Filmfare Award For Best Director

The Filmfare Best Director Award is one of the main awards presented given by the annual Filmfare Awards to recognise directors working in Hindi cinema. It was first presented in 1954 in the inaugural year.

Superlatives

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 4 women to have won this award, the second being Zoya Akhtar, the third being Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, and the fourth being Meghna Gulzar. 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. 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 : Om Raut (1)
* 1 : Vijay Anand (1)
* 1 : Abrar Alvi (1)
* 1 : Satyajit Ray (1)
* 1 : Muzaffar Ali (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)

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.

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

See also

* Filmfare Awards
* Bollywood
* Cinema of India

References

External links

Filmfare Awards Best Director

{{FilmfareAwardBestDirector

Director
Awards for best director
Lists of Indian film directors