President Droupadi Murmu presented the 72nd National Film Awards for 2024 to leading figures of Indian cinema on Tuesday in Ekta Nagar, Gujarat’s Narmada district, with the Statue of Unity providing a striking backdrop. The ceremony honoured veteran Kannada actor Anant Nag with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the most prestigious recognition in Indian film.
The Best Feature Film award went to the Hindi drama Article 370, directed by Aditya Suhas Jambhale. Yami Gautam received the Best Actress in a Leading Role for the same film, while Mammootty and Kartik Aaryan were jointly awarded Best Actor in a Leading Role for Bramayugam and Chandu Champion, respectively. Randeep Hooda earned the Best Debut Film of a Director for Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, and Rajkumar Periasamy won Best Direction for the Tamil film Amaran.
Other distinctions included Bhangaar, directed and produced by Sumira Roy, taking Best Non‑Feature Film; Sanjeev Shrivastava received Best Film Critic in Hindi. Sachana Namidass was named Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the Tamil movie Maharaja, and Ropashree Varkady received the second Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the Kannada film Mithya Maaran. Abhishek Jain was honoured with Best Gujarati Film.
Technical and artistic categories saw a wide range of winners: Pushpa: The Rule Part‑02 earned Best Costume Design; Bandreddi Sukumar won Best Screenplay; R Kalaivannan took Best Editing for Amaran; Manoj Muntashir received Best Lyrics for the song “Jaane Do” from Maidaan; Sanjay Mishra was Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Bhakshak; Abhay Jodhpurkar and Vaikom Vijayalakshmi won Best Male and Female Playback Singer for songs from Gharat Ganpati and ARM, respectively; Shashwat Sachdev earned Best Music Direction for Article 370; G V Prakash Kumar was honoured for background music of Amaran; and Vijay Ganguly received Best Choreography for “Aaj Ki Raat” from Stree 2.
The awards recognise achievements across feature films, non‑feature films and cinema writing, and the winners were announced earlier before being presented by the President.
