The 45th National Film Awards, presented by Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of Indian Cinema released in the year 1997. The awards were announced on 8 May 1998 and presented on 10 July 1998 by then President of India, K. R. Narayanan.

Awards were divided into feature films, non-feature films and books written on Indian cinema.

Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For National Film Awards, a Kannada film, Thaayi Saheba won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film also winning the maximum number of awards (4). Following were the awards given in each category:

A committee headed by B. Saroja Devi was appointed to evaluate the feature films awards. Following were the jury members:

Following were the awards given:

Official Name: Swarna Kamal

All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.

Official Name: Rajat Kamal