He received Academy Award nominations for Best Live Action Short Film for The Creation of a Woman (1959) and for Best Picture for A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).

[1] He grew up speaking Gujarati, Urdu and Memoni fluently, in which he later picked up Arabic and English while at school.

[2] As a child at the age of 9, Merchant delivered a speech about partition at a political rally in front of a crowd of 10,000.

At age 13, he developed a close friendship with actress Nimmi, who introduced him to studios in Bombay (the center of Hindi film industry).

[3] Merchant studied at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai and received BA degree of University of Bombay.

[4] He supported himself by working as a messenger for the UN in New York and used this opportunity to persuade Indian delegates to fund his film projects.

"[2] Immersed in a new world of art and culture, it was here that Merchant discovered the films of Bengali director Satyajit Ray, as well as those of European artists such as Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica, and Federico Fellini.

This feature became the first Indian-made film to be distributed internationally by a major American studio, Columbia Pictures.

Merchant made his film directorial debut with 1993's In Custody based on a novel by Anita Desai, and starring Bollywood actor Shashi Kapoor.

His second directing feature, The Proprietor, starred Jeanne Moreau, Sean Young, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Christopher Cazenove and was filmed on location in Paris, France.