Karan Johar

Johar grew up inside the business. He is the son of the producer Yash Johar, he took a small acting part as Rocky in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge in 1995, and three years later he directed Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, which became one of the most influential Hindi films of its decade.

What he did with that film, and then with Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham in 2001, was fix a template: enormous families, designer clothes, songs shot in Europe, a moral universe in which the worst available crime is disappointing your parents, and a running time that treats three hours as a starting position rather than a limit. It played extraordinarily well to Indian audiences abroad, and for years afterwards the Hindi blockbuster was in conversation with it, whether it agreed or not.

The interesting part is that he appears to have grown bored of his own formula. Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna in 2006 is a film about adultery from the man who built an industry on family sanctity. My Name Is Khan in 2010 is his post-9/11 film about prejudice. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil in 2016 is about love that is not returned, and it declines to fix that. He is a better director of actors than he tends to get credit for, and a much worse editor of himself.

Alongside the directing he runs Dharma Productions and has launched a long list of careers through it, hosts the interview show Koffee with Karan, wrote the memoir An Unsuitable Boy, and has become one of the most recognisable public figures in Indian cinema. His films have collected National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards, and he was given the Padma Shri in 2020.