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National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film

cinema award instituted by the Indian government

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ1716697 ↗
Source-derived summary

The National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the National Film Development Corporation of India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus).

The National Film Awards, established in 1954, are the most prominent film awards in India that merit the best of the Indian cinema. The ceremony also presents awards for films in various regional languages.

Awards for films in seven regional language (Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu) started from 2nd National Film Awards which were presented on 21 December 1955. Three awards of "President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film", "Certificate of Merit for the Second Best Feature Film" and "Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film" were instituted. The later two certificate awards were discontinued from 15th National Film Awards (1967). Shyam Benegal won the award seven times (most by any director) followed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee who won six times. Since the 70th National Film Awards, the name was changed to "Best Hindi Feature Film".

Directed by Sohrab Modi, the 1954 film Mirza Ghalib was honoured with the first president's silver medal for Best Feature Film in Hindi.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film” is cinema award instituted by the Indian government. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through National, Film and Award, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1954, 1955, 1967—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955. For this dossier, National, Film and Award is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “cinema award instituted by the Indian government” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1716697. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1954, 1955 and 1967.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film primary sources, National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film archive and National research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film” 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.