Vidhu Vinod Chopra (born 5 September 1952) is an Indian film director, producer, screenwriter and editor.[1] He is the recipient of several accolades, including four National Film Awards and eleven Filmfare Awards. He is known for directing films such as the crime drama Parinda (1989), the patriotic romantic drama 1942: A Love Story (1994), the action drama Mission Kashmir (2000) and the biographical drama 12th Fail (2023). He is also known for producing the Munna Bhai film series, 3 Idiots (2009), PK (2014), and Sanju (2018) under his banner Vinod Chopra Films.
Chopra's first student short film, Murder at Monkey Hill (1976), won the National Film Award for Best Short Experimental Film and the Guru Dutt Memorial Award for Best Student Film.[6]
He founded his own production company, Vinod Chopra Films, in 1985. Since then, the company has gone on to produce major Bollywood films, and is currently one of the biggest and most successful film production houses in India.
For Khamosh, his next directorial venture, Chopra assembled a cast featuring some of the finest acting talent in India. Shabana Azmi, Amol Palekar, Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapoor, among others, appeared in prominent roles. An inventive meta thriller set in Kashmir, Khamosh remains one of the notable Indian films in the genre.
His next directorial, the crime drama Parinda (1989), proved to be a landmark film in Hindi cinema. It expanded the orbit of the crime drama and the vocabulary of images used in Hindi films while garnering widespread critical acclaim and numerous awards. Several modern Indian filmmakers have expressed their admiration for and drawn inspiration from Chopra's film.
However, Chopra's next directorials after 2000 were not as successful. His 2007 film Eklavya: The Royal Guard was a financial disappointment. He also made his Hollywood directorial debut in 2015 with the film Broken Horses, a remake of his own film Parinda. However, it received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 22%,[9] and was a commercial disaster, only making Rs. 60 lakh in its opening weekend.[10] His 2020 release Shikara was a romantic drama about the Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus. It became his lowest grossing film since Khamosh.
Chopra then saw a return to success with his 2023 release, the biopic 12th Fail. Despite a low opening day box office, due to great reviews and word of mouth, it became a financial hit, grossing 70 crores on a 20 crore budget.[11] It then won 5 Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, and Editing for Chopra.
He has been married thrice, his first wife was noted editor Renu Saluja (m. 1976–1983), he was then married to filmmaker Shabnam Sukhdev (m. 1985–1989), the daughter of S. Sukhdev (1933–1979) a well known director of documentaries for the Films Division of India. He has a daughter with Shabnam, Ishaa Chopra, who works as a dance instructor and choreographer.[13][14]
He is currently married to Indian film critic Anupama Chopra, whom he married on 1 June 1990.[15] He has two children with her, a son, Agni and a daughter, Zuni Chopra.[16]
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