Updated 25 October 2026: Hindi cinema has been making cricket films since Dev Anand played a star cricketer from Jhansi in Love Marriage (1959). Our list now runs to 32 of them, up to Doosra in 2026, with the biggest box-office earners and the films worth watching first.
Lagaan (2001)
Ashutosh Gowariker’s film, produced by and starring Aamir Khan, is set in 1893 in a village in Central India, where farmers burdened by high taxes take on their British rulers at cricket. It was the third Indian film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, after Mother India (1957) and Salaam Bombay! (1988), and it won eight Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor.
83 (2021)
Kabir Khan’s film retells India’s 1983 World Cup win, with Ranveer Singh as Kapil Dev and an ensemble cast as the rest of the squad. It premiered at the Red Sea International Film Festival on 15 December 2021 and opened worldwide on 24 December.
M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016)
Neeraj Pandey’s biopic of the former India captain stars Sushant Singh Rajput as Dhoni. It opened on 30 September 2016 on about 4,500 screens in 61 countries, the widest release a Bollywood film had had, and its estimated ₹216 crore gross is the highest of any film on this list. The film leaves out several episodes of Dhoni’s career, among them the 2013 IPL spot-fixing case.
Iqbal (2005)
Nagesh Kukunoor’s film follows a deaf and mute boy from a remote village, played by Shreyas Talpade, who dreams of playing cricket for India. Naseeruddin Shah plays the coach who helps him. Iqbal won the National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues, and Shah won Best Supporting Actor.
Kai Po Che! (2013)
Abhishek Kapoor adapted Chetan Bhagat’s novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life. Sushant Singh Rajput, in his first film, plays Ish, a former district-level cricketer who opens a sports shop and cricket academy with two friends (Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh) and starts training a gifted young cricketer, Ali.
Ghoomer (2023)
In R. Balki’s film, Saiyami Kher plays a batting prodigy who loses her right hand in an accident, and Abhishek Bachchan the failed Test cricketer who rebuilds her as a bowler. It opened the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne on 12 August 2023 and reached Indian cinemas on 18 August.
Women’s cricket on screen
In Dil Bole Hadippa! (2009), Rani Mukerji plays a young woman who pretends to be a man to play cricket. Shabaash Mithu (2022) is Srijit Mukherji’s biopic of former India captain Mithali Raj, with Taapsee Pannu in the title role. In Kacchey Limbu, which premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and began streaming on JioCinema on 19 May 2023, Radhika Madan plays a young woman who takes on her elder brother, who dreams of playing for India, in a gully cricket tournament. Mr. & Mrs. Mahi (2024) casts Janhvi Kapoor as a doctor who gives up medicine for cricket, with Rajkummar Rao as her husband. Chakda ’Xpress, with Anushka Sharma as Jhulan Goswami, has still not been released.
Biopics and true stories
Emraan Hashmi plays Mohammad Azharuddin in Azhar (2016). Shreyas Talpade returned to cricket in Kaun Pravin Tambe?, the story of the cricketer Pravin Tambe, which premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 1 April 2022. Sachin: A Billion Dreams (2017), directed by James Erskine, is a documentary on Sachin Tendulkar’s life, with dialogue in Marathi, Hindi and English.
The newest film on the list, Abhinay Deo’s Doosra, mixes documentary and drama and builds to India’s win over England in the 2002 NatWest Series final at Lord’s, when Sourav Ganguly waved his shirt from the balcony. It was scheduled for release in cinemas on 23 October 2026.
More cricket dramas
In Patiala House (2011), directed by Nikkhil Advani, Akshay Kumar plays Gattu, a fast bowler loosely based on Monty Panesar, opposite Rishi Kapoor as his father. Jersey (2022), Gowtam Tinnanuri’s Hindi remake of his own 2019 Telugu film, stars Shahid Kapoor as a former cricketer who returns to the game for his son. Victory (2009) features cameos by current and former international cricketers from seven countries, and in Torbaaz (2020, Netflix), Sanjay Dutt plays a former army doctor who builds a cricket team from boys in an Afghan refugee camp.
