The first recipient was Satyajit Ray , who was honoured at the 15th National Film Awards for directing the Bengali film '' Chiriyakhana '' ( 1967 ) . As of 2017 , Ray and Adoor Gopalakrishnan are the most frequent recipients , with six and five wins respectively . Gopalakrishnan won the award for his debut Malayalam film '' Swayamvaram '' ( 1972 ) . Mrinal Sen has been awarded four times . He is also the only recipient to win the award for directing films in two different languages : Bengali and Hindi . At the 19th National Film Awards , Girish Karnad and B.V. Karanth shared the award for co-directing the Kannada film '' Vamsha Vriksha '' ( 1972 ) . The most recent recipient is Jayaraj , who was honoured at the 65th National Film Awards for directing the Malayalam film '' Bhayanakam '' ( 2018 )
19th National Film Awards
19th National Film Awards
National Film Award for Best Direction