The winners of the 71st National Film Awards—that honours the Best of Indian Cinema from the year 2023—were announced by India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, on Friday evening. Tamil movie Parking starring Harish Kalyan and MS Bhaskar in the lead took home the most honours in the feature film category, alongside the Hindi movie Animal.
Parking National Film Awards
Best Tamil Film - Awardees Passion Studios, Soldiers Factory, and director Ramkumar Balakrishnan to get a cash prize of Rs. 2,00,000 each
Best Screenplay (Screenplay Writer - Original): Awardee Ramkumar Balakrishnan shares a cash prize of Rs, 2,00,000 with another awardee Sai Rajesh Neelam for ‘Baby’ (Telugu)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Awardee MS Bhaskar shares a cash prize of Rs, 2,00,000 with another awardee Vijayaraghavan for ‘Pookkaalam’ (Malayalam)
Parking writer director Ramkumar Balakrishnan shares the 'Best Screenplay (original)' award with Sai Rajesh Neelam for the Telugu film Baby (2023). MS Bhaskar shares the 'Best Supporting Actor' award with Mollywood's Vijayaraghavan for the Malayalam movie Pookkaalam (2023).
Extremely overwhelmed with joy for #Parking taking over at the 71st #NationalFilmAwards, winning Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor ❤
— K.s.Sinish (@sinish_s) August 1, 2025
I still remember the moment I received the mail from the Academy, honouring our screenplay in their library — and now, this 👏🏾… pic.twitter.com/7zQzVYnkjy
At 2 hours and 7 minutes, Parking tells the story of how a clash over a shared parking space turns two men from diverse backgrounds, into complete aggressors. The critically acclaimed drama marked Ramkumar Balakrishnan's directorial debut, and is produced by Passion Studios, and Soldiers Factory.
Parking is currently available to stream on the Disney Plus Hotstar OTT platform.