Kartik Aaryan is one of Hindi cinema's great outsider success stories. Born Kartik Tiwari in Gwalior, he moved to Mumbai for an engineering degree and spent his college years slipping away to auditions. A now-famous seven-minute monologue in Pyaar Ka Punchnama (2011) made audiences take notice, and after a few false starts he found his groove in crowd-pleasing comedies, with Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (2018) turning him into a bankable star.

Rather than settle into the rom-com lane, Aaryan has kept stretching. He anchored the thriller Dhamaka, played a sociopath in Freddy, and transformed physically to portray Paralympic champion Murlikant Petkar in Chandu Champion (2024), a performance that won him the Filmfare Award for Best Actor. Meanwhile, the Bhool Bhulaiyaa horror-comedy franchise has given him two of the biggest hits of his generation.

Filmography Highlights

• Pyaar Ka Punchnama (2011) — Debut; his marathon rant monologue became iconic
• Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 (2015) — Hit sequel that revived his career
• Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (2018) — Breakthrough blockbuster buddy comedy
• Luka Chuppi (2019) — Small-town rom-com success opposite Kriti Sanon
• Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022) — Horror-comedy smash; among the year's top grossers
• Freddy (2022) — Chilling against-type turn as an obsessive dentist
• Chandu Champion (2024) — Filmfare-winning biopic of Paralympian Murlikant Petkar
• Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (2024) — Franchise threequel and his highest-grossing film

Image: Wikimedia Commons. Part of the Top 50 Bollywood Celebrities series. Ranking inspired by popular industry listings; profiles are original editorial content.