India’s official entry for the Academy Awards nomination round under the Best International Feature Film category is Kiran Rao’s Lapata Ladies, a Hindi movie. The jury selected it from a pool of around 29 Indian language films.
Data from the Film Federation of India (FFI) shows that between 1957 and 2024, India sent 57 films for Oscar consideration, with Hindi films comprising 60 per cent (34 movies) of the total.
This year, the committee received around 29 films for consideration, including All We Imagine as Light (Malayalam), Jama (Tamil), and Kottukkaali (Tamil). Similarly, last year, about 22 films were submitted, with India’s official entry to the Oscars being the Malayalam film 2018: Everyone is a Hero, directed by Jude Anthany Joseph.
The FFI is the executive committee responsible for receiving film submissions for India’s annual entry to the Oscars. A representative jury selects the best movie based on merit for the Oscar nomination round. To be eligible, filmmakers pay a submission fee of Rs 1.25 lakh, ensure that at least 60 per cent of the film’s content is in a local dialect of any Indian language, provide proof of the film’s release with a minimum one-week theatrical run in India, and include English subtitles.
“The higher number of Hindi movie submissions could be attributed to the larger production volumes here as compared to other languages. Additionally Hindi movies often receive more visibility than others,” Keval Arora, Former Staff Advisor of Players, the Theatre Society of Kirori Mal College, Delhi University, said.
India’s film industry is highly diverse, with many films produced in different languages annually. Yet, in the past 57 years, the films selected for Oscar submissions have been in just 9 to 10 languages, with Hindi dominating the list, followed by Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, Assamese, and Urdu.
A similar trend is observed in the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest award in cinema. From 1969 to 2024, 56 film personalities have received this honour, 35 from the Hindi film industry, nine from Bengali, and six from Telugu. Waheeda Rehman, Rajinikanth, and Satyajit Ray are a few Dadasaheb Phalke awardees. This year, Mithun Chakraborty has been selected to receive the award.
Deloitte India report
A Deloitte India report shows that the Indian film industry is the largest in the world and produces 1,900 films annually. “The Indian film industry is dominated by the Hindi film industry contributing 43 per cent of the revenue while regional and international films contribute the remaining 50 per cent and 7 per cent respectively. Within the regional film industry, South Indian film industry contributes approximately 36 percent of net box office revenues followed by Bengali and Punjabi Films,” the report reads.
Historically, Mother India, Salaam Bombay, and Lagaan made it into the Best International Feature Film nominations at the Oscars. Slumdog Millionaire, RRR, and The Elephant Whisperers have won Oscars in other award categories.