The 72nd National Film Awards At Ekta Nagar
For the first time in decades, India’s highest film honours were not handed out in New Delhi. On 22 September 2026, President Droupadi Murmu presented the 72nd National Film Awards at Ekta Nagar in Gujarat’s Narmada district, in the shadow of the Statue of Unity, inside a temporary German aluminium dome built for the occasion.
The ceremony ran roughly 75 minutes and felicitated 99 awardees across feature and non-feature categories, honouring films from 2024. Article 370 took Best Feature Film. Best Actor was shared between Kartik Aaryan for Chandu Champion and Mammootty for Bramayugam. Yami Gautam won Best Actress for Article 370.
What Happened
The awards recognise work from the 2024 release year, and the spread across languages was unusually wide even by the National Awards’ own standards.
Rajkumar Periasamy won Best Director for Amaran, the Tamil biographical war film. Randeep Hooda took Best Debut Director for Swatantrya Veer Savarkar. Kalki 2898 AD, the Telugu science fiction epic, won Best Feature Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, and its team was photographed at the ceremony. Captain Miller won Best Film Promoting National and Social Values, with Dhanush receiving a Special Mention for it, while Dhanush also took the Best Tamil Film honour for Raayan. Chinna Katha Kaadu won Best Children’s Film.
In the non-feature categories, Aanand L Rai won Best Direction for the documentary Statue of Unity: Ekta Ka Prateek.
The evening’s largest honour was separate from the competitive categories. Kannada actor Anant Nag received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for lifetime achievement, which Bengaluru Baath covers separately in today’s edition.
The relocation of the ceremony was a deliberate policy choice rather than a logistical accident. Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the aim was to take the National Film Awards to major tourist destinations across the country, describing it as an extension of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision.
The Numbers
The headline figures from the 72nd edition, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter India and Punjab Kesari:
| Category | Winner | Film | Language |
| Best Feature Film | Article 370 | Article 370 | Hindi |
| Best Actor (shared) | Kartik Aaryan | Chandu Champion | Hindi |
| Best Actor (shared) | Mammootty | Bramayugam | Malayalam |
| Best Actress | Yami Gautam | Article 370 | Hindi |
| Best Director | Rajkumar Periasamy | Amaran | Tamil |
| Best Debut Director | Randeep Hooda | Swatantrya Veer Savarkar | Hindi |
| Wholesome Entertainment | Kalki 2898 AD | Kalki 2898 AD | Telugu |
| National / Social Values | Captain Miller | Captain Miller | Tamil |
| Best Tamil Film | Dhanush | Raayan | Tamil |
| Dadasaheb Phalke Award | Anant Nag | Lifetime achievement | Kannada |
| Total awardees felicitated | 99 | – | – |
Awards honour films from the 2024 release year. Reports vary slightly on the total count, with MissMalini reporting 92 winners ahead of the ceremony and The Hollywood Reporter India reporting 99 awardees felicitated on the day.
Why It Matters
A shared Best Actor award between a Hindi commercial lead and a Malayalam veteran is the most revealing single line in this year’s list. Kartik Aaryan’s Chandu Champion was a mainstream sports biopic. Mammootty’s Bramayugam was a black-and-white Malayalam horror film shot almost entirely in one location. The jury declining to choose between them says something about how far the National Awards have moved from treating Hindi cinema as the default centre.
The language spread reinforces it. Tamil cinema took Best Director, Best Tamil Film and the national values award. Telugu took the wholesome entertainment category with a science fiction epic. Malayalam shared Best Actor. Kannada took the Phalke. Hindi took Best Feature Film and Best Actress. On a plain reading of the list, no single industry dominates.
The venue change matters for a different reason. Moving a national ceremony out of the capital and into a tourism site is a decision about what the awards are for. It converts a film industry event into a destination event, with the attendant questions about access for the industry it exists to honour.
What They Said
Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw described the relocation as part of a plan to take the awards to major tourist spots across the country, framing it as an extension of the Prime Minister’s vision, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter India.
Separately, reporting from AP7AM records President Droupadi Murmu using the platform to urge the biggest stars of Indian cinema to refrain from endorsing harmful products. Bengaluru Baath has not seen a full official transcript of the address and is reporting the remark as published rather than as a verified quotation.
The Bigger Picture
The National Awards have spent the last decade slowly correcting a long-standing imbalance. For much of their history the ceremony was read, fairly or not, as a Delhi event with a Hindi centre of gravity and a consolation category for everyone else. The 72nd edition does not read that way.
That shift tracks the commercial reality Bengaluru Baath has been documenting all year. Telugu cinema occupies a disproportionate share of the highest-grossing Indian films. Malayalam cinema has produced the best return on investment in the country. Tamil cinema has depth at exactly the moment its star system is reorganising. An awards list that reflects that is simply an awards list that has caught up.
What has not changed is the gap between recognition and money. A National Award remains the most prestigious thing an Indian film can win and one of the least commercially useful. The films on this list that made money made it before the ceremony, not because of it.
Bengaluru Baath Take
Two Best Actors, a Tamil Best Director, a Telugu epic taking the entertainment prize and a Kannada legend taking the Phalke. If you had described this list to anyone in the Indian film business fifteen years ago they would have assumed you had the languages muddled. The awards have finally caught up with where the filmmaking actually is. The venue is the part we are less sure about. Moving the ceremony to a tourist site near the Statue of Unity is a fine idea for tourism and a slightly odd one for an industry honour, and 75 minutes is a brisk run for 99 awardees. Prestige is easy to relocate. It is harder to rebuild.
More On Bengaluru Baath
- Anant Nag Has The Phalke. Kannada Cinema Waited Three Decades For A Second One
- Anant Nag Took The Phalke And Handed The Credit To Karnataka
Sources
- The Hollywood Reporter India, “72nd National Film Awards Winners: Mammootty, Kartik Aaryan, Yami Gautam, Dhanush Honoured at Gujarat Ceremony”, 22 September 2026
https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/features/insight/72nd-national-film-awards-mammootty-kartik-aaryan-yami-gautam-dhar-dhanush-honoured-in-gujarat-ceremony - Punjab Kesari (English), “President Presents 72nd National Film Awards at Ekta Nagar; Article 370 Wins Best Feature Film”, 22 September 2026
https://english.punjabkesari.com/india/72nd-national-film-awards-2026-winners-ekta-nagar - The Hans India, “National Film Awards 2026: President Droupadi Murmu Honoured Kartik Aaryan, Mammootty And Yami Gautam”, 22 September 2026
https://www.thehansindia.com/cinema/bollywood/national-film-awards-2026-president-droupadi-murmu-honoured-kartik-aaryan-mammootty-and-yami-gautam-1124583 - The Federal, “Full list of 72nd National Film Awards for 2024; President Murmu presents honours”, 22 September 2026
https://thefederal.com/category/entertainment/full-list-72nd-national-film-awards-2024-president-presents-257389 - MissMalini, “72nd National Film Awards: Droupadi Murmu To Honour 92 Winners In Gujarat”, 22 September 2026
https://www.missmalini.com/2026/09/22/72nd-national-film-awards-droupadi-murmu-to-honour-92-winners-in-gujarat-more-details-inside - AP7AM, “72nd National Film Awards: President urges biggest stars of Indian cinema to refrain from endorsing harmful products”, 22 September 2026
https://www.ap7am.com/en/136206/72nd-national-film-awards-president-urges-biggest-stars-of-indian-cinema-to-refrain-from-endorsing-harmful-products
