Nana Patekar, a legendary actor, passed away at 75, leaving behind a legacy of iconic performances. From intense roles in 'Parinda' and 'Prahaar' to heartfelt portrayals in 'Khamoshi' and 'Natsamrat,' his career spanned nearly five decades. Explore his best works on OTT platforms to celebrate his unparalleled contribution to Indian cinema.
Vishwanath "Nana" Patekar passed away this morning at the age of 75, after a cardiac arrest at his home in Goa. Amid controversies and felicitations, he leaves behind nearly five decades of work that defined range in Hindi cinema. He barked, he whispered, and he once played an entire film without a word of dialogue and still walked off with it. Below are the best Nana Patekar movies to watch right now, listed in order of release.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parinda follows two brothers entangled in the Bombay underworld, where the man in charge is Anna Seth. Nana plays Anna with the menace that makes every shouting henchman around him look like a two-day-old trainee. He rarely raises his voice. In fact, he never needs to. Just a question asked at his signature drawling pace does the work of a loaded gun. The performance earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor and became the template for the Hindi screen gangster that filmmakers have been reverting to ever since.
Where to watch: Prime Video
Nana directed Prahaar and cast himself as Major Pratap Chauhan, a soldier who runs a cadet training camp. The crux of the story, however, is when he has to watch the city's gangsters tear through the people he has trained. So what happens when a man who has organised his life around rules meets a world with none? Nana plays the Major as furious and upright, with a flicker of bewilderment underneath; the confusion that comes from confronting a very different world from the one you have always known is true.
Where to watch: YouTube
Mehul Kumar's massive blockbuster is about - you guessed it - a revolutionary who takes the law into his own hands when bureaucracy offers him none. Nana plays Pratap Narayan Tilak, a jaded cynic who mocks idealism until the injustice around him becomes impossible to laugh off. He won the National Film Award for Best Actor for the role, and he reportedly shot the climax straight after leaving the hospital after a severe heart condition.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Zee5
In this psychological thriller, Suraj Kapoor (Jackie Shroff) and his wife Shivangi (Manisha Koirala) are celebrating their honeymoon when a stranger (Nana Patekar) claims she is his wife. The performance won him the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Jackie Shroff and Manisha Koirala hold up their end, but the room belongs to Nana whenever he walks into it.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Zee5
Sanjay Leela Bhansali's debut centres on Annie (Manisha Koirala), a young woman who lives for music, and her parents, who cannot hear a note of it. Nana plays Joseph Braganza, her proud deaf-mute father, whose love and anxiety have to travel entirely through his face and hands. Stripped of his famous voice, Nana delivers one of the most expressive performances in Hindi cinema.
Where to watch: Prime Video, JioHotstar
Inspired by the life of real-life sub-inspector Daya Nayak, Shimit Amin's Ab Tak Chhappan follows Inspector Sadhu Agashe, a Mumbai encounter specialist renowned for having killed 56 people in encounters. Except that Agashe is caught between a police force that only wants results and a larger social system that wants deniability. Nana plays Agashe with the weariness of a man excellent at his job, but one who is slowly learning what the job has made of him.
Where to watch: Prime Video, SonyLIV
In this underrated class comedy, we follow Raghav, a working-class cabbie, and Jai Mittal, a rich businessman's son played by John Abraham. But in his rush, when the taxi gets into an accident, Jai flees the scene, and a comedy of errors continues.
Nana plays Raghav as a man with a short fuse and a long memory, and he out-acts everyone in the film. Before Welcome made him famous for his comic timing, Taxi No. 9 2 11 did the job.
Where to watch: Prime Video
Anees Bazmee's Welcome took an actor famous for his villain roles and made him a comedy icon. Nana plays Uday Shetty, a gangster who wants nothing more than a respectable marriage for his sister. Also, a not-so-fun, fun fact: both the actors of the iconic Ballu-Uday duo of Welcome passed away within fifteen days of each other.
Where to watch: Prime Video, JioHotstar
Prakash Jha's Raajneeti reimagines the Mahabharata as a political family drama, with warring cousins fighting over a party's legacy. Nana plays Brij Gopal, the cunning counsellor who guides Ranbir Kapoor's Samar and serves as the film's answer to Krishna. Brij has a dry, watchful wit, but his interpretation of Lord Krishna comes with the tiredness of a man who has seen too much to be joyous about everything around him.
Where to watch: Prime Video
One of the best roles in Patekar’s career, Natsamrat is what Baghban wishes it could be. Nana plays Ganpat Belwalkar, a celebrated stage actor who retires at the peak of his fame, hands everything he owns to his children, and then discovers what their gratitude is worth. It’s a Marathi movie, but bear with the subtitles for this one; it is more than worth it.
Where to watch: Prime Video