Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Indian film director (born 1941)

Mouttathu Unnithan Gopalakrishnan (born 3 July 1941), known professionally as Adoor Gopalakrishnan, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who works in Malayalam cinema. With the release of his first feature film Swayamvaram (1972), Gopalakrishnan pioneered the "new wave" in Malayalam cinema during the 1970s. In a career spanning over five decades, Gopalakrishnan has made 12 feature films. His films often depict the society and culture of Kerala. Nearly all of his films premiered at Venice, Cannes and Toronto film festivals. Along with Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen, Gopalakrishnan is one of the most recognized Indian film directors in the world cinema.
For his films, Gopalakrishnan has won 16 National Film Awards, next only to Ray and Sen. He also won 17 Kerala State Film Awards. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1984 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2006. He received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2004 for his valuable contributions to Indian cinema.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Adoor Gopalakrishnan” as indian film director (born 1941). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as indian film director (born 1941). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q366242. VIAF identifies the subject as 19986007. The Library of Congress control number is n85195031. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1972, 1984 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Adoor Gopalakrishnan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.