RRR’s ‘Naatu Naatu’ Wins Best Original Song At 2023 Golden Globes

‘Naatu Naatu’ from SS Rajamouli’s RRR won Best Original Song at the 2023 Golden Globes, beating out Taylor Swift’s ‘Carolina’ from Where the Crawdads Sing, Lady Gaga and BloodPop’s ‘Hold My Hand’ from Top Gun: Maverick, Rihanna’s ‘Lift Me Up’ from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Roeben Katz and Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Ciao Papa’ from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. Accepting the award from presenter Jenna Ortega, most recently seen in and as Wednesday on Netflix, composer MM Keeravani said he was “very much overwhelmed by this great moment.” 

“It’s an age-old practice to say that this award actually belongs to someone else. I was planning not to say those words when I get an award like this, but I’m afraid I’m going to repeat the tradition because I mean my words,” he added, thanking Rajamouli, the song’s animator Prem Rakshit, lyricist Rahul Sipligunj and Kala Bhairava who provided the arrangements. He also shouted out actors NT Rama Rao Jr and Ram Charan, who danced “with full stamina” to the song in the film.

RRR lost the second category it was nominated in, Best Non-English Language Film, to Argentina’s Argentina, 1985. The other nominees were Germany’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Belgium’s Close and South Korea’s Decision To Leave.

The Golden Globe is one of several international honours that period fantasy RRR has picked up over the past few months. In December last year, Rajamouli won best director at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. The New York-based National Board of Review also included RRR in its best films of the year, making it only the second non-English film to make it to this list. ‘Naatu Naatu’ has been shortlisted for the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards. Meanwhile, the country’s official Oscar submission, Gujarati film Chhello Show, has been shortlisted for Best International Feature, documentary All That Breathes is on the shortlist for Best Documentary Feature Film, and documentary short The Elephant Whisperers has been shortlisted in the category of Best Documentary Short Film.