Home > Hindi Songs > Top Songs & Albums > Filmfare awards/nominees for Best Music Director

This is a complete list of notable Hindi songs from movies which won the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director, as well as from the movies which were nominated for the award. A few points of note:

  • For the first two years (1954 and 1955), the award for Best Music director was given to a particular song. However, from 1956 onwards, the award was given to the composer of the best movie soundtrack. Thus, I have listed all the notable songs from the movie soundtracks of the award winners and nominees. (Note that not every award winner or nominee is listed, because I did not consider some worthy of inclusion.)
  • The award or nomination was generally given to songs from movies released in the year immediately preceding the Filmfare award ceremony. However, there are exceptions to the rule, where the movie may have been released two years earlier (e.g., Baiju Bawra, Nagin, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai and Guide, to name a few). That’s why there are separate columns for the Filmfare award year (Year-F) and the year the movie was released (Year-R).
  • Although the Filmfare awards were generally given on the basis of merit (allowing some leeway for subjectivity), this was not always the case. Two glaring errors:
    • It is truly incredible that Guide, which I consider the best Hindi movie soundtrack ever made, did not win the award for best music director. This may have been partly because for some odd reason it was nominated in 1967, two years after it was released (1965). Either way, it should have been the clear winner, competing against Khandaan in 1966 and Suraj in 1967.
    • The most egregious example of a movie that should not even have received a nomination for best music, let alone winning the award, was Beimaan in 1973. That was the year that Pakeezah was also nominated, and it should have been a shoo-in! This lends credence to the claim made by some that the award could be bought, and at least in this case you won’t get any argument from me. Enough said.

Note that the list below is sortable by each column. (Multiple levels of sorting are possible by sorting more than one column in succession, from lowest to highest.)

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