Although her debut film was the forgettable Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat (1997) and the hazel-eyed beauty made audiences take notice of her in Ghulam (1998), it wasn’t until Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) that Rani Mukerji properly arrived in Bollywood. On paper, Tina was part of the supporting cast in Karan Johar’s debut feature, but Mukerji was a scene stealer. Holding her own next to Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, Mukerji presented a modern Indian woman who was sassy, glamorous and charming. She was as comfortable in impossibly tiny skirts as she was singing bhajan. She was kind, confident and defied death in order to be a good mother to her daughter. Mukerji’s luminous performance brought Tina to the centrestage. The actor would do this again and again in the course of her career — take small roles and make them so unforgettable that they became the most memorable part of a film.
To Mukerji’s credit, she seems to be one of those actors who delights in taking on roles that most would hesitate to do. She’s pushed the audience to be open-minded, often gone against the obvious prettiness of her features, and resisted being typecast. Along the way, this has led to some perplexing choices — like Chori Chori Chupke Chupke (2001), one of the most maudlin stories on surrogacy that we’ve had the misfortune to see; and Dil Bole Hadippa! (2009), in which Mukerji played a woman cricketer who turns to drag in order to qualify for the Indian team. There’s a lot that Mukerji can portray, but a diminutive Sardar isn’t one of them. Her recent turn as the titular character in Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway (2023) is, for most part, too shrieky and feels laboured in its attempt to be a star vehicle for the actor. However, you can’t have a career of 26 years (and counting) without a few missteps. At her best, Mukerji lights up every frame she’s in and reminds you that strong women come in various shapes and forms. While we look forward to the stories she chooses to tell in the next stage of her career, here are 10 standout performances from Rani Mukerji’s filmography so far.
Inspired by the life of deafblind activist Helen Keller, the role of Michelle McNally is one that could either be a showcase of an actor’s talent or a tombstone to their potential. Fortunately for Mukerji, Black proved to be the former. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali wrote the role with her in mind and as Michelle, the actor filled every on-screen moment with sincerity. There’s a lot that feels beautiful but artificial in the world that Bhansali crafted in Black and it is to Mukerji’s credit that her Michelle doesn’t feel fake despite details that initially seem to verge on caricature, like the shuffling walk and exaggerated gestures. This is a performance that’s special for the details, the tiny but rich glints of emotion that fill moments like the one in which Michelle gets a walking stick as a prize for having secured admission to a college. Competing with Mukerji for the audience’s attention were Ravi Chandran’s spectacular cinematography and the performances of Ayesha Kapur (who played the young Michelle with spellbinding intensity) and Amitabh Bachchan as Debraj, Michelle’s teacher who eventually succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease. For all its theatricality, Black is one of those films that leaves you in a puddle of tears and Mukerji’s performance is one of the most poignant weapons in the film’s emotional arsenal.
Mukerji was on fire in this thoroughly enjoyable romantic comedy about a middle-class Marathi woman who falls in love with a man ostensibly because of his smell. Her Meenakshi is a lusty, feisty and charming young Punekar who lives with one foot in reality and the other in fantasy. Director Sachin Kundalkar utilised the actor’s comic timing to great effect and Mukerji was resplendent in a role that let her play both a regular, everyday woman as well as a diva. She flitted with effortless grace between Meenakshi’s real-life simplicity and a kitschy glamourous dream world in which Meenakshi channels 1980s’ Bollywood. Even now, there are very few films in mainstream Hindi cinema which celebrate feminine desire the way Aiyyaa did. We can also thank the film’s song sequences for some legendary GIFs, like the one in which Mukerji lounges in a golden bathtub, wearing dark glasses and a gorgeous Nauvari sari, while being showered with cash.
In an ensemble film overflowing with strong characters, Mukerji stood out for playing someone who starts off as passive and is ultimately broken by her circumstances. As Sashi, a downtrodden housewife who remains steadfastly loyal to her abusive husband, Mukerji was the epitome of pathos. She made every moment in a small role count and her performance added richness and depth to Abhishek Bachchan’s portrayal of the thug Lallan Singh. In Yuva, Sashi is much like Lallan’s conscience. She has only one identity — being Lallan’s wife — and Mukerji made sure that this singular focus didn’t feel like a limitation. Her performance made abrupt transitions, like the shift from Lallan beating Sashi to Sashi singing the sweetly-romantic “Kabhi Neem Neem” to him, feel credible and added complexity to Lallan and Sashi’s relationship. This was a role that could easily have felt marginal, but Mukerji brought Sashi to life, making you feel for this woman whose innocence and love splinters into desperate sadness. Yuva is an excellent example of a film in which Mukerji made a big impact with a small role.
Meera Gaity was a force of nature and one of Hindi cinema’s truly heroic on-screen journalists. Based on the real-life investigation of model Jessica Lal’s murder, No One Killed Jessica had at its heart the quiet Sabrina (Vidya Balan) who makes powerful enemies when she determines to get justice for her dead sister. Mukerji played the foul-mouthed spitfire of a journalist, Meera. In terms of screen time, it’s a small role, but Mukerji packed a fantastic punch as an arrogant, unrelenting and irrepressible journalist. Meera was a far cry from the cheerful sweetness that had become Mukerji’s brand at the time, having starred in hit romantic comedies. Instead, she’s a woman who swears at a fan because they annoyed her; pranks her colleague in the middle of a sting operation; and abandons a one-night stand with the suggestion he “fly solo” because she’s urgently needed in the newsroom. Meera is a journalist who cares less about ethics and more about the truth. In one scene, while presenting the footage from a sting, she asks, “Is the truth only what can be proved in court? Or it what is actually the truth?” It’s a question that remains relevant today. The only difference is that it’s difficult to imagine a character from a mainstream Hindi film asking it.
