3rd National Film Awards Film in a particular language. Certificate of Merit in all the categories is discontinued over the years. Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 3rd National Film Awards, "Pather Panchali", a Bengali film by a debutant director Satyajit Ray won the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film. Following were the awards given: For 3rd National Film Awards, none of the films were awarded from Children's films category as no film was found to be suitable. With 3rd National Film Awards, new award category was introduced for the feature films made
Pather Panchali Pauline Kael wrote, "Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen". Basil Wright considered it "a new and incontrovertible work of art". James Berardinelli wrote in 1996 that the film "touches the souls and minds of viewers, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers". In 2006 Philip French of "The Observer" called it "one of the greatest pictures ever made". Twenty years after the release of "Pather Panchali", Akira Kurosawa summarised the effect of the film as overwhelming and lauded its ability "to stir up deep passions". The reaction was not uniformly positive.