Rani Mukerji's First National Award, 27 Years In

Rani Mukerji received her first National Film Award on Sept. 23, 2025, for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway. The honour came in a career that began in 1996 and had already collected eight Filmfare Awards. The reports and her biography show how the win came about and how the film was received.

The ceremony

The Hindu reports that President Droupadi Murmu presented the 71st National Film Awards at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. Mukerji received the award for Best Actress in a Leading Role from the President, in a photograph the paper credits to ANI. The same ceremony saw Mohanlal receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2023.

In its coverage, the paper also notes a related story headlined that Mukerji dedicated her win to the "incredible mothers of this world". We read only the headline of that piece and not the speech.

The film

Wikipedia describes Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway as a legal drama based on the real-life story of a Bengali immigrant couple whose children were taken away by the Norwegian Child Welfare Services. It says the film marked her first project in a decade not produced by Yash Raj Films, and that she based her character's diction and mannerisms on her own mother.

The reception was divided. The entry says the film was mostly received poorly by critics, who found Mukerji overly melodramatic, although some reviewers noted her growing impetus in later portions. It quotes Screen Daily's Namrata Joshi, who called the tone melodramatic and wrote that an otherwise reliable Mukherji was far from effective in a "shrill and showy" turn. The award therefore sits beside a mixed critical record, not a unanimous one.

A long career

Mukerji was born on 21 March 1978 into the Mukherjee-Samarth family. Her father, Ram Mukherjee, was a film director and one of the founders of Filmalaya Studios, and her mother, Krishna Mukherjee, was a playback singer. She began acting as a teenager, in her father's Bengali film Biyer Phool and in Raja Ki Aayegi Baaraat, both in 1996.

Ghulam (1998) brought her first commercial success, with the song "Aati Kya Khandala", and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai the same year gave her a breakthrough. Her Yash Raj collaboration began in 2002 with Saathiya. Chalte Chalte, Hum Tum, Veer-Zaara, Bunty Aur Babli and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna followed, and she was praised for Yuva (2004) and for playing a deaf and blind woman in Black (2005).

The awards record

Wikipedia says she has won eight Filmfare Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Yuva and No One Killed Jessica, Best Actress for Hum Tum and Black, and Critics Awards for Saathiya, Black and Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway. The entry also lists the Raj Kapoor Special Contribution Award in 2026.

Mardaani and Hichki

She took a four-year break after the birth of her daughter and returned with Hichki (2018), a comedy-drama inspired by Brad Cohen's autobiography Front of the Class. She reprised her role as the police officer Shivani Shivaji Roy in Mardaani 2 (2019) and in Mardaani 3, which Wikipedia says outgrossed both earlier films despite a more lukewarm critical reception.

What we could not confirm

We did not read Mukerji's acceptance remarks, only a headline about them. We could not verify the Filmfare tallies against Filmfare's archive, so they are Wikipedia's figures. Mardaani 3's earnings are described but not quantified in what we read. We found no source stating the jury's reasoning for the choice.

Sources

*Cover photo: Team DPIFF, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rani_Mukerji_accepting_the_Best_Actress_award.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rani_Mukerji_accepting_the_Best_Actress_award.jpg)* (CC BY-SA 4.0).*