Dadasaheb Phalke Released India's First Full-Length Feature Film, Raja Harishchandra, in Bombay on 3 May 1913, and the 72nd National Film Awards Drew 400 Feature Films in 34 Languages

Raja Harishchandra opened to the public at the Coronation Cinema in Girgaon, Bombay, on 3 May 1913, after a first screening at the Olympia Theatre on 21 April, according to the film-history site Cinemaazi. The Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s news agency, calls it India’s first full-length feature film. Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, known as Dadasaheb Phalke, directed, wrote and produced it, and its factsheet on the National Film Awards dates the start of Indian cinema to 1913 and this film.

In 2026, 113 years later, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting reports that the 72nd National Film Awards received 400 feature films in 34 languages and 161 non-feature films in 24 languages. The ceremony was held at Ekta Nagar (Kevadia), Gujarat, on 22 September 2026, and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, was presented there to the Kannada actor Anant Nag.

A photographer, a printer and a stage magician

Phalke was born on 30 April 1870 at Trimbak, near Nashik, and died at Nashik on 16 February 1944, the PIB’s New India Samachar and the Dadasaheb Phalke Indian Film Museum both record. He studied at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay and at the Kalabhavan in Baroda, where he learned drawing, painting, model making, photography and printing, the museum says.

Cinemaazi lists the work he did before films: an engraving and photo-printing business, professional photography from 1895, painted curtains for stage companies, conjuring shows under the name “Professor Kelpha”, a post as photographer and draftsman with the Archaeological Survey of India from 1903, and a printing press at Lonavala with R. G. Bhandarkar.

His turn to cinema came after he saw a film on the life of Jesus Christ in a Bombay theatre. Cinemaazi dates the screening to April 1911 and notes that some sources say 1910; Scroll gives 1910. Cinemaazi says the film set him thinking about making moving pictures of Rama and Krishna.

London in 1912, and a film about a pea plant

Phalke sailed for London in February 1912 after mortgaging his insurance policies to raise Rs 10,000, Cinemaazi reports. The editor of the trade paper Bioscope introduced him to the filmmaker Cecil Hepworth, whose Walton Studios let him into its departments. Scroll adds that he bought a Williamson camera and developing and printing equipment on the trip.

He came home on 1 April 1912, the day Cinemaazi gives for the founding of his Phalke Films Company. Financiers doubted he could succeed, so he made a short film to show them what he could do. Scroll describes it as a stop-motion film of a pea plant growing, titled “Birth of a Pea Plant”; Cinemaazi gives the Marathi name as Ankurachi Wadh. Cinemaazi says the film helped him attract backers.

Six months and 27 days to make four reels

Cinemaazi puts the production of Raja Harishchandra at six months and 27 days, and the finished film at about four reels, roughly 3,700 feet. Phalke handled the script, direction, production design, make-up, editing and film processing himself. Trymbak B. Telang operated the camera.

The cast was Dattatraya Damodar Dabke as King Harishchandra, Anna Salunke as Queen Taramati and Phalke’s son Bhalchandra as the prince Rohitashva. Salunke was a young man: Scroll says women were not coming forward to act in films, so male actors played the female roles.

Scroll summarises the plot: a righteous king gives up his kingdom, his wife and his belongings to keep a promise to the sage Vishwamitra.

Two dates in 1913, and another claim to “first”

Two dates attach to the film, and both are in Cinemaazi: the 21 April premiere at the Olympia Theatre and the 3 May release at the Coronation Cinema. The PIB uses 3 May. A 2026 issue of its magazine New India Samachar says Phalke screened the film at the Coronation Theatre on that date. Scroll says the film was a huge success.

The word “first” carries a qualifier, and the PIB supplies it: the first full-length feature. Virchand Dharamsey, whose filmography of Indian silent cinema was first published in 1994 and revised in 2013, begins his list with an earlier narrative film, the 1912 Pundalik, a filmed play by N. G. Chitre and R. G. Torney, Scroll reports. The two claims describe different things, a filmed stage play and a full-length feature, and the government’s recognition goes to Phalke’s film.

The 1913 original has not survived. Scroll says the four-reel print perished a few years after its release, and that Phalke made a frame-by-frame remake in 1917 with a shorter running time. The reels that the national archive holds are from that 1917 version, Scroll’s report on Dharamsey’s filmography says. Dharamsey counts 1,338 Indian silent films, of which 29 survive.

