In the year 1993 Ham hai Rahi Pyar ke won the Best Film filmfare award above films which were critically and commercially more successful than Ham Hai Rahi Pyar ke
Ham hai Rahi Pyar Ke was neither the most successful film of the year nor the most acclaimed. In the terms of business
- Aankhen
- Khalnayak
- Darr
- Baazigar
- Tiranga
- Damini
- Anari
- Dalaal
- Gardish
- Lootere
- Gumrah
- Kshatriya
- Ham hai Rahi Pyar ke
Let's look at the IMDb ratings of the films nominated for Best Film that year
- Damini- 7.8
- Darr- 7.6
- Baazigar - 7.6
- Ham hai Rahi Pyar ke- 7.3
- Khalnayak- 7.1
- Aankhen- 6.8
That year Damini was robbed of many deserving awards. Meenakshi was robbed of Best Actress filmfare by Juhi Chawla for Ham hai Rahi Pyar ke. The film despite being the most hard hitting film of the year didn't get the Best Film award. Eventually the film won the National award for Best Hindi film. Darr won the National award for Popular film and Ham hai Rahi Pyar ke won Jury Special award. Clearly, the jury of National awards didn't consider HHRPK the best film of the year.
Among the critically acclaimed films of the year we could have Gardish and Rudaali in the forefront but even those films were considered for award.
Similar thing happened in 1996 when a popular romantic film like Raja Hindustani (which was not even acclaimed by critics) got best film over Maachis, Bandit Queen, Khamoshi, Agnisakshi all much much better films. Eventually Maachis won 2 national awards, Bandit Queen as well, Khamoshi and Agnisakshi won 1. Nana Patekar was nominated for Best actor for both Khamoshi and Agnisakshi (for which he won a national award) but the award went to Aamir Khan for RH. Karishma Kapoor won Best Actress over Tabu who won National award the same year for Maachis and also above Seema Biswas who also won National Award for Bandit Queen. Manisha Koirala was also one of the finalists of the National awards for Khamoshi and still they chose Karishma Kapoor.
In 1997 again, Dil to Pagal hai got best film over Border, Chachi 420 and Virasat. Shahrukh Khan won Best actor for Dil to Pagal hai above Anil for Virasat or Kamal Haasan for Chachi 420. Madhuri Dixit for her mediocre performance won best actress (despite being overshadowed by Karishma Kapoor in the same film) above Tabu for Virasat.
In 1998 Kuch kuch Hota hai won Best Film above Satya and Zakhm. Ajay Devgn won the National award for Best actor and Manoj Bajpayee also won a national award for best supporting actor Satya but the filmfare for Best actor went to SRK for Kuch kuch Hota hai and Salman Khan got best supporting actor filmfare for the same.