This three time National award winning actor's three movies were there in the last round for the selection of best actor award. If we consider ‘Kutty Shrank’ characters as three as it were three distinct unrelated phases of a single character.

Mammootty had virtually seven well performed characters to fight it out for the final name. But Big B was a more important name in Indian Commercial cinema. And Mammootty never had the luck to be in the company of Ramesh Sippy who had been making hits in the eighties banking on the stardom of Big B. The forty year old bonding paid off and poor Mammoootty, a less known Southie in the Hindi circuits has to bow out, leaving the powerful with the greatest awards of Indian cinema. Leave the best actor title, Mammootty was not even given a special mention for his versatility that was evident in all his films, this year.

Though he missed out on the best actor award, Malayalam superstar humbly maintained that he his happy about his two films - 'Kutty Shrank' and 'Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja' - had bagged bulk of the share of this year’s awards. With eight national awards shared between them, Mammootty who is shooting in Shimoga for his first Kannada film ‘Shikaari’ said “I really feel proud as my films I acted in, have won eight awards. Though I value awards very much, this is not the end of the road for me and as an actor. I will try my level best to attain the big recognition that is evading me in recent years.”

While 'Kutty Shrank', produced and distributed by Reliance Big Pictures, won five awards including the best feature; special jury; best costume designer award as well as best cinematography and best screenplay (original) awards , ‘Pazhassi Raja’ bagged the award for best background score for Illayaraja. The movie also won awards for Best editing and best sound design.