National Film Award for Best Screenplay
The National Film Award for Best Screenplay is one of the categories in the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with "Rajat Kamal" (Silver Lotus). The award is announced for films produced in a year across the country, in all Indian languages. , the award comprises a "Rajat Kamal", a certificate, and a cash prize of 50,000.

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 include awards for regional films. The awards were instituted as the "State Awards for Films" but were renamed to "National Film Awards" at the 15th National Film Awards in 1967 and a new category of award for Best Screenplay was introduced, presented with a plaque and a cash prize. At the 57th National Film Awards in 2009, the Screenplay award was reclassified into three different awards: Screenplay Writer (Original), Screenplay Writer (Adapted), and Dialogues. Although the Indian film industry produces films in around twenty languages and dialects, as of 2016, the seventy-three unique writers who have been awarded, have worked in nine major languages: Hindi (twenty awards), Malayalam (twelve awards), Bengali (eleven awards), Marathi (seven awards), Tamil (six awards), Kannada (five awards), Telugu (three awards), English (two awards), Sanskrit and Assamese (one award each).

The inaugural award, in 1967, of this category was presented to S. L. Puram Sadanandan for the Malayalam film "Agniputhri". No award was presented at the 23rd National Film Awards (1975). , Malayalam author and screenplay writer M. T. Vasudevan Nair holds the record of winning maximum awards in category with four wins for the films: "Oru Vadakkan Veeragadha" (1989), "Kadavu" (1991), "Sadayam" (1992), and "Parinayam" (1994). Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray was presented the award in 1993 posthumously for the film "Uttoran"; he had earlier received awards for "Pratidwandi" (1970) and "Sonar Kella" (1974). At the 59th National Film Awards in 2011, Girish Kulkarni was awarded both the Best Actor and Best Dialogue Awards for the Marathi film "Deool". The film was itself was adjudged the Best Feature Film. In 2015 at the 63rd ceremony, the awards for both Original Screenplay and Dialogue were jointly presented to Juhi Chaturvedi and Himanshu Sharma for their films "Piku" and "Tanu Weds Manu: Returns", respectively.

, sixty-five awards have been presented for Original Screenplay writing, seventeen for Adapted Screenplay writing, and eleven for dialogue. The most recent recipients of the awards are Rahul Ravindran (Screenplay Writer (Original) for Telugu film "Chi La Sow"), Sriram Raghavan, Arijit Biswas, Yogesh Chandekar, Hemanth Rao, Pooja Ladha Surti (Screenplay Writer (Adapted) for Hindi film "Andhadhun") , and Churni Ganguly (Dialogue for Bengali film "Tarikh"), who were honoured at the 66th National Film Awards.
Q1350697
National Film Awards
EVE
Q5280643
Directorate of Film Festivals
ORG
Q4294412
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
ORG
Q4551008
15th National Film Awards
EVE
Q4640835
57th National Film Awards
EVE
Q103076
Screenplay
Concept
Q131395
Dialogue
Concept
Q135595
languages and dialects
ORG
Q93196
Hindi
Concept
Q2744006
Malayalam
Concept
Q5120804
Bengali
MEDIA
Q3345861
Marathi
Concept
Q926324
Tamil
Concept
Q3250548
Kannada
MEDIA
Q779935
Telugu
Concept
Q11059
Sanskrit
Concept
Q3677185
Assamese
UNK
Q13110728
S. L. Puram Sadanandan
PER
Q4693261
Agniputhri
MEDIA
Q4631665
23rd National Film Awards
EVE
Q3532812
M. T. Vasudevan Nair
PER
Q7105147
Oru Vadakkan Veeragadha
MEDIA
Q6345242
Kadavu
MEDIA
Q7397629
Sadayam
MEDIA
Q7137136
Parinayam
MEDIA
Q8873
Satyajit Ray
Concept
Q7720258
Uttoran
MEDIA
Q640662
Pratidwandi
MEDIA
Q22260787
Sonar Kella
MEDIA
Q4641005
59th National Film Awards
EVE
Q2162531
Girish Kulkarni
PER
Q11038927
Best Actor
EVE
Q3345861
Marathi film
Concept
Q3595079
Deool
MEDIA
Q1435633
Best Feature Film
EVE
Q22252104
63rd ceremony
EVE
Q6305122
Juhi Chaturvedi
PER
Q16202240
Himanshu Sharma
PER
Q18703891
Piku
MEDIA
Tanu Weds Manu: Returns
UNK
Q7283616
Rahul Ravindran
PER
Q64768020
Chi La Sow
MEDIA
Q7586495
Sriram Raghavan
PER
Q28839625
Hemanth Rao
PER
Q44612834
Andhadhun
MEDIA
Q5118311
Churni Ganguly
PER
Q65065339
Tarikh
MEDIA
Q60740736
66th National Film Awards
EVE
Q1967202
National Film Award for Best Screenplay
EVE
1954-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1954
DATE
1967-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1967
DATE
2009-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2009
DATE
2016-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2016
DATE
1967-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1967
DATE
1993-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1993
DATE
2011-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2011
DATE
2015-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2015
DATE
+15^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
15
NUMBER
+57^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
57
NUMBER
+23^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
23
NUMBER
+1975^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1975
NUMBER
+1989^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1989
NUMBER
+1991^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1991
NUMBER
+1992^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1992
NUMBER
+1994^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1994
NUMBER
+1970^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1970
NUMBER
+1974^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1974
NUMBER
+59^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
59
NUMBER
+63^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
63
NUMBER
+66^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
66
NUMBER
instance of
sponsor
conferred by
screenwriter
director
screenwriter
director
director
screenwriter
director
director
director