National Film Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

The National Film Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role is an honour presented annually at the National Film Awards of India instituted since 1967 to actors who have delivered the best performance in a leading role within the Indian film industry.^[1] Called the "State Awards for Films" when established in 1954, the National Film Awards ceremony is older than the Directorate of Film Festivals. The State Awards instituted the individual award in 1968 as the "Bharat Award for the Best Actor"; in 1975, it was renamed as the "Rajat Kamal Award for the Best Actor".^[1][2][3] As of 2024, accounting for ties and repeat winners, the Government of India has presented a total of 64 "Best Actor" awards to 49 actors. Until 1974, winners of the National Film Award received a figurine and certificate; since 1975, they have been awarded with a "Rajat Kamal" (silver lotus), certificate and a cash prize.^[a][2] Since the 70th National Film Awards, the name was changed to "National Film Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role".^[5]

National Film Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
The 2022 recipient: Rishab Shetty
Awarded for	Best performance by an actor in a leading role
Sponsored by	National Film Development Corporation of India
Formerly called	Bharat Award (1968–1974) National Film Award for Best Actor (1975–2021)
Reward(s)	Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus) ₹2,00,000
First award	1967
Final award	2022
Most recent winner	Rishab Shetty, Kantara
Highlights
Most wins	Amitabh Bachchan (4)
Total awarded	64
First winner	Uttam Kumar

Although the Indian film industry produces films in around 20 languages and dialects,^[1] the actors whose performances have won awards have worked in eight major languages: Hindi (twenty-seven awards), Malayalam (thirteen awards), Tamil (nine awards), Bengali (five awards), Kannada (four awards), Marathi (three awards), English (two awards), and Telugu (one award).

The first recipient was Uttam Kumar from Bengali cinema, who was honoured at the 15th National Film Awards in 1967 for his performances in Anthony Firingee and Chiriyakhana.^[6] He was also the first actor who won this award for two different films in the same year. As of 2022 edition, Amitabh Bachchan is the most honoured actor with four awards. Kamal Haasan, Mammootty and Ajay Devgn with three awards, while six actors—Mohanlal, Mithun Chakraborty, Sanjeev Kumar, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and Dhanush—have won the award two times. Two actors have achieved the honour for performing in two languages—Mithun Chakraborty (Hindi and Bengali) and Mammootty (Malayalam and English).^[7] The most recent recipient is Rishab Shetty who is honoured at the 70th National Film Awards for his performance in Kantara.

Key

Symbol	Meaning
Year	Indicates the year in which the film was censored by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC)
†	Indicates a joint award for that year
‡	Indicates that the winner won the award for two performances in that year

Recipients

Uttam Kumar
(The first-ever recipient of the Best Actor Award for his performances in Antony Firingee and Chiriyakhana in 1967.)

Studio publicity photograph of Bachchan in 2009. Four times winner

M. G. Ramachandran, former chief minister of Tamil Nadu won the award for his performance in Rickshawkaran in 1971.

Kamal Haasan (top), Mammootty (middle), and Ajay Devgn (bottom) are the three actors to win the honour thrice.

Mithun Chakraborty was awarded for his debut film.^[8]

Riddhi Sen
(youngest winner)

List of award recipients, showing the year, role(s), film(s) and language(s)

