Nana Patekar Best Movies: 10 Films That Show Why His Screen Anger Had a Reason

Nana Patekar died on 8 October 2026, aged 75, after what doctors described as a severe cardiac arrest at his home in Goa. This guide is about the work he leaves behind. Nana Patekar’s films stretch from his Hindi debut in Gaman (1978) to recent roles in Housefull 5 and O’Romeo, across Hindi and Marathi cinema, and a handful of them explain why he mattered. Here are Nana Patekar’s best movies, ten films worth an evening each.

Read together, they make one argument. Plenty of actors play rage as spectacle. Patekar played it as an argument, and that made him the angriest conscience Hindi and Marathi cinema ever had.

Nana Patekar best movies: how these ten were picked

The method is simple. I began with the films named in the tributes from ANI, Business Today and The Statesman, then kept the ones that won him a National Film Award, a Filmfare Award or a Filmfare Marathi Award, or that show a side of him the rest do not. They run in release order, not ranked order. Ranking performances this different from one another would be false precision.

1. Parinda (1989): the template for his quiet menace

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Parinda is where Nana Patekar’s reputation was set. As the crime lord Anna Seth he won both the National Film Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Business Today credits the film with establishing him as a force to reckon with. In my view the ‘supporting’ label undersells the performance. Anna is the character everyone else in the film is reacting to. Watch it for the stillness: a clipped sentence, a pause a beat too long, a contempt that needs no volume. Much of what he later did with menace is already here.

2. Prahaar: The Final Attack (1991): the disciplined Patekar

This was his directorial debut, and he also acted in it. He trained for about three years for the role of an Army officer, and the film includes a young officer’s commando training at the Maratha Light Infantry Regimental Centre. Madhuri Dixit co-stars. Reports say Patekar held honorary rank in the Territorial Army, which helps explain why the uniform sits so easily on him here. Watch it for the other side of the actor known for volatility: the one who chose a disciplined institution as his subject.

3. Angaar (1992): anger as a threat

Angaar won him the first of his two Filmfare Awards for Best Villain, for the role of Majid Khan. It is the clearest case on this list of anger written as a threat, which is why it matters here. Put it beside Krantiveer two years later and you can see the same instrument aimed in a different direction.

4. Krantiveer (1994): anger with a cause

Directed by Mehul Kumar, Krantiveer gave Patekar both the National Film Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Actor, for playing Pratap Narayan Tilak, whom The Statesman calls furious. Reports say he fell ill during the shoot and filmed the climax after coming out of hospital. Nana Patekar’s Krantiveer is the film in which his anger stops being a threat and becomes something an audience is invited to trust. That shift defines the rest of his career.

5. Agni Sakshi (1996): the second National Award

Agni Sakshi brought a second National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor, for the role of Vishwanath, a sadistic husband. It earns its place because it is the darkest domestic version of the Patekar temper. Business Today and The Statesman both name it among his defining work, and it is the film that completes his set of Nana Patekar National Award wins for supporting roles.

6. Khamoshi: The Musical (1996): the quiet one

Patekar plays a deaf father opposite Manisha Koirala, and the performance earned a Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. It is the film to show anyone who thinks he only did volume. A deaf character takes away the voice the rest of his career is known for, so the performance has to live somewhere else. ANI, Business Today and The Statesman all list it among his key films.

7. Ab Tak Chhappan (2004): control instead of explosion

As the encounter-specialist police officer Sadhu Agashe, Patekar plays a man who is dangerous because he is composed. The Statesman calls Agashe controlled, and that is the right word. He returned to the role in Ab Tak Chhappan 2 in 2015. Ram Gopal Varma worked with him on Ab Tak Chhappan, and in his tribute he called Patekar the ‘GOD of acting’.

8. Apaharan (2005): the second villain award

Apaharan brought his second Filmfare Award for Best Villain, for the role of Tabrez Alam. Thirteen years after Angaar, it is proof that the villain’s side of his talent had not gone anywhere. It also means he won Filmfare Awards in the Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Villain categories, which is a rare spread.

9. Welcome (2007): menace as a punchline

As the gangster Uday Shetty, Patekar became a comic figure without losing the menace. Business Today notes it introduced his style to a new generation of viewers. The Statesman calls the character a pop-culture fixture and says Uday still turns up in every chat that needs a calm voice. Akshay Kumar, who shared the screen with him here, later called him a rare actor who never needed to do too much. Patekar reprised the role in Welcome Back (2015). In my view it works because he plays it straight: the gangster stays a gangster, and the film places him in situations where menace turns funny.

10. Natsamrat (2016): the stage king in decline

Directed by Mahesh Manjrekar, Natsamrat adapts Kusumagraj’s 1970 play. Kusumagraj was the pen name of Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar, a Jnanpith Award winner, and Shriram Lagoo played the lead on stage for a long time. The Week’s review of the film noted there was once a time when an actor was not considered good unless he had played Ganpatrao Belwalkar. The film follows Belwalkar, a retired stage actor whose family life turns tragic after he hands his wealth to his children. Vikram Gokhale plays his friend Rambhau.

It runs 166 minutes and was released on 1 January 2016, Patekar’s birthday. It was a critical and commercial success. Nana Patekar’s Natsamrat was also a film he produced, with Vishwas Joshi, and it won him the Filmfare Marathi Award for Best Actor. A man who began on stage at 13 was playing a king of the stage in decline, and he chose to produce the film too. It is hard not to read something of himself into that choice, though that is a reading, not a claim about his intent.

How his anger changed across the decades

Business Today names Ankush (1986) as his breakthrough and Parinda as the film that made him a force. The 1990s are where the range opens up: a Best Villain award for Angaar in 1992, a Best Actor award for Krantiveer in 1994, and a gentler register in Khamoshi: The Musical in 1996. The 2000s add control in Ab Tak Chhappan, a second villain award for Apaharan, and comedy in Welcome. The 2010s belong to Marathi cinema and Natsamrat. Through all of it the instrument stays the same: a voice, a stare and short, sharp dialogue, as The Statesman puts it. Only the target of the anger changes.

What the tributes noticed

The tributes after his death point the same way. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of his versatility. Akshay Kumar spoke of an actor who never had to overdo anything. Riteish Deshmukh described someone who moved between larger-than-life heroes, terrifying villains and deadpan comedy. The common thread is range with restraint, which is a hard combination to fake.

Also worth watching

Tirangaa (1993) puts him alongside Raaj Kumar. In Raajneeti (2010) he played Brij Gopal, the shrewd political mentor in a feuding family, and earned a Filmfare nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In The Attacks of 26/11 (2013) he played Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria. Business Today singles out Deool among his Marathi work, and Aapla Manus (2018), which he produced with Ajay Devgn, was adapted from Dr Vivek Bele’s play Katkon Trikon. He stayed on screen into his seventies, with a supporting role in Housefull 5 (2025), a police officer in Vishal Bhardwaj’s O’Romeo, and a cameo in Subedar.

Where to start

If you have time for three, start with Parinda for the stillness, Krantiveer for anger with a cause, and Natsamrat for the version of the actor with nothing to protect him. That sequence moves from menace to purpose to exposure, and it is the shortest route to the argument at the top of this guide.

The verdict

Patekar was a rare presence in Indian cinema because his temper always felt earned. At his best, he gave anger a reason: a gangster’s code, an Army officer’s discipline, an old actor’s wounded pride. That is why he lasted across two film industries, many genres and several generations. Hindi and Marathi cinema have lost their angriest conscience, and these ten films show how rare it is to find one.