Sanjay Mishra's National Award for Playing a Cameraman

Sanjay Mishra won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for Bhakshak, a Hindi crime thriller that premiered on Netflix in February 2024. The 72nd National Film Awards were announced on July 18, 2026, and Mishra's reaction was about his late father and the audiences who have followed him for more than three decades.

The award

The Press Information Bureau's list for the 72nd National Film Awards names Sanjay Mishra for Bhakshak under Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The prize is a Rajat Kamal with Rs 2 lakh. The same awards named Kartik Aaryan and Mammootty as joint Best Actor and Yami Gautam as Best Actress.

What Mishra said

The Hindu reported that he issued a statement thanking the jury. He said that he was reminded of his late father, who used to work with the Press Information Bureau. In his words, "Today, the news of the National Award also came from Press Information Bureau. It touched my heart." He added, "For over three decades, I have tried to be honest to every character that came my way. This honour belongs as much to the directors, producers, writers, technicians and fellow actors I have had the privilege of working with as it does to the audience, who have embraced my work with so much love over the years. I remain deeply grateful."

Search summaries of other reports, from Mid-day, IANS and the Times of India, say he called the award the pinnacle of appreciation for an actor and thanked the director Pulkit, Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix. We did not read those articles in full.

The film and the role

Wikipedia describes Bhakshak as a 2024 Hindi crime thriller based on the Muzaffarpur shelter case, directed by Pulkit and produced by Gauri Khan and Gaurav Verma under Red Chillies Entertainment. It stars Bhumi Pednekar, Sanjay Mishra, Aditya Srivastava and Sai Tamhankar, and it premiered on Netflix on Feb. 9, 2024.

The Hindu says Mishra plays a loyal and seasoned cameraman who works alongside the investigative journalist Vaishali Singh, played by Bhumi Pednekar. It says his performance was marked by restraint, as his character gives practical tips to Vaishali.

The career

Wikipedia says Mishra was born in 1963, is an alumnus of the National School of Drama and made his acting debut in the 1995 film Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India!. It lists later films including Rajkumar (1996) and Satya (1998), and says he is known for both drama and comedy. It credits him with two Filmfare Critics Awards for Best Actor, for Ankhon Dekhi (2015) and Vadh (2022). The same entry says he appeared as Apple Singh, a character ESPN Star Sports used during the 1999 Cricket World Cup.

The Hindu adds that he was recently seen in the multi-starrer comedy Dhamaal 4 and the crime thriller Kartavya.

Why it matters

Mishra's award is for a role in a film that went straight to streaming rather than to theatres. The Hindu's account of the performance, in which his character offers practical advice rather than speeches, is a useful guide to what the jury rewarded. It is the Hindu's reading and the jury has not published reasons that we saw.

What we could not confirm

We could not confirm the jury's citation for the award, because we did not find one. We read The Hindu in full and the other reports through search summaries. Wikipedia lists his birth year as 1963 on one page and 1962 on a disambiguation page, so we have not given his age. We have not seen the film.

Sources

*Cover photo: Bollywood Hungama, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sanjay_mishra1.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sanjay_mishra1.jpg)* (CC BY 3.0).*