Year[b]	Recipient(s)	Role(s)	Work(s)	Language(s)	Refs."
1967 (15th) ‡	Uttam Kumar	Anthony Firingee	Antony Firingee	Bengali	[9]
		Byomkesh Bakshi	Chiriyakhana
1968 (16th)	Ashok Kumar	Shivnath "Joggi Thakur" Choudhary	Aashirwad	Hindi	[10]
1969 (17th)	Utpal Dutt	Bhuvan Shome	Bhuvan Shome	Hindi	[11]
1970 (18th)	Sanjeev Kumar	Hamid Ahmed	Dastak	Hindi	[12]
1971 (19th)	M. G. Ramachandran	Selvam	Rickshawkaran	Tamil	[13]
1972 (20th)	Sanjeev Kumar	Hari Charan Mathur	Koshish	Hindi	[12]
1973 (21st)	P. J. Antony	Velichapad	Nirmalyam	Malayalam	[2]
1974 (22nd)	Sadhu Meher	Kishtayya	Ankur	Hindi	[3]
1975 (23rd)	M. V. Vasudeva Rao	Choma	Chomana Dudi	Kannada	[14]
1976 (24th)	Mithun Chakraborty	Ghinua	Mrigayaa	Hindi	[15]
1977 (25th)	Bharath Gopi	Shankaran Kutty	Kodiyettam	Malayalam	[16]
1978 (26th)	Arun Mukherjee	Parasuram	Parasuram	Bengali	[17]
1979 (27th)	Naseeruddin Shah	Anirudh Parmar	Sparsh	Hindi	[18]
1980 (28th)	Balan K. Nair	Govindan	Oppol	Malayalam	[19]
1981 (29th)	Om Puri	Hari Mondal	Arohan	Hindi	[20]
1982 (30th)	Kamal Haasan	R. Srinivas (Cheenu)	Moondram Pirai	Tamil	[21]
1983 (31st)	Om Puri	Anant Velankar	Ardh Satya	Hindi	[22]
1984 (32nd)	Naseeruddin Shah	Naurangia	Paar	Hindi	[18]
1985 (33rd)	Shashi Kapoor	Vikas Pande	New Delhi Times	Hindi	[23]
1986 (34th)	Charuhasan	Tabara Shetty	Tabarana Kathe	Kannada	[24]
1987 (35th)	Kamal Haasan	Sakthivelu Nayakar[c]	Nayakan	Tamil	[26]
1988 (36th)	Premji	Raghava Chakyar	Piravi	Malayalam	[27]
1989 (37th) ‡	Mammootty	Vaikom Muhammad Basheer[d]	Mathilukal	Malayalam	[29]
		Chandu Chekavar	Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha
1990 (38th)	Amitabh Bachchan	Vijay Deenanath Chauhan	Agneepath	Hindi	[30]
1991 (39th)	Mohanlal	Kalliyur Gopinathan	Bharatham	Malayalam	[31]
1992 (40th)	Mithun Chakraborty	Shibnath	Tahader Katha	Bengali	[15]
1993 (41st) ‡	Mammootty	Ponthan Mada	Ponthan Mada	Malayalam	[29]
		Bhaskara Patelar	Vidheyan
1994 (42nd)	Nana Patekar	Pratap Narayan Tilak	Krantiveer	Hindi	[32]
1995 (43rd)	Rajit Kapur	Mahatma Gandhi	The Making of the Mahatma	English	[33]
1996 (44th)	Kamal Haasan	Senapathy (Indian), Chandrabose (Chandru)	Indian	Tamil	[34]
1997 (45th) †	Balachandra Menon	Ismail	Samaantharangal	Malayalam	[35]
	Suresh Gopi	Kannan Perumalayan	Kaliyattam	Malayalam
1998 (46th) †	Ajay Devgn	Ajay R. Desai	Zakhm	Hindi	[7]
	Mammootty	B. R. Ambedkar	Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar	English
1999 (47th)	Mohanlal	Kunjikuttan	Vanaprastham	Malayalam	[36]
2000 (48th)	Anil Kapoor	Major Jaidev Rajvansh	Pukar	Hindi	[37]
2001 (49th)	Murali	Appa Mestry	Neythukaran	Malayalam	[38]
2002 (50th)	Ajay Devgn	Bhagat Singh	The Legend of Bhagat Singh	Hindi	[39]
2003 (51st)	Vikram	Chithan	Pithamagan	Tamil	[40]
2004 (52nd)	Saif Ali Khan	Karan Kapoor	Hum Tum	Hindi	[41]
2005 (53rd)	Amitabh Bachchan	Debraj Sahai	Black	Hindi	[42]
2006 (54th)	Soumitra Chatterjee	Shashanka Palit	Podokkhep	Bengali	[43]
2007 (55th)	Prakash Raj	Vengadam	Kanchivaram	Tamil	[44]
2008 (56th)	Upendra Limaye	Tayappa	Jogwa	Marathi	[45]
2009 (57th)	Amitabh Bachchan	Auro	Paa	Hindi	[46]
2010 (58th) †	Dhanush	K. P. Karuppu	Aadukalam	Tamil	[47]
	Salim Kumar	Abu	Adaminte Makan Abu	Malayalam
2011 (59th)	Girish Kulkarni	Keshya	Deool	Marathi	[48]
2012 (60th) †	Irrfan Khan	Paan Singh Tomar	Paan Singh Tomar	Hindi	[4]
	Vikram Gokhale	Ratnakar	Anumati	Marathi
2013 (61st) †	Rajkummar Rao	Shahid Azmi	Shahid	Hindi	[49]
	Suraj Venjaramoodu	Father[e]	Perariyathavar	Malayalam
2014 (62nd)	Sanchari Vijay	Madesha (Vidya)[f]	Naanu Avanalla...Avalu	Kannada	[50]
2015 (63rd)	Amitabh Bachchan	Bhashkor Banerjee	Piku	Hindi	[51]
2016 (64th)	Akshay Kumar	Commander Rustom Pavri	Rustom[g]	Hindi	[54]
2017 (65th)	Riddhi Sen	Parimal (Puti)[h]	Nagarkirtan	Bengali	[55]
2018 (66th) †	Ayushmann Khurrana	Akash	Andhadhun	Hindi
	Vicky Kaushal	Major Vihaan Singh Shergill	Uri: The Surgical Strike	Hindi
2019 (67th) †	Manoj Bajpayee	Ganpath Bhonsle	Bhonsle	Hindi	[56]
	Dhanush	Sivasaami	Asuran	Tamil
2020 (68th) †	Suriya	Nedumaaran Rajangam (Maara)	Soorarai Pottru	Tamil	[57]
	Ajay Devgn	Tanaji Malusare	Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior	Hindi
2021 (69th)	Allu Arjun	Pushpa Raj	Pushpa: The Rise	Telugu	[58]
2022 (70th)	Rishab Shetty	Shiva	Kantara	Kannada	[59]

Footnotes

1. Until 69th National Film Awards (2021), the cash prize is ₹50,000.^[4]
2. Denotes The year in which the film was censored by the Central Board of Film Certification.
3. The character played by Kamal Haasan was loosely based on the Mumbai-based Tamil gangster Varadarajan Mudaliar.^[25]
4. Mammootty played the real-life character of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer in the film that was based on an autobiographical novel of the same name by Basheer himself .^[28]
5. The character remained unnamed throughout the film.
6. Vijay played the character of a transgender.
7. In interviews with The Quint and Hindustan Times, the then-jury chairman Priyadarshan stated that Kumar won the award for Rustom and Airlift, but for technical reasons only one film was mentioned in the list of winners.^[52][53]
8. Sen played the character of a transgender.