India at the Oscars: The few wins and many misses down the years

To date, only three Indian films have been nominated for the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars.

Published Mar 13, 2023 | 1:00 PM ⚊ Updated Mar 13, 2023 | 1:00 PM

'Nattu Nattu' from RRR and The Elephant Whisperers win Oscars 2023. (Twitter)

To date, only three Indian films have been nominated for the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars, the biggest accolade for any country that sends entries to the world’s most prestigious annual cinema awards.

These were Mehboob Khan’s 1957 epic Mother India, Mira’s Nair’s 1988 runaway hit Salaam Bombay, and Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India, directed by Ashutosh Gowariker and produced by Aamir Khan, who also played the lead in the film.

None of them won the award.

Nominations this year

This year, there were several Indian films — including Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show (Last Film Show), which was India’s official entry for Best Picture in a Foreign Language category — in the race for the Oscars, but only RRR and two documentaries made it to the nomination stage.

While RRR missed out in the Best Picture category, it scored a nomination for Best Original Song.

Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes — about siblings Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad who rescue and treat injured birds in Delhi — made it under the Best Documentary category.

Kartiki Gonsalves’ The Elephant Whisperers was nominated in the Best Documentary Short Film category. Set in the Madumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu, the documentary is about the bond between the tribal couple Bomman and Bellie and an abandoned baby elephant.

Related: ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ wins in the Best Documentary Short category

Films that did not make it to the nominations

Sanjay Leela Bansali’s Alia Bhat starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi.
Vivek Agnihotri’s controversial hyper-nationalist film The Kashmir Files.
Rishab Shetty’s Kannada sleeper hit Kantara.
Nipun Dharmadhikari’s Marathi language biopic on classical musician Vasantrao Deshpande Me Vasantrao.
Tujhya Sathi Kahi Hi, another Marathi language film, directed by Sanjay Madhavrao.
Tamil star R Madhavan’s Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, on the life of scientist Nambi Narayana who was falsely implicated in a spy case.
R Parthiban’s Tamil language thriller Iravin Nizhal.
Anup Bhandari’s Kannada language action thriller Vikrant Rona.
Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show, the Gujarati language official Indian entry in the Best International Film category.

Related: ‘Naatu Naatu’ from RRR wins an Oscar, a first for an Indian song

Films, people who have been nominated

Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar was nominated in the Best Original Score category for the Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film Gandhi.
The House That Ananda Built, directed by Fali Bilimoria, was nominated for Best Documentary Short Film in 1968.
Directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, An Encounter With Faces was nominated for the Best Documentary Short in 1978.
AR Rahman was nominated in the Best Original Score category for Danny Boyle’s 2010 film 127 Hours.
Little Terrorist, a 2004 Indian short film directed by Ashvin Kumar was nominated for Best Documentary Short.
Directed by Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas, Writing with Fire, about the Dalit women-led newspaper Khabar Lahariya, was nominated for the Documentary Feature Category in 2021.
Ramin Bahrani’s White Tiger, based on Aravind Adiga’s eponymous book, was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay category in 2021.

The Indian Oscar winners

The Indian Oscar winners, including the ones that secured it this year are:

Best Music Category (Original Song) — “Naatu Naatu” from RRR.
Best Documentary Short film — Elephant Whisperers.

Bhanu Athaiya was the first Indian to win an Oscar for Best Costume Design for the film Gandhi (1982).
Satyajit Ray was awarded an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992.
AR Rahman won two Oscars — one for the original score and another for the song “Jai Ho” from the film Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
Resul Pookutty won an Oscar for Best Sound Mixing for Slumdog Millionaire.
Period. End of a Sentence won the Academy Award in 2019 in the Best Documentary Short category.