The 12th Metro Manila Film Festival was held in December 1986. It was the first edition of the festival in eight years to be primarily sponsored by the Metro Manila Commission (now the Metro Manila Development Authority) and not by MOWELFUND.
NCV productions' Halimaw romped away 10 of the 12 awards given including the Best Director and Best Actor for Mario O'Hara and Best Actress for Liza Lorena among others. The film also garnered the Third Best Picture Award. Romy Vitug won the Best Cinematography Award for Celso Ad. Castillo's Payaso while the director's son, Chris Ad. Castillo, received the Best Supporting Actor Award for Augusto Buenaventura's Bagets Gang.
Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.
The following are the key people during the "Gabi ng Parangal".
The 1986 Metro Manila Film Festival was considered the worst in the 12-year history of the annual 10-day festival of local movies. For the first time, it did not give out the traditional first and second Best Picture awards as well as the other two categories: Best Story and Best Screenplay. According to one of the jurors, Tingting Cojuangco stated: "No one of the seven entries deserved these awards..." He added that they: "...would like to express [their] concern over the current state of the Philippine movie industry as reflected in the entries to the year's MMFF...[The entries] failed to reinforce and inculcate positive Filipino values by portraying negative stereotypes, imitating foreign films and perpetuating commercially-oriented movies...".