# National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues

The National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues was one of the category in the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organization set up by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in India. It was one of several awards presented for feature films and is awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). At the 70th National Film Awards, the category was discontinued and combined with Best Film on Family Welfare, Best Film on National Integration and Best Feature Film on National Integration. The new award is named as Best Feature Film Promoting National, Social and Environmental Values.
The National Film Awards were established in 1954 to "encourage production of the films of a high aesthetic and technical standard and educational and culture value" and also planned to included awards for regional films. In 1984, at the 32nd National Film Awards various new categories were instituted for Swarna Kamal and Rajat Kamal. Categories like the Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Costume Design along with the Best Film on Other Social Issues were introduced for the Rajat Kamal. This category was introduced to be awarded annually for films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages. As of 2016 since its inception, the award has been present thirty-three times to thirty-six films. It has been presented for films in seven languages with the highest being twelve in Hindi, followed by ten in Malayalam, five in Tamil, four in Marathi, three in Bengali, two in Kannada and one in Telugu. It was not presented on two occasion in 1985 (33rd ceremony) and 2011 (59th ceremony).
The inaugural award was conferred upon production banner Sanket (Rajat Kamal and ₹ 30,000) and director Shankar Nag (Rajat Kamal and ₹ 15,000) for their Kannada film Accident for dealing with the bold topic of whistleblowing against political corruption and dealing with bad effects of alcoholism. On five occasion the award was shared by two films: in 1987 by Tamil films Ore Oru Gramathiley and Vedham Pudhithu, in 1993 by Janani (Bengali) and Naaraayam (Malayalam), in 1994 by Wheelchair (Bengali) and Parinayam (Malayalam), in 2000 by Munnudi (Kannada) and Vetri Kodi Kattu (Tamil), and in 2003 by Hindi films Koi... Mil Gaya and Gangaajal.

## Winners

The award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus) and cash prize to the producers and director each. The first award in 1984 had a monetary association of ₹ 30,000 to the producers and ₹ 15,000 to the directors. In 1995 at the 43rd award ceremony the Marathi film Doghi was honoured and the cash prices were revised to ₹30,000 each presented to the director duo Sumitra Bhave–Sunil Sukthankar and co-producers National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) and Doordarshan. The monetary association was again revised to ₹ 1,50,000 to both the producers and directors in 2006 at the 54th ceremony where producer Policherla Venkata Subbiah and director Satish Kasetty's Telugu film Hope was the winner.
| † | Indicates a joint award for that year |
Following are the award winners over the years:
List of films, showing the year (award ceremony), language(s), producer(s) and director(s) :
| Year | Film(s) | Language(s) | Producer(s) | Director(s) |
| 1984 (32nd) | Accident | Kannada | Sanket | Shankar Nag |
| 1985 (33rd) | No Award | No Award | No Award | No Award |
| 1986 (34th) | Doore Doore Oru Koodu Koottam | Malayalam | M. Mani | Sibi Malayil |
| 1987 (35th) | Ore Oru Gramathiley | Tamil | S. Rangarajan | Jyothipandian |
| 1987 (35th) | Vedham Pudhithu | Tamil | Janani Arts Creations | Bharathiraja |
| 1988 (36th) | Main Zinda Hoon | Hindi | • NFDC • Doordarshan | Sudhir Mishra |
| 1989 (37th) | Unnikuttanu Joli Kitty | Malayalam | V. R. Gopinath | V. R. Gopinath |
| 1990 (38th) | Oru Veedu Iru Vasal | Tamil | Kavithalayaa Productions | K. Balachander |
| 1991 (39th) | Yamanam | Malayalam | Ajayan Varicolil | Bharath Gopi |
| 1992 (40th) | Neenga Nalla Irukkanum | Tamil | GV Films | Visu |
| 1993 (41st) | Janani | Bengali | Sanat Dasgupta | Sanat Dasgupta |
| 1993 (41st) | Naaraayam | Malayalam | Raju Pilakat | Sasi Shankar |
| 1994 (42nd) | Parinayam | Malayalam | G. P. Vijayakumar | Hariharan |
| 1994 (42nd) | Wheelchair | Bengali | NFDC | Tapan Sinha |
| 1995 (43rd) | Doghi | Marathi | • NFDC • Doordarshan | • Sumitra Bhave • Sunil Sukthankar |
| 1996 (44th) | Tamanna | Hindi | Pooja Bhatt | Mahesh Bhatt |
| 1997 (45th) | Dhanna | Hindi | Films Division | Deepak Roy |
| 1998 (46th) | Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala | Malayalam | C. Karunakaran | Sreenivasan |
| 1999 (47th) | Kairee | Hindi | Government of India | Amol Palekar |
| 2000 (48th) | Vetri Kodi Kattu | Tamil | D. Pandian | Cheran |
| 2000 (48th) | Munnudi | Kannada | Navachitra | P. Sheshadri |
| 2001 (49th) | Chandni Bar | Hindi | Lata Mohan Iyer | Madhur Bhandarkar |
| 2002 (50th) | Swaraaj | Hindi | George Mathew | Anwar Jamal |
| 2003 (51st) | Koi... Mil Gaya | Hindi | Rakesh Roshan | Rakesh Roshan |
| 2003 (51st) | Gangaajal | Hindi | Prakash Jha | Prakash Jha |
| 2004 (52nd) | Perumazhakkalam | Malayalam | Salim Padiyath | Kamal |
| 2005 (53rd) | Iqbal | Hindi | Subhash Ghai | Nagesh Kukunoor |
| 2006 (54th) | Hope | Telugu | Policherla Venkata Subbiah | Satish Kasetty |
| 2007 (55th) | Antardwand | Hindi | Sushil Rajpal | Sushil Rajpal |
| 2008 (56th) | Jogwa | Marathi | Shripal Morakhia | Rajeev Patil |
| 2009 (57th) | Well Done Abba | Hindi | Reliance Big Pictures | Shyam Benegal |
| 2010 (58th) | Champions | Marathi | Aishwarya Narkar | Ramesh More |
| 2011 (59th) | No Award | No Award | No Award | No Award |
| 2012 (60th) | Spirit | Malayalam | M. J. Antony | Renjith |
| 2013 (61st) | Tuhya Dharma Koncha | Marathi | Indian Magic Eye Motion Pictures Pvt Ltd. | Satish Manwar |
| 2014 (62nd) | Chotoder Chobi | Bengali | Shree Venkatesh Films | Kaushik Ganguly |
| 2015 (63rd) | Nirnayakam | Malayalam | Jairaj Films | V. K. Prakash |
| 2016 (64th) | Pink | Hindi | Rashmi Sharma Telefilms Limited | Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury |
| 2017 (65th) | Aalorukkam | Malayalam | Jolly Lonappan | V. C. Abhilash |
| 2018 (66th) | Pad Man | Hindi | • Twinkle Khanna • Hope Productions Pvt. Ltd | R. Balki |
| 2019 (67th) | Anandi Gopal | Marathi | Essel Vision Productions | Sameer Vidhwans |
| 2020 (68th) | Funral | Marathi | Before After Entertainment | Vivek Dubey |
| 2021 (69th) | Anunaad – The Resonance | Assamese | Assam State Film Corporation | Reema Borah |