South Indian cinema seems to be dominating the box office and National film awards this year. If Malayalam cinema took away eight awards, Tamil cinema won several. Some of the main awards like best actor, actress, film, and supporting actors were shared by Malayalam and Tamil film industries. A film that was directly released on OTT winning awards at the National film awards was also an interesting fact. Because of the pandemic, 'Soorarai Pottru' was directly released on Amazon Prime.
Filmmaker Vipul Shah who headed the jury had no difference of opinion in giving away a majority of the awards to South Indian films. Some of the OTT Malayalam releases like 'CU Soon', 'Malik', and 'Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam' came in the final rounds.
Fahadh Fasil and Navya Nair were considered till the last round. Though Fahadh’s performance in ‘Mallik’ was discussed, there are reports that a few jury members had issues with his makeup and other factors. While Navya Nair’s performance in ‘Oruthee’ directed by VK Prakash was considered, Aparna Balamurali’s performance won more votes.
They had considered 205 films from the feature department and 148 films from the Non-Feature department for the 2020 National film awards. The jury felt they needn’t give an award for best film criticism this year as they weren't any quality entries.