What came after

In Mohini Bhasmasur (1913), women appeared on the Indian screen. ETV Bharat reports that Durgabai Kamat played Parvati and Kamalabai Gokhale played Mohini, the first women to appear in Indian films. Cinemaazi adds that his daughter Mandakini played Krishna in Shri Krishna Janma (1918).

Cinemaazi says Phalke Films Company became the Hindustan Cinema Films Company on 1 January 1918, with Phalke as a working partner. It counts 95 feature-length films and 27 short films across a 19-year career; the Dadasaheb Phalke Indian Film Museum puts the total at over 75 films, so counts differ by source. His only sound film, Gangavataran, released on 6 August 1937 at the Royal Opera House in Bombay. It was made for Kolhapur Cinetone, cost Rs 2.5 lakh and took two years, Cinemaazi says.

The Phalke Award, from Devika Rani to Anant Nag

The government instituted the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1969 to commemorate Phalke’s contribution to Indian cinema, and its first recipient was Devika Rani, the PIB states. The award goes to a person for outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian cinema and consists of a Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus) medallion, a shawl and Rs 10 lakh.

A committee of film personalities recommends each recipient. For the 2015 award, a five-member jury of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Salim Khan, Nitin Mukesh and Anup Jalota chose Manoj Kumar as the 47th recipient, and the President presented it to him on 3 May 2016, the anniversary of Raja Harishchandra’s release, according to the Rashtrapati Bhavan photo library. President Ram Nath Kovind presented the award to Amitabh Bachchan at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 29 December 2019.

The 2023 award went to the Malayalam actor Mohanlal, announced on 20 September 2025 by Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. The selection committee was Mithun Chakraborty, Shankar Mahadevan and Ashutosh Gowariker, the director of Lagaan. The PIB says Mohanlal has appeared in over 360 films across almost five decades.

The 2024 award went to Anant Nag, announced on 16 September 2026. PIB describes a career of more than five decades and over 300 films in Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil and Marathi. President Droupadi Murmu presented the award on 22 September 2026. In the PIB’s account of the ceremony, Nag said theatre was the foundation of his career and that he performed in around 50 plays before entering films.

The industry in numbers

The National Film Awards, instituted in 1954, give one official view of the languages in which India makes films. The PIB factsheet says a Best Feature Film award is given in each language listed in Schedule VIII of the Constitution, and that films outside the Schedule are honoured through separate awards. The 72nd edition, for films of 2024, recognised films in Marathi, Santhali, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada, with Tulu and Garhwali films also honoured. A Santhali film, Angen, was honoured in the Non-Feature section for the first time. The Best Feature Film was Article 370 in Hindi. The winners were announced on 18 July 2026.

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), a statutory body under the Ministry, keeps the larger count. In a Rajya Sabha reply that the PIB reported on 13 March 2026, the Ministry gave the films certified by the CBFC, digital and video, as 8,299 in 2020-21, 12,719 in 2021-22, 18,070 in 2022-23, 17,431 in 2023-24 and 15,444 in 2024-25, a total of 71,963 over the five years. Of that total, 41,817 got the U certificate, 28,268 UA and 1,878 A. With the online certification system, the average time taken is 22 working days for feature films and 3 for short films, the Ministry said.

The CBFC also publishes a list of the feature films it certified in each calendar year. Counting the certificate numbers on the 2024 list gives 3,623, up from 3,430 on the 2023 list. The list runs to dozens of languages and dialects, including Assamese, Bodo, Bhojpuri, Konkani, Manipuri, Santali, Sindhi and Tulu. By the same count, Hindi has the most certificates (over 600), followed by Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam, each with more than 300.

These are certificates, so a film released in several languages appears several times. The 2024 list shows eight for Pushpa: The Rule Part-02, in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu, with two each for Hindi and Telugu. The 2023 list also carries foreign titles released in Indian languages, such as a Smurfs film listed under Assamese.

The same reply records that 3,033 of the 15,444 films certified in 2024-25 were certified with cuts or modifications and that two were refused certification. The Cinematograph Act allows an appeal to a High Court, and the Ministry reported ten decisions challenged there in 2025.