Amitabh Bachchan's films that were directed by Manmohan Desai

Amitabh Bachchan has been in the industry for around five decades, appearing in more than 100 films. He has worked with several directors from the 70s to the 20s. The actor has a string of hits with the popular filmmaker, Manmohan Desai. Their ventures together include some of the most remarkable films in the Hindi industry. Read to know their movies together.

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Amitabh’s films with Manmohan

Amar Akbar Anthony

Amitabh Bachchan and Manmohan Desai’s first venture together was in the 1977 released Amar Akbar Anthony. The film stars Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor opposite Shabana Azmi, Parveen Babi and Neetu Singh in the lead roles. The plot shows three brothers who are separated in childhood. They are adopted and raised by three families of different religions – Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Amar Akbar Anthony was a hit at the box office and is still remembered by many. The film has chartbuster songs.  Amitabh’s performance as Anthony Gonsalves won him Best Actor at the 25th Filmfare Awards.

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Coolie

Manmohan Desai directed Amitabh Bachchan as Iqbal Aslam in Coolie in 1983. A young boy gets separated from his parents due to a flood and becomes a coolie at Mumbai railway station. He gets in conflicts with a big businessman for the rights of his people. The movie also stars, Rishi Kapoor, Rati Agnihotri, Kader Khan, Waheeda Rehman, Suresh Oberoi and Puneet Issar. Coolie received positive reviews from the audiences and was a blockbuster at the box office. Amitabh received a fatal injury in a fight scene with Puneet due to a miscalculated jump. It is an action film written by Kader Khan. 

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Mard

Mard is an action film released in 1985, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Amrita Singh and helmed by Manmohan Desai. The cast also includes Dara Singh, Nirupa Roy, Prem Chopra, Kamal Kapoor with others. Azad, a wealthy prosperous king, is locked in a dungeon by General Dyer who wants to take over his kingdom. Years later, Azad's son comes to his father's rescue and puts an end to Dyer's tyranny. The song Mard Tangewala became famous. Amitabh was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Actor category.

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Ganga Jamuna Saraswati

Manmohan Desai’s last project as a director was Ganga Jamuna Saraswati.  Amitabh Bachchan as Ganga, Meenakshi Sheshadri as Jamuna, and Jaya Prada as Saraswati. Other cast includes Mithun Chakraborty, Amrish Puri, Nirupa Roy and Aruna Irani. Ganga Jamuna Saraswati marks Manmohan Desai’s consecutive seven ventures with Amitabh Bachchan from 1977 to 1988 as director and actor. It gained a cult following among family audiences. Ganga and Jamuna, two passionate lovers, get separated during an accident. While Ganga desperately is on the lookout for her, another woman, Saraswati also begins to like Ganga.

Amitabh Bachchan and Manmohan Desai have worked together in a few more films. This includes Suhaag (1979), Naseeb (1981) and Desh Premee (1982). Manmohan produced Toofan (1989) starring Amitabh as the lead.