He directed eight feature films, which have been screened at International Film Festivals held at various places such as Cannes, Madras, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta, Karlovy Vary (Czechoslovakia), Nantes (France), Valladolid (Spain), Algiers (Algeria), Pyong Yong (North Korea), Sydney, Munich, Montreal and Toronto. Has also directed one episode of a Doordarshan series on Rabindranath Tagore's stories in Hindi. Seven out of Saikia's eight films have been selected for Indian Panorama Section of the International Film Festival of India. • He received the Sahitya Akademi (India) Award in 1976, the Rajat Kamal Award of the Government of India for the film "Sandhyarag" in 1978, Anirban in 1981, Agnisnan in 1985, Kolahal in 1988, Sarothi in 1992, Abartan in 1994 and for Itihaas in 1996. He was adjudged as one of the "Twenty one Great Assamese Persons of the twentieth century" in a literary weekly news magazine of Assam.