Filmfare Award for Best Director
Bollywood Filmfare Award for Best Director
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The Filmfare Best Director Award is one of the main awards given by the annual Filmfare Awards to recognise directors working in Hindi cinema. It was first presented in 1954 in the inaugural year.
| Filmfare Award for Best Director | |
|---|---|
The 2025 recipient: Kiran Rao for Laapataa Ladies | |
| Awarded for | Best Director |
| Country | India |
| Presented by | Filmfare |
| First award | Bimal Roy, Do Bigha Zamin (1954) |
| Currently held by | Kiran Rao, Laapataa Ladies (2025) |
| Website | Filmfare Awards |
Superlatives
| Achievement | Director | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Most awards | Bimal Roy | 7 |
| Most nominations | Yash Chopra | 12 |
| Most consecutive wins | Bimal Roy (1954–1956); (1959–1961) | 3 |
| Most nominations without a Win | Mahesh Bhatt | 6 |
| Youngest winner | Aditya Chopra | age 24 |
| Oldest winner | Vidhu Vinod Chopra | age 71 |
Bimal Roy has the record of winning most awards (7) and the distinction of winning the award thrice in a row, on 2 separate occasions (1954–1956 and 1959–1961). He also won the award whenever he was nominated (7/7). Sanjay Leela Bhansali has received the award 5 times, Yash Chopra and Raj Kapoor has received the award 4 times each.
Yash Chopra received 12 nominations, Sanjay Leela Bhansali has received 8 nominations, while Raj Kapoor has received 6 nominations. Mahesh Bhatt was nominated thrice in a row (1984–1986). However, he hasn't received any award even after having been nominated 6 times. Also, no director has ever won if one has been nominated twice in the same year – Gulzar in 1974 (for Achanak and Koshish), Basu Chatterjee in 1977 (for Chhoti Si Baat and Chitchor) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee in 1980 (for Gol Maal and Jurmana).
Sai Paranjpye was the first of 5 women to have won this award, the second being Zoya Akhtar, the third being Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, the fourth being Meghna Gulzar and the fifth being Kiran Rao. Sai Paranjpye won it for Sparsh in 1985. Paranjpye had earlier been nominated for Chashme Buddoor in 1982. Zoya Akhtar won it for Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara in 2012. Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari won it for Bareilly Ki Barfi in 2018 and Meghna Gulzar won it in for Raazi in 2019, after previously being nominated in 2016 for Talvar. Akhtar won the award again for Gully Boy in 2020, thus becoming the only woman to win the award twice. Kiran Rao won the award for Laapataa Ladies in 2025. Other women directors to have been nominated are Mira Nair for Salaam Bombay! in 1990, Farah Khan for Main Hoon Na in 2005 and for Om Shanti Om in 2008, Gauri Shinde for English Vinglish in 2013 and Seema Pahwa for Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi in 2022.
Rajkumar Santoshi remains the only director to have won the award for his first two films – for Ghayal in 1991 and for Damini in 1994.
Nitesh Tiwari and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari are the only married couple to win the award. Additionally, they won the award in consecutive years – the former won the award for Dangal in 2017 and the latter won the award for Bareilly Ki Barfi in 2018.
Only once have two siblings been nominated in the same year; Zoya Akhtar for Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Farhan Akhtar for Don 2 in 2012, with Zoya winning the category.
Multiple wins and nominations
The following Directors have received multiple Best Director nominations. The list is sorted by the number of total awards (with the number of total nominations listed in parentheses).
- 7 : Bimal Roy (7)
- 5 : Sanjay Leela Bhansali (8)
- 4 : Yash Chopra (12)
- 4 : Raj Kapoor (6)
- 2 : Rakesh Roshan (5)
- 2 : Karan Johar (6)
- 2 : Rajkumar Santoshi (5)
- 2 : Vidhu Vinod Chopra (4)
- 2 : Ashutosh Gowariker (3)
- 2 : Manoj Kumar (3)
- 2 : Zoya Akhtar (2)
- 2 : Govind Nihalani (2)
- 2 : Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (2)
- 1 : Subhash Ghai (6)
- 1 : Gulzar (6)
- 1 : B. R. Chopra (5)
- 1 : Rajkumar Hirani (5)
- 1 : Mansoor Khan (4)
- 1 : Shyam Benegal (3)
- 1 : Basu Chatterjee (3)
- 1 : Aditya Chopra (3)
- 1 : Sohanlal Kanwar (3)
- 1 : Sooraj Barjatya (3)
- 1 : Mukul S. Anand (2)
- 1 : J. P. Dutta (2)
- 1 : Shekhar Kapur (2)
- 1 : Mehboob Khan (2)
- 1 : Sai Paranjpye (2)
- 1 : Ramanand Sagar (2)
- 1 : Asit Sen (2)
- 1 : V. Shantaram (2)
- 1 : Meghna Gulzar (2)
- 1 : Nitesh Tiwari (2)
- 1 : Kunal Kohli (1)
- 1 : Sujoy Ghosh (1)
- 1 : Aamir Khan (1)
- 1 : Vikas Bahl (1)
- 1 : Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari (1)
- 1 : Om Raut (1)
- 1 : Vijay Anand (1)
- 1 : Abrar Alvi (1)
- 1 : Satyajit Ray (1)
- 1 : Muzaffar Ali (1)
- 1 : Kiran Rao (1)
- 0 : Mahesh Bhatt (6)
- 0 : Hrishikesh Mukherjee (5)
- 0 : Ram Gopal Varma (5)
- 0 : Shoojit Sircar (4)
- 0 : Ramesh Sippy (3)
- 0 : Imtiaz Ali (3)
- 0 : Anurag Kashyap (3)
- 0 : Anurag Basu (3)
- 0 : Vishal Bhardwaj (3)
- 0 : Ayan Mukerji (3)
- 0 : Farhan Akhtar (3)
- 0 : Shakti Samanta (3)
- 0 : Prakash Mehra (2)
- 0 : Indra Kumar (2)
- 0 : Rajiv Rai (2)
- 0 : Dharmesh Darshan (2)
- 0 : Abbas–Mustan (2)
- 0 : Abhishek Kapoor (2)
- 0 : Aanand L. Rai (2)
- 0 : Farah Khan (2)
- 0 : Kabir Khan (2)
- 0 : Madhur Bhandarkar (2)
- 0 : Sriram Raghavan (2)
- 0 : L. V. Prasad (2)
- 0 : Raj Khosla (2)
- 0 : David Dhawan (2)
- 0 : Vikram Bhatt (2)
- 0 : Rahul Rawail (2)
- 0 : Siddharth Anand (2)
- 0 : Anees Bazmee (2)
- 0 : Amar Kaushik (2)
Winners and nominees
In the list below, the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees. The films are listed by the years when the award was presented. The announcing of nominations became regular after 1959.
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Indicates the winner |
1950s
| Year | Director(s) | Film | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 (1st) |
Bimal Roy | Do Bigha Zamin | [1] |
| No Nominees | |||
| 1955 (2nd) |
Bimal Roy | Parineeta | [2] |
| No Nominees | |||
| 1956 (3rd) |
Bimal Roy | Biraj Bahu | [3] |
| No Nominees | |||
| 1957 (4th) |
V. Shantaram | Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje | [4] |
| No Nominees | |||
| 1958 (5th) |
Mehboob Khan | Mother India | [5] |
| No Nominees | |||
| 1959 (6th) |
Bimal Roy | Madhumati | [6] |
| B. R. Chopra | Sadhna | ||
| Mahesh Kaul | Talaaq | ||
1960s
1970s