Disha Patani

Debut and early success (2015–2020)

Patani debuted with a Telugu film, Loafer alongside Varun Tej in 2015. She plays the role of Mouni, a girl who runs from home to escape a forced marriage. Directed by Puri Jagannadh and produced by C. Kalyan under C.K. Entertainment, the film was made on a budget of ₹200 million and performed poorly at the box office with a lifetime collection of ₹106 million. In the following year, Disha appeared in a music video, Befikra along with Tiger Shroff which was produced by Bhushan Kumar and Krishan Kumar under T-Series and composed by Meet Bros. Written and directed by Meet Bros, the singer, Aditi Singh Sharma lent her voice.^[10]

Patani found her commercial break with Neeraj Pandey's M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, a biographical sports film based on the life story of MS Dhoni, the former captain of the Indian Cricket Team along with Sushant Singh Rajput and Kiara Advani.^[11] She plays the role of Priyanka Jha, the girlfriend of Rajput's character who dies in a car accident. Directed by Neeraj Pandey, the film emerged as a major commercial success, earning over ₹2.16 billion (US$26 million).^[12] Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama and Shubhra Gupta from The Indian Express both commended Patani on a strong debut.^[13][14] At the IIFA Awards, she won the IIFA Award for Star Debut of the Year – Female). She also featuredin Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Yoga, along with Sonu Sood.^[15]

Patani starred opposite Tiger Shroff in Baaghi 2, the second instalment of the Baaghi franchise. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV wrote, "Patani is a pretty sight all right but is only required to sleepwalk through her role".^[16] Grossing over ₹258 crore (US$31 million) worldwide, the film ranks among the highest-grossing Hindi films of 2018.^[17][18][19] In 2019, Patani appeared in a brief role in the action drama film Bharat starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif.^[20] The film was a commercial success and one of the year's highest grosser.^[21] She began the new decade with Mohit Suri's action thriller film Malang co-starring Aditya Roy Kapur, Anil Kapoor and Kunal Khemu. Writing for Bollywood Hungama wrote that she, "gets the most screen time ever she looks gorgeous and delivers a heart-warming performance".^[22][23] It was a moderate commercial success.^[24] The following month, she appeared in a song for the film Baaghi 3, the third instalment of the Baaghi franchise.^[25]

Commercial fluctuations and setbacks (2021–present)

In 2021, Patani reunited with Salman Khan as the leading lady in Prabhu Deva's Radhe, which was delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[26] The film was released coinciding with Eid al-Fitr, as premium video on demand on Zee Plex through ZEE5. Although the film had strong viewership on OTT, it was panned by critics.^[27] In 2022, Patani played a proxy killer in Mohit Suri's psychological thriller Ek Villain Returns opposite John Abraham.^[28] It underperformed commercially.^[29] Sukanya Vema of Rediff dismissed Patani's character as derivative.^[30]

In her first release of 2024, Patani played a terrorist disguised as an air hostess in the Sidharth Malhotra-starrer Yodha, which was too a delayed release.^[31][32] Pratikshya Mishra of The Quint termed Patani a "potential action star", while praising her fight sequence, but added that her dialogues fail to make an impact.^[33] The film emerged as a box-office bomb.^[34] The same year she had a brief role of Roxie which critics describing it as an "unnecessary" and "out of place" 10-minute cameo of Bhairava's love interest (played by Prabhas) in the Telugu film Kalki 2898 AD.^[35][36] The film was a major success commercially earning over ₹12 billion (US$140 million), emerging as the year's highest-grossing Indian film and Patani's first success since Malang.^[37][38] Following this, she expanded to Tamil films with Kanguva, playing a bounty hunter opposite Suriya.^[39] The film opened to mixed reviews with criticism for her "insignificant part" from India Today's Janani K.^[40] It underperformed at the box office.^[41]

After no release in 2025, she briefly appeared in Vishal Bhardwaj ensemble romantic action O'Romeo starrer Shahid Kapoor where she played Julie a dancer which felt unnecessarily and fail to leave a mark.^[42][43] She will next star in Emraan Hashmi's romantic drama Awarapan 2 a sequel which is scheduled to release in April 2026.^[44]

Films

• All films are in Hindi unless otherwise noted.

Television shows