India’s National Film Awards, the country’s highest official recognition for cinema, named its 72nd class of winners in New Delhi, and the results split acting honors across two of Indian cinema’s most distinct industries in the same year.
The headline winners
Article 370 won Best Feature Film, the awards’ top overall honor. Yami Gautam won Best Actress for her performance in the same film, her first National Film Award. Best Actor was shared between Kartik Aaryan, recognized for Chandu Champion, and Mammootty, recognized for Bramayugam, a Malayalam-language film.
The winners were announced July 18, 2026, recognizing films certified by India’s Central Board of Film Certification between January 1 and December 31, 2024. The formal ceremony honoring the winners is scheduled for September 22 in Gujarat.
Why a shared Best Actor award between Kartik Aaryan and Mammootty is genuinely notable
India’s National Film Awards routinely span the country’s major film industries, Hindi-language Bollywood, Malayalam cinema, Tamil cinema and others, within a single ceremony, but a shared top acting prize between a leading Bollywood star and a veteran Malayalam actor still draws particular attention because it puts two very different film traditions, audiences and performance styles on equal footing in the same category.
Chandu Champion, Kartik Aaryan’s recognized role, is a Hindi-language sports biographical drama, a genre built around physical transformation and a clear emotional arc. Bramayugam, Mammootty’s recognized film, is a Malayalam-language period horror thriller shot in black and white, a markedly different kind of performance challenge built around atmosphere and restraint rather than physical transformation. The two films and roles have little in common beyond both earning the jury’s top acting recognition, which is exactly what makes the pairing notable rather than a routine split.
Yami Gautam’s win caps a specific kind of career arc
Yami Gautam has worked steadily across Hindi cinema for more than a decade, building a career that includes both commercial films and more performance-driven roles. A first National Film Award, arriving for a film built around a politically charged, high-profile subject (Article 370’s removal from Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status), represents the kind of institutional recognition that a long, steady career doesn’t guarantee, even for genuinely accomplished performers.
Article 370’s Best Film win reflects the jury’s pattern of recognizing politically significant cinema
Article 370, a Hindi-language political drama centered on the 2019 revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status, winning the top overall prize places it alongside other National Film Award Best Film winners in recent years that have tackled major, real-world political events directly rather than through allegory or historical distance. That pattern is worth noting for what it signals about what kind of filmmaking the jury has been prioritizing for its top honor, films engaging directly and specifically with recent, consequential national events.
What to expect at the September 22 ceremony
The formal award presentation, scheduled for September 22 in Gujarat, is where winners will receive their honors in person, following the July 18 announcement of the winners list itself. That gap between announcement and ceremony is standard for the National Film Awards, giving winners and the broader industry roughly two months of lead time before the formal, televised presentation.
Frequently asked questions
What film won Best Feature Film at the 72nd National Film Awards?
Article 370, a Hindi-language political drama about the 2019 revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status, won the top Best Feature Film honor.
Why did two actors share Best Actor at the 72nd National Film Awards?
Kartik Aaryan (for Chandu Champion) and Mammootty (for Bramayugam, a Malayalam-language film) were jointly recognized, reflecting the awards’ pattern of spanning multiple Indian film industries within a single ceremony and, in this case, judging two markedly different performance styles as equally deserving.
When is the 72nd National Film Awards ceremony?
The formal presentation ceremony is scheduled for September 22, 2026, in Gujarat, roughly two months after the July 18 announcement of the winners list.
