Diljit Dosanjh’s Best Film Performances

It’s no longer a surprise that Diljit Dosanjh is good in a film — the only question now is how good, and in what register. Over the last decade, the singer-actor has gradually redefined what versatility can look like in the context of mainstream Indian cinema. Without courting the traditional Hindi film hero arc, he’s constructed a body of work marked by restraint and unexpected choices. There’s a reason he rarely seems out of place — whether playing a grief-stricken Sikh father in Jogi, a foul-mouthed fertility patient in Good Newwz, or a haunted musical icon in Chamkila.

What sets Dosanjh apart isn’t transformation in the physical sense — he doesn’t rely on prosthetics or accents to signal range. What he does instead is calibrate. He dials up charm or quietude, lets humour bleed into grief, or pulls back when a scene begs for overstatement. Over the last few years — and especially with 2024’s Chamkila — that has changed. Dosanjh has moved from being a reliable presence to a quietly indispensable one, building a career defined less by star power than by clarity of performance.

Diljit Dosanjh Best Movie Performances

Below, a look at some of his most telling work.

Amar Singh Chamkila (2024)

Imtiaz Ali’s biopic steers clear of sensationalising Chamkila’s fame or murder, and instead offers a textured — if slightly tidy — portrait of a man caught between notoriety and worship. Dosanjh’s portrayal is unusually interior: there’s no effort to ingratiate or romanticise. He plays Chamkila as someone who is aware of his impact but detached from its consequences — a man whose artistry was shaped as much by defiance as by context.

Jogi (2022)

Set against the backdrop of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Jogi is one of the rare Hindi films to centre a Sikh character’s subjectivity without leaning into martyrdom or moral absolutism. Dosanjh plays the titular character not as a hero, but as a man making real-time decisions under impossible conditions. The script gives him room to work with subtle shifts in fear, anger, and empathy — and he uses it. The result is a restrained but deeply affecting performance that feels rooted in memory.

Udta Punjab (2016)

Udta Punjab may have been defined by its louder performances — Shahid Kapoor’s spiralling addict, Alia Bhatt’s brutalised survivor — but Dosanjh’s Sartaj Singh, a mid-level cop wrestling with complicity, is the film’s moral fulcrum. He plays it without moral grandstanding, allowing the character’s shifts in perspective to emerge organically. For a debut in Hindi cinema, it’s surprisingly self-assured — Dosanjh understood early that silence can often do more than a monologue.

Soorma (2018)

The biopic of hockey player Sandeep Singh had all the familiar beats of a sports drama, but Dosanjh kept it from collapsing under predictability. What he brings to Soorma is a refusal to perform recovery as spectacle. His depiction of physical trauma is internalised; the emotional fallout is evident not in long-winded dialogue, but in how his body carries itself differently. There’s an intelligence to how he registers embarrassment, helplessness, and resolve — not through big moments, but in the in-between spaces of a scene. It’s the kind of performance that might be easy to miss, but hard to replicate.

Good Newwz (2019)

It’s tempting to reduce Good Newwz to comic relief, and certainly, Dosanjh delivers some of his most effortlessly funny work here. But the performance works because he never slips into caricature. His humour is character-driven, not punchline-led. There’s a lived-in absurdity to how he handles the IVF mix-up plotline — exasperated, petty, but always just short of unlikable. In a film that could’ve been entirely disposable, he adds something lasting.

Detective Sherdil (2025)

A rare genre turn for Dosanjh, Detective Sherdil is a pulpy whodunnit set in Budapest — part neo-noir, part tongue-in-cheek thriller. The film doesn’t fully land, but Dosanjh understands the assignment. His performance is deliberately stylised, almost performative in its detective tropes, but always grounded by an awareness of genre conventions.

Jatt & Juliet 2 (2013)

A defining moment in Dosanjh’s early career.  This is Dosanjh in charm-forward mode — cocky, light-footed, and in complete control of comedic timing. The chemistry with Neeru Bajwa is sharp, but what really holds the film together is his ability to take a ridiculous setup and play it with straight-faced sincerity. It’s broad comedy, but not lazy. For Punjabi cinema at the time, this film signalled that Diljit wasn’t just a singer dabbling in acting — he was someone who could carry a franchise, and sell sincerity even in slapstick.