Imtiaz Ali, the Director of Roads and Rockstars
Imtiaz Ali's films range from Jab We Met to Rockstar and Highway. His hits, his misses and his return with Amar Singh Chamkila.
Road trips, trains and runaway characters recur in Imtiaz Ali's films, and so does a certain kind of love story. His career has high points that critics and audiences agree on and a few films that neither forgave. This piece follows his published biography and keeps to its facts.
From Jamshedpur to Mumbai
According to his Wikipedia biography, Ali was born in Jamshedpur and spent some of his early years in Patna. His father, Mansoor Ali, was an irrigation contractor, and as a child Ali would sometimes accompany him, which the biography says gave him a sense of the inner workings of India. He is the elder brother of the director Arif Ali. At Hindu College, University of Delhi, he took part in college theatre and started the dramatics society Ibtida. He then moved to Mumbai and did a diploma at the Xavier Institute of Communication.
Television first
He began by directing television programmes, including Kurukshetra for Zee TV and Imtihaan for Doordarshan, and a 45-minute telefilm for the series Rishtey that he later turned into the feature film Highway.
A debut that took three years
His debut, the romantic comedy Socha Na Tha (2005), starring Abhay Deol and Ayesha Takia, came after a meeting with Sunny Deol, who agreed to review his script and produce the film. Ali said of him: "he didn't ask me where I was from or about my experience." The film received positive reviews but failed commercially, and Ali said later that it took him three years to make.
The run of hits
Jab We Met (2007), with Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor, was a major critical and commercial success. It earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Dialogue and his first Best Director nomination, and it is consistently ranked among the most popular Bollywood romances. Love Aaj Kal (2009) with Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone became his biggest commercial success. Rockstar (2011), with Ranbir Kapoor and Nargis Fakhri, was praised for his direction, Kapoor's performance and A. R. Rahman's music, and brought his third Best Director nomination. He wrote the story and screenplay for Cocktail (2012), directed by Homi Adajania.
He founded the production company Window Seat Films in 2013. Its first release, Highway (2014), starring Alia Bhatt and Randeep Hooda, was appreciated by critics and has been credited as one of Bollywood's best films depicting mental disorders, in this case Stockholm syndrome. Tamasha (2015), with Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, was a moderate commercial success.
The decline
Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) with Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma got mixed-to-negative reviews and failed at the box office. Laila Majnu (2018), which he wrote for his brother Sajid Ali, was a commercial disaster. His second Love Aaj Kal, in 2020 with Kartik Aaryan and Sara Ali Khan, also received mixed-to-negative reviews.
A return to form
His first film with Netflix, Amar Singh Chamkila (2024), a biopic of the Punjabi musician with Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra, was released on 12 April 2024 to positive reviews, and many considered it a return to form, according to the biography. It lists Main Vaapas Aaunga, with Dosanjh, Rahman, Naseeruddin Shah and others, as released in theatres on 12 June 2026.
Reading the record
The biography calls several of his films "cult" and "iconic", which is a judgement of fans and some critics rather than a measured fact. Its box-office record is plainer: the same filmmaker made both the biggest hit of his career and several of his biggest failures.
Sources
*Cover photo: Frank-Jurgen Richter, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).*