The Filmfare Awards are presented annually by The Times Group to honour both artistic and technical excellence

of professionals in the Hindi language film industry of India. The Filmfare ceremony is the oldest and most prominent film events dedicated to Hindi films in India. The awards were first introduced in 1954, the same year as the National Film Awards. They were initially referred to as the Clare Awards or The Clares after the editor of The Times of India, Clare Mendonca. A dual voting system was developed in 1956. Under this system, "in contrast to the National Film Awards, which are decided by a panel appointed by Indian Government, the Filmfare Awards are voted by both the public and a committee of experts. The Filmfare Awards have been referred to as the Hindi film industry's Academy Awards.

The Filmfare awards were first introduced in 1954. The Clares was the original name of the award ceremony, named after The Times of India critic Clare Mendonca. Readers of Filmfare were polled to decide the winners, and over 20,000 readers spread throughout India participated in the polls; trophies were given to winners of the popular vote. In the first awards function, held on 21 March 1954 at the Metro Theatre of Mumbai, only five awards were presented: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Music Director. Do Bigha Zameen was the first movie to win the award for Best Film. The first winners for other four categories were: Bimal Roy for his direction of Do Bigha Zameen, Dilip Kumar for his performance in Daag, Meena Kumari for her performance in Baiju Bawra, and Naushad Ali for his music in Baiju Bawra.

Hollywood star Gregory Peck was invited to be the guest of honour at the first ever awards on March 21, 1954 at the Metro theatre, Mumbai but couldn't make it to the function since his flight from Colombo got delayed. However, Peck did attend the banquet that followed the award nite at Wellington Club(Gymkhana), Mumbai The winners for the year 1985 were announced in 1986 and the event was scheduled to be held at the Brabourne Stadium in December 1986. Unfortunately the Bombay film Industry, as was known then went on strike in '86 because of its many contentious issues with the Maharashtra Government. So the ceremony was pushed to the next year. The winners of 1985 were awarded on 28 January 1987. Due to Security reasons, filmfare was not awarded for 1987 and 1988.

Due to the many award ceremonies in the Indian Film Industry, it is often questioned which ones are "real" and based on fair decisions made by the jury. The Filmfare went through a phase of controversy in which they were accused of a biased selection when nominating and presenting awards and it was believed that they were not awarded based on merit. But

what award ceremony has not been questioned on this issue? The Bollywood fraternity has been around for over a century now and has acquired many new techniques, talents, story lines, and much more. The importance of these awards is that it recognizes an industry in which almost a thousand movies per year are produced making it one of the biggest in cinema. They are also a very important set of awards because everyone has a soft spot in their hearts for them due to they long lasting journey. The awards only started with a few categories back in 1954 but today, it recognizes about 31 categories. In the past century, they have proves to overcome any controversy and at the same time achieve something new each year as well.