Highest-grossing Hindi cricket films
| Rank | Film | Year | Reported gross (₹ crore) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story | 2016 | 216 |
| 2 | 83 | 2021 | 193.73 |
| 3 | Kai Po Che! | 2013 | 83 |
| 4 | Lagaan | 2001 | 65.97 |
| 5 | Azhar | 2016 | 52.88 |
| 6 | Mr. & Mrs. Mahi | 2024 | 51.96 |
| 7 | Dil Bole Hadippa! | 2009 | 46.12 |
| 8 | Ferrari Ki Sawaari | 2012 | 45.69 |
| 9 | Jannat | 2008 | 41.5 |
| 10 | Patiala House | 2011 | 35.3 |
Complete list of Hindi cricket movies
| Film | Year | Lead cast | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| Love Marriage | 1959 | Dev Anand, Mala Sinha | Subodh Mukherjee |
| All Rounder | 1984 | Kumar Gaurav, Rati Agnihotri | Mohan Kumar |
| Awwal Number | 1990 | Dev Anand, Aamir Khan | Dev Anand |
| Chamatkar | 1992 | Naseeruddin Shah, Shah Rukh Khan | Rajiv Mehra |
| Lagaan | 2001 | Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh | Ashutosh Gowariker |
| Stumped | 2003 | Raveena Tandon | Gaurav Pandey |
| Iqbal | 2005 | Shreyas Talpade, Naseeruddin Shah | Nagesh Kukunoor |
| Hattrick | 2007 | Rimi Sen, Kunal Kapoor | Milan Luthria |
| Say Salaam India | 2007 | Sanjay Suri, Milind Soman | Subhash Kapoor |
| Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii | 2007 | Rahul Bose, Zain Khan | Karanjeet Saluja |
| Jannat | 2008 | Emraan Hashmi, Sonal Chauhan | Kunal Deshmukh |
| Meerabai Not Out | 2008 | Mandira Bedi, Mahesh Manjrekar | Chandrakant Kulkarni |
| Victory | 2009 | Harman Baweja, Amrita Rao | Ajit Pal Mangat |
| Dil Bole Hadippa! | 2009 | Rani Mukerji, Shahid Kapoor | Anurag Singh |
| World Cupp 2011 | 2009 | Ravi Kapoor, Prem Chopra | Ravi Kapoor |
| Patiala House | 2011 | Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia | Nikkhil Advani |
| Ferrari Ki Sawaari | 2012 | Sharman Joshi, Boman Irani | Rajesh Mapuskar |
| Kai Po Che! | 2013 | Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh | Abhishek Kapoor |
| Azhar | 2016 | Emraan Hashmi, Lara Dutta | Anthony D’Souza |
| M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story | 2016 | Sushant Singh Rajput, Disha Patani | Neeraj Pandey |
| Sachin: A Billion Dreams (documentary) | 2017 | Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni | James Erskine |
| The Zoya Factor | 2019 | Dulquer Salmaan, Sonam Kapoor | Abhishek Sharma |
| Torbaaz | 2020 | Sanjay Dutt, Nargis Fakhri | Girish Malik |
| 83 | 2021 | Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone | Kabir Khan |
| Kaun Pravin Tambe? | 2022 | Shreyas Talpade, Ashish Vidyarthi | Jayprad Desai |
| Jersey | 2022 | Shahid Kapoor, Mrunal Thakur | Gowtam Tinnanuri |
| Shabaash Mithu | 2022 | Taapsee Pannu, Mumtaz Sorcar | Srijit Mukherji |
| Kacchey Limbu | 2022 | Radhika Madan, Rajat Barmecha | Shubham Yogi |
| Ghoomer | 2023 | Abhishek Bachchan, Saiyami Kher | R. Balki |
| Hukus Bukus | 2023 | Darsheel Safary, Arun Govil | Vinay Bhardwaj |
| Mr. & Mrs. Mahi | 2024 | Rajkummar Rao, Janhvi Kapoor | Sharan Sharma |
| Doosra | 2026 | Plabita Borthakur, Ankur Vikal | Abhinay Deo |
Feature image courtesy: Twitter/ Aamir Khan Productions