Kangana Ranaut's one actor who has gone from strength to strength from her debut film Gangster (2006) and slowly but steadily has made a command position for herself in showbiz. She has the knack of internalising the character she portrays, however outlandish they may be. And she also convincingly conveys both strength and vulnerability of her characters. She always chose her roles wisely and of late, she has reached a stage where roles got written especially for her. Apart from acting, she has also tried her hand at writing and direction as well. She’s truly someone who doesn’t believe in following the norms and can be said to have successfully breached the male bastion that’s Bollywood. On her birthday, we present a list of her ten Best Films of Kangana Ranaut so far where she bedazzled the audience with her acting.
1. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Gangster (2006)
Director: Anurag BasuCast: Emraan Hashmi, Shiney Ahuja, Kangana Ranaut
It was Kangana Ranaut’s debut film. It was a complex character depicting her as an alcoholic gangster’s moll. Simran (Kangana) is the girlfriend of an Indian gangster Daya (Shiney Ahuja) who has run away with him to Seoul. While he’s away on business, she meets with an Indian singer called Akash (Emraan Hashmi) and falls in love with him. She becomes emotionally dependent on him and becomes pregnant by him. Daya bashes up Akash and tells Simran he loves her and is willing to give the honest life a chance because of her. He has arranged for him and her to go back to his village in India. His past catches up with him before they can do so. He’s able to defeat his enemies however but later gets captured by the police. Simran has betrayed him and she, in turn, gets betrayed by Akash who is an Indian cop in disguise. After fatally wounding Akash one night, she commits suicide. Kangana’s performance came in for a lot of praise by the critics and the masses alike.
2. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Fashion (2008)
Director: Madhur BhandarkarCast: Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Mugdha Godse, Arjan Bajwa, Samir Soni, Arbaaz Khan
Fashion was director Madhu Bhandarkar’s take on the seamier side of the fashion industry. Kangana Ranaut played a supermodel named Shonali Gujral. She’s shown as a troubled personality, who is unable to handle fame and success and the pressure of being at the top in a cutthroat industry. She succumbs to the lure of drugs and alcohol to forget her fears and soon becomes an addict. Her fall is juxtaposed to the rise of Priyanka Chopra’s character Meghna in the film. It is Meghna who later takes her in and tries to rehabilitate her but to no avail. She’s too far gone to make a comeback to normalcy. It was a bravura performance where the actor has to lay bare all her dark thoughts as she depicts a slow descent towards hell. The film may not have revolved around her but Kangana did get noticed for her histrionics.
3. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Tanu Weds Manu (2011)
Director: Aanand L. RaiCast: Kangana Ranaut, Madhavan, Jimmy Sheirgill
Kangana played Tanu, a strong-headed, strong-willed woman who at first rejects arranged marriage with Manu (Madhavan) because she already has a boyfriend, Raja (JimmyShergill). Circumstances bring them together at a friend’s wedding and the duo gets attracted to each other. She finds herself falling in love with the gentle NRI doctor. Convinced of his love, she asks her parents to fix the wedding and get them hitched as soon as possible. The only glitch in the plan is Raja, who warns of dire consequences if Tanu is married off to someone other than him. Manu doesn’t care about the consequences and goes ahead. He stands up to Raja when the latter too comes with a baraat. This act of courage further endears him to Tanu, who tells Raja to shoot her first before harming Manu. Kangana played a flawed but real character in the film and endeared herself to the audiences.
4. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Krrish 3 (2013)
Director: Rakesh RoshanCast: Hrithik Roshan, Vivek Oberoi, Priyanka Chopra and Kangana Ranaut
Kangana played a mutant named Kaya in this superhero flick. Kaya has the chameleon DNA mixed with her genes and as a result, can shape-shift into anybody. She shapeshifts into Priya (Priyanka Chopra) Krishna’s (Hrithik Roshan) in order to find out Krrish’s true identity. She falls in love with him and later, reformed through love, turns a good leaf and helps Krrish rescue his pregnant wife and father Rohit (Hrithik Roshan) from the clutches of Kaal (Vivek Oberoi). She was good at doing stunts in the film and her pairing with Hrithik literally sizzled the screen. Kangana performance was much admired despite her playing a grey character. It wasn’t something she had done before but Kangana showed she can be an asset in a superhero film as well.
5. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Queen (2014)
Director: Vikas BahlCast: Kangana Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao, Lisa Haydon
The film Queen revolved around a woman taking a solo voyage towards self-discovery. Rani Mehra (Kangana Ranaut) is a young Punjabi woman living in Delhi who is wooed ardently by Vijay (Rajkummar Rao). He’s the son of a family friend, her parents know him and hence she says yes to the match. However, one day prior to her wedding, he tells her that he no longer wishes to marry her. He explains that his lifestyle has changed after living abroad, and she no longer fits in his way of things. Devastated at first, Rani vows to go solo to her honeymoon, to Paris and Amsterdam, as it’s already been paid for in full. She forms a friendship with a bohemian woman (Lisa Haydon) in her Paris sojourn, spends time with a group of backpackers from different backgrounds in Amsterdam, wins a culinary competition by making paani puri, and even kisses the chef who had organised the event. Through the journey, she realises who she really is and also understands she doesn’t need to be married to someone to find happiness. Kangana was a delight to watch. The Amsterdam scenes, her first kiss or her standing up to Rajkummar Rao’s character were all screen-stealers.
6. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Tanu Weds Manu 2 (2015)
Director: Aanand L RaiCast: Kangana Ranaut, Madhavan, Jimmy Shergill, Deepak Dobriyal, Rajesh Sharma
The film was a direct sequel to the 2011 hit Tanu Weds Manu. Four years into their marriage, Tanu (Kangana Ranaut) and Manu (Madhavan) are facing a rough patch in their relationship. They are constantly bickering and even couple counselling doesn’t seem to work. It seems that divorce is the only solution. Manu meets Datto (Kangana again) a Haryanvi athlete at this juncture and falls for her at first sight. She too gets smitten by him and is willing to get married to him despite knowing he’s already married. Tanu lands in between them at this juncture to save her marriage and what follows is an emotional roller coaster ride filled with laughter. Kangana gave one of her most layered performances in Tanu Weds Manu Returns (2015), where she played a double role. She excelled as Datto, a Haryanvi athlete, who falls in love with a married man and has some hard choices to make. Her lingo, diction, mannerisms were word perfect. The writer (Himanshu Sharma) may have written the lines but she lived them, making her breakdown in the end heart-searing.
7. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Simran (2017)
Director: Hansal MehtaCast: Kangana Ranaut, Mark Justice, Soham Shah, Hiten Kumar
The Simran Movie is reportedly based on the exploits of a real person. Kangana played a woman who develops a fetish for robbing banks. Praful Patel (Kangana Ranaut) is a young divorcee who lives with her parents and works in the housekeeping department in one of the five-star hotels in Atlanta. She has a troubled relationship with her father (Hiten Kumar), who always berates her for not being the perfect Gujarati girl. She becomes addicted to gambling and to clear her debts, takes a big loan from a loan shark. They come after her and to pay them off, she takes to robbing small banks. Her parents have set her up with a prospective groom called Sameer (Sohum Shah), she likes him but she feels she isn’t worthy of him. She does surrender herself to the police on his advice after her last heist goes bad. She’s let off early because of good behaviour but her relationship with her parents remains cantankerous. The film was an outlandish proposition indeed but Kangana made it all look believable through her straight-from-the-heart performance.
8. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi (2019)
Director: Kangana Ranaut, Radha Krishna JagarlamudiCast: Kangana Ranaut, Atul Kulkarni, Jisshu Sengupta, Suresh Oberoi, Danny Denzongpa, Ankita Lokhande
Controversy dogged the film throughout. Director Krish left the project, as did most of the technical team. Kangana took over the reins, got another team together and ploughed on. The resulting film was high on patriotism and did full justice to Rani Laxmibai, despite its frayed edges. Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi was one of our foremost freedom fighters who staged an armed revolt against the might of the British. She not only personally made life hell for the British, but her immortal deeds also inspired millions to revolt against the British Empire even after her death. Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s famous poem Jhansi Ki Rani is a prime example of how inspiring her life was as Chauhan wrote it during the height of India’s freedom struggle against the British and the poem ignited the flame of patriotism in many hearts. Kangana looks to the manor born playing Laxmibai. She channels the spirit of the warrior queen and is her fierce best in war scenes and also manages to give us a glimpse of the icon's soft side. Manikarnika is a moving saga indeed and one we can all take inspiration from when it comes to emulating resolve and valour.
9. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Judgementall Hai Kya (2019)
Director: Prakash KovelamudiCast: Kangana Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao
It's another female-centric film that leads you across numerous red herrings before finally reaching the denouement. Bobby (Kangana Ranaut) suffers from a kind of multiple personality disorder because she witnessed the accidental death of her parents as a child. She's a dubbing artiste in films and has the habit of taking over the personality of the character she's dubbing. She also yearns to be an actor and gets herself photographed in the get up of the characters she was dubbing for. She becomes obsessed with a young man Keshav (Rajkummar Rao) moves into her bungalow as a tenant with his wife Reema (Amyra Dastur). She's somehow convinced Keshav will kill his wife. Things take a drastic turn when Reema is killed in a kitchen accident. Bobby tells the police of her suspicions but they don't listen to her, treating it as an accidental death. Two years later, their paths dramatically cross and the cycle of suspicion starts all over again.
10. Best Film of Kangana Ranaut - Panga (2020)
Director: Ashwiny Iyer TiwariCast: Kangana Ranaut, Jassi Gill, Richa Chadda, Neena Gupta
Panga is a sports drama revolving around second chances. Jaya Nigam (Kangana Ranaut) is a world-class Kabaddi player who gets a job in the Railways under the sports quota and later kind of loses her identity under the realities of being a wife and a mother. She plans on making a comeback to the game at the age of 32. Aided by a supportive husband Prashant Shrivastava (Jassi Gill) and her son Adi (Yagya Bhasin) as well as a diehard coach Meenu (Richa Chadda), who was her ex-teammate, she hits the gym once more to get match fit. How she faces the travails of getting back in peak physical form as well as societal pressures form the crux of this uplifting film. Kangana Ranaut lives and breathes Jaya. She makes you realise the pain of a faded athlete who has to compromise on her dreams. You relate to her joy when life gives her a second chance. Her constant worry for her child is real and so is her happiness while playing the sport she loves. She has a no-makeup look throughout and her physical transformation too is laudable.
More on: 10 Best Films of Kangana Ranaut, Kangana Ranaut Movies, Kangana Ranaut Debut Film, Gangster, Fashion, Tanu Weds Manu, Krrish 3, Queen, Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Simran, Manikarnika The Queen Of Jhansi, Judgementall Hai Kya, Panga, Kangana PerformanceSHOW COMMENTS
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