Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali is the recipient of several awards, including seven National Film Awards, thirteen Filmfare Awards and a BAFTA nomination. In 2015, the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award.
Bhansali made his directorial debut with ' (1996), for which he received the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Film. He rose to prominence in Indian cinema with the hit romance Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), the commercially successful and widely acclaimed romantic drama Devdas (2002) â which received a nomination for the Best Film Not in the English Language at British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards â and the drama Black (2005), for all of which he received multiple Best Film awards and Best Director awards along with an additional Filmfare Award for Best Film (Critics) award for the latter, and multiple National Film Awards for the latter two. However, he followed it by directing consecutive commercially failures such as Saawariya (2007) and Guzaarish (2010), however, Guzaarish received positive reviews from critics and audiences.
This changed with his adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet â the tragic romance Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013) â opened to positive reviews and strong box office collections, for which he received several awards and nominations. His home production biographical sports film Mary Kom (2014), had him receive his third National Film Award. His ensemble period dramas Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018) rank among the highest-grossing Indian films of all time. For the former, he won the National Film Award for Best Direction, as well as Best Film and Best Director Awards at Filmfare. He further earned more commercial and critical success for his biographical film, Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) for which he received several accolades including the National Film Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing and Filmfare Awards for Best Direction and Best Film.