Mukerji’s comedic skills were on full display in this glorious madcap adventure featuring two con artists who fall in love while scamming the super rich. As one half of the desi Bonnie and Clyde, Mukerji pulled out all the stops. Charming, funny and frequently unhinged, Vimmi, aka Babli, is a delight to watch. Try keeping a straight face while she dances to “Ramba Ho” or when she poses as Tourism minister Phoolsakhiji and leases the Taj Mahal to the seventh-richest man in the world. Nestled in the fluffy humour and crazy capers are hints of more serious ideas, like the frustration of those with growing aspirations, the claustrophobia of small-town India and a feeling of discontent that’s relatable to so many who are young. Mukerji was fantastic as Vimmi, bringing grace and good cheer to the role of an ambitious woman who isn’t taken seriously by those around her.
At one point in this film, there’s a top shot that shows the hero Saketh (Kamal Haasan) sitting at a piano, with his wife Aparna (Mukerji) lying on the floor so that her head is on his feet and visible between his parted thighs. It takes some serious screen presence to turn a composition as ridiculous as this into something that feels oddly sensual. Mukerji is one of those rare actors who could convince you to focus on Aparna and the power of her desire and desirability, subtly subverting a pose that places her literally at her lover’s feet. Aparna is a blink-and-miss-it role in Hey Ram, but thanks to Mukerji’s performance, she’s one of the most memorable parts of a film that has only become more relevant with the passage of time. On paper, Aparna exists only to be brutally murdered and thus pushing Saketh into a path of violence. The scene in which she’s killed was met with much criticism for its graphic violence. However, Mukerji’s portrayal of Aparna as a passionate Bengali woman who is characterised by sensuality and strength of character, made sure you remembered her for how she was in life, rather than the gruesome moment of her death.
At a time when romances were mostly simple boy-meets-girl stories, here was a story in which two people become friends first, live independent lives and find their way to each other after much meandering. Hum Tum was a fun watch because of the chemistry between Mukerji and Saif Ali Khan who played the lead pair of Rhea and Karan. While in Hollywood the manic pixie girl was the stereotype that dominated rom-coms, in Indian romances, the heroine was usually the docile Good Girl who valued tradition and believed in just One True Love. Rhea, in contrast, is a portrait of the upwardly-mobile, urban woman. From being the first person in her colony to study abroad, she becomes a designer and establishes herself in Paris, navigating her way through the grief of losing her husband within a year of their wedding. Rhea’s love story with Karan is grounded on a solid friendship and Mukerji’s portrayal of Rhea makes her one of the most relatable and enjoyable performances of a modern Indian woman.
Set aside the glycerine tears and toxic masculinity in this film and Johar’s bittersweet ode to mature romance is actually engaging and even thought-provoking. Unlike his usual candy-floss characters, in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna the protagonists are flawed and have shades of grey. Mukerji played arguably the toughest role in the film — Maya is on autopilot when she marries her childhood friend, who is clearly besotted with her. The marriage soon starts feeling like a golden cage and then along comes temptation in the form of the unhappily-married Dev (Shah Rukh Khan). The adulterous Dev and Maya are well-matched because they both feel like failures. Rather than being slick and smooth — that would be Preity Zinta and Abhishek Bachchan’s characters in the film — Dev and Maya are whiny, miserable people and despite this, Mukerji is able to make us care for Maya. She charms us with her watery grins and makes some astoundingly bad dialogues feel poignant. It’s a small-scale miracle.
No one would have thought there was a macho mama in Rani Mukerji until she appeared on screen as the police officer Shivani Shivaji Roy. Liberal with verbal abuse, casually violent — there’s a scene in which Shivani successfully turns jalebis into a torture device — and unimpeachably honest, Shivani was nothing like any of the roles Mukerji had played so far. The character belongs to an august cinematic tradition of the heroic cop and she arrived on the Hindi film scene at a time when angry women who don’t shy away from violence were starting to claim the spotlight. (Balan had appeared as a cold-blooded assassin in Kahaani in 2012. Anushka Sharma would give a whole new dimension to road rage with NH10 in 2015.) Mukerji’s ease with the action scenes in Mardaani came as a revelation. This was action that made you want to break out in applause while she went around breaking limbs like they were Kit-Kats. Admittedly, the use of violence in Mardaani — against both girls and men — is disturbing and the final solution that it offers is problematic, but Mukerji’s portrayal of Shivani was undeniably charismatic.
The Hindi remake of Mani Ratnam’s Alaipayuthey (2000) is simple in its exploration of the trials of being young and married, but Mukerji claimed the spotlight with her portrayal of Suhani, who is effectively an embodiment of the spirit of Mumbai. Vivacious, practical and grounded in her middle-class values, Suhani saw Mukerji in a relatively deglamourised role. Her home is a small apartment she shares with family in a railway colony. She wears clothes that look everyday, uses public transport and prioritises her career over her personal life when at the eve of a critical set of exams, Aditya (Vivek Oberoi) proposes to her. At every point, Suhani comes across as a level-headed young woman, the kind you could bump into while commuting on a ladies’ special local train in Mumbai. There’s nothing particularly complex about Suhani or Saathiya, but Mukerji is still a joy to watch.