness and brevity.
2015 (63rd)	Juhi Chaturvedi	Piku	Hindi	For effortless movement of the plot structure, and natural repartees which happens in a delightful love/ hate relationship of a father and daughter.	[49]
2015 (63rd)	Himanshu Sharma	Tanu Weds Manu Returns	Hindi	For The writer's interpretation of love story set in a small town, becomes populated with interesting characters and their dialogues and dialects.
2015 (63rd)	Vishal Bhardwaj	Talvar	Hindi	For the dramatic structure devised by this writer effectively mirrors the tragedy of a family when their daughter is found murdered.
2015 (63rd)	Juhi Chaturvedi	Piku	Hindi	For effortless movement of the plot structure, and natural repartees which happens in a delightful love/ hate relationship of a father and daughter.
2015 (63rd)	Himanshu Sharma	Tanu Weds Manu Returns	Hindi	For The writer's interpretation of love story set in a small town, becomes populated with interesting characters and their dialogues and dialects.

References

1. "15th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 21 September 2011.
2. "16th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 22 September 2011.
3. "17th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
4. "18th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
5. "19th National Film Awards 1972". Retrieved 12 July 2012.
6. "20th National Film Awards". International Film Festival of India. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
7. "21st National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 29 September 2011.
8. "22nd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
9. "23rd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
10. "Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar passes away". The Times of India. 19 May 2008. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
11. "25th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
12. "26th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
13. "27th National Film Awards". Retrieved 10 July 2012.
14. "28th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
15. "29th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
16. "30th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
17. "31st National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
18. "32nd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
19. "33rd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
20. "34th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
21. "35th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
22. "36th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
23. "37th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
24. "38th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
25. "39th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
26. "40th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
27. "41st National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
28. "42nd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 5 March 2012.
29. "43rd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
30. "44th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
31. "45th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
32. "46th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
33. "47th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
34. "48th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
35. "49th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
36. "50th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
37. "51st National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
38. "52nd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 28 January 2012.
39. "53rd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
40. "54th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
41. "55th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
42. "56th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
43. "57th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 28 March 2012.
44. "58th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
45. "59th National Film Awards for the Year 2011 Announced". Press Information Bureau (PIB), India. Retrieved 7 March 2012.
46. "60th National Film Awards Announced" (PDF) (Press release). Press Information Bureau (PIB), India. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
47. "61st National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. 16 April 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
48. "62nd National Film Awards" (PDF) (Press release). Directorate of Film Festivals. 24 March 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
49. "63rd National Film Awards" (PDF) (Press release). Directorate of Film Festivals. 28 March 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2016.

External links

• Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India
• National Film Awards Archives