Superlatives
| Superlative | Lyricist | |
|---|---|---|
| Most awards | Gulzar | 13 (from 35 nominations) |
| Most nominations | Anand Bakshi | 41 (resulted in 4 wins) |
| Most nominations in a single year | Javed Akhtar (2005) | 5 (all) |
| Most nominations without ever winning a single award | Anjaan | 6 |
With 13 wins, Gulzar holds the record for most awards in this category, followed by Javed Akhtar with 8 awards and Anand Bakshi with 4. Five lyricists won the award thrice: Shakeel Badayuni, Shailendra, Sameer, Prasoon Joshi and Irshad Kamil. Badayuni, who won the award for three consecutive years from 1961 to 1963, holds the record for most consecutive wins.
In 2005, Javed Akhtar was the single nominee, having all the five nominations of this category to his credit (and eventually winning for "Tere Liye" from Veer-Zaara). Akhtar's five nominations in that year also gave him the record for most number of Best Lyricist nominations in a single year, thus surpassing a previous record by Anand Bakshi, who received four of the five nominations in 1981.
Anand Bakshi holds the record of getting nominated for consecutively 13 years from 1970 till 1982, resulting in 23 nominations and only 2 wins. Anand Bakshi in 1981 lost all four nominations he received to Gulzar and in 1998 lost all three nominations to Javed Akhtar.
Shailendra was the first artist to win this award in 1959. Shakeel Badayuni was the most successful lyricist in '60s with three consecutive wins. Verma Malik fetched two awards from '70s. Gulzar ruled '80s with four wins. In '90s Sameer and Javed Akhtar both have three wins each. Javed Akhtar continued his domination in the 2000s with five wins. Irshad Kamil and Gulzar were the most successful lyricist of 2010s with three wins each.
As of 2022, only five women have ever been nominated for the award. First ever female lyricist to be nominated for the award was Preeti Sagar for the song "Mero Gaam Katha Parey" from the film Manthan in 1978. Rashmi Singh became the first woman to won the award in 2015 for "Muskurane Ki Wajah" from CityLights.
Kausar Munir became the second female songwriter to won; when she won it in 2022 for the song "Lehra Do" from 83. She is also the only female lyricist to have multiple nominations ever and also in a single year. She has five of total nine nominations by female songwriters in history.
The other two female lyricists nominated are Rani Malik for "Dheere Dheere Se" from Aashiqui (1991) and Anvita Dutt for "Gulaabo" from Shaandaar (2016).
