The J. C. Daniel Award is the highest award in Malayalam cinema, presented annually by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy,under the Department of Cultural Affairs, Kerala. The award to commemorate the contribution of Indian filmmaker J. C. Daniel, who is often regarded as the “father of Malayalam cinema”.The award recognizes individuals for their “outstanding contributions to Malayalam cinema”.Recipients are selected by a jury appointed by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy and the Department of Cultural Affairs. The honourees receive a statuette, a citation, and a cash prize of ₹500,000. They are honoured at the Kerala State Film Awards ceremony.

The award was first presented to film distributor and producer T. E. Vasudevan in 1992, the other recipients are actor, director, screenwriter, lyricist Thikkurissy Sukumaran Nair in 1993, Lyricist, director P Bhaskaran in 1994, Lyricist Abhayadev in 1995,Cinematographer, director A. Vincent in 1996,Composer K. Raghavan in 1997, Composer V. Dakshinamoorthy in 1998,Composer G. Devarajan in1999,Director M. Krishnan Nair in 2000, Director, art director P. N. Menon in 2001,Playback singer K. J. Yesudas in 2002, the award was not presented in 2003, Actor, director, producer Madhu in 2004, Actress Aranmula Ponnamma in 2005,Cinematographer, director Mankada Ravi Varma in 2006, Director P. Ramdas in 2007,Producer K. Ravindran Nair in 2008, Director, screenwriter K. S. Sethumadhavan in 2009,Producer, director Navodaya Appachan in 2010, Actor, singer Jose Prakash in 2011,Director J. Sasikumar in 2012, Screenwriter, director M. T. Vasudevan Nair in 2013, Director, screenwriter I. V. Sasi in 2014, Screenwriter, director K. G. George in 2015, Director, screenwriter Adoor Gopalakrishnan in 2016, Lyricist, director, screenwriter, producer Sreekumaran Thampi in 2017,Actress, director, screenwriter Sheela in 2018,Director Hariharan in 2019, Singer P. Jayachandran in 2020, Director K. P. Kumaran in 2021, and Director T. V. Chandran in 2022.