From starting out as a character actor with blink-and-miss appearances to becoming a household name in his own right, Pankaj Tripathi has had quite a career in Bollywood and the Hindi OTT space. If you too are an admirer of the compelling Kaleen Bhaiya from Mirzapur, then we have you covered with a definitive list of the best Pankaj Tripathi movies and TV shows to watch.
Where can you stream Pankaj Tripathi’s movies and shows?
You can watch most of Pankaj Tripathi’s early works on popular OTT services like Netflix, Prime Video, Jio Cinema, Eros Now and so on. To watch most of his recent titles, Tripathi has been dabbling in many platform exclusives like Netflix (Sacred Games, Ludo), Prime Video (Mirzapur), Hotstar (Criminal Justice) and ZEE5 (Kadak Singh).
But how did Pankaj Tripathi go from acting as gangster henchmen to a suburban godfather in Mirzapur? Have a look at his versatile journey so far.
Wasseypur/Mirzapur: A Tale of Two Cities
Pankaj Tripathi struggled with early uncredited or blink-and-miss appearances in the Kannada movie Chigurida Kanasu and acclaimed Hindi titles like Omkara, Bunty Aur Babli, and Apaharan. But it was Anurag Kashyap’s two-part crime epic Gangs of Wasseypur where he truly began to be recognised in the mainstream.
Hurling a grenade and uttering obscenities in the very opening minutes of the hyper-violent period drama, Tripathi played the smart-mouthed gangster Sultan Quereshi. Appearing in a few yet crucial scenes and getting to deliver quotable dialogues, Tripathi paved the way for playing well-layered criminal characters in his future filmography.
The neo-noir Gurgaon, for instance, found him playing a criminal family patriarch while he had a more hilarious turn as a soft-hearted goon in the Netflix anthology Ludo. It’s not surprising that his Hollywood debut Extraction also featured him as a ruthless mobster.
Perhaps his best character on the other side of the law is another tough patriarch in Mirzapur, the Prime Video original crime drama that benefited greatly from Tripathi’s nonchalant dialogue delivery as the show’s overarching antagonist Akhanda Tripathi aka Kaleen Bhaiya.
Further acclaim with Newton and beyond
Newton was a dramatic highlight in Tripathi’s career with the actor playing a cynical paramilitary official who was at ideological odds with Rajkumar Rao’s idealist government servant. Playing a morally grey character with deadpan humour and grim realism, Tripathi finally could display his full dramatic range and earned his first Filmfare nomination.
While Tripathi has had a long line of villainous roles, his performances can also evoke empathy and warmth. When it comes to playing caring and supporting fathers, Tripathi has found his niche with acclaimed performances in Bareilly Ki Barfi, Gunjan Saxena, and OMG 2.
A notable performance with Tripathi in the lead includes Kaagaz that followed him portraying a farmer and activist who fights against the Indian bureaucracy after his name is wiped off government records.
Other lead roles include a village leader-turned-tiger hunter in the Netflix adventure drama Sherdil, and an investigator with retrograde amnesia in the cerebral thriller Kadak Singh. And taking charge in an OTT series like Criminal Justice, the once-ignored actor has successfully carved his niche in numerous genres.
Why is Sacred Games Pankaj Tripathi’s best work to watch?
While Sacred Games was a trailblazer in Indian streaming from its first season itself, it’s Pankaj Tripathi’s hair-raising performance as a brainwashing godman in season 2 that made this Netflix original all the more compelling to watch.
The International Emmy-nominated series is a gritty neo-noir with career-best performances from Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. As for Tripathi, he evokes fear and awe in his villainous turn as Khanna Guruji, a character that has only been all the more socially relevant with time.
