Aamir Khan's Lagaan Was One of Five Oscar Nominees in 2002 and His Dangal Took About $190 Million in China by July 2017, Then the Biggest Non-Hollywood Release There

On 24 March 2002, at the 74th Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, five films were nominated for best foreign language film, and one of them was India’s Lagaan, a drama set in 1893 that Aamir Khan starred in and produced. The Academy’s records list it with France’s Amelie, Norway’s Elling and Argentina’s Son of the Bride. No Man’s Land, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, won.

Fifteen years later Khan’s Dangal opened in China on 5 May 2017. By the time its run ended on 4 July it had earned about $190 million there, which Screen Daily called the biggest non-Hollywood film ever in that country. Those two results sit inside a career that began with a National Award winner in 1988 and includes a film on dyslexia that Khan directed and two honours from the Government of India. The record below credits every box-office figure to the outlet that printed it, because the outlets do not agree.

A first lead role and a National Award

Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak opened on 29 April 1988. Mansoor Khan directed it as his first film, and his father, Nasir Hussain, wrote and produced it. Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla played a young couple caught between two feuding families, a story Scroll compares to Romeo and Juliet.

Hussain had both a tragic and a happy ending filmed, Scroll reports, and Khan recalled that the crew shot the tragic one with far more enthusiasm. The publicity was modest by later standards, with posters pasted on auto rickshaws and taxis. Upperstall’s account says the film started slowly and built through word of mouth, with songs by the composers Anand-Milind sung by Udit Narayan.

The awards followed. Upperstall lists Filmfare awards for best film, best direction for Mansoor Khan, and best male debut for Aamir Khan, plus the National Award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment. It adds that Khan had worked as a child actor before this film.

Lagaan: a drought, a tax and a cricket match

Lagaan was first released on 15 June 2001. Ashutosh Gowariker directed it, and Aamir Khan Productions made it. WION describes the story as set in 1893 under British rule, in a drought-stricken village that challenges its colonial rulers to a cricket match to escape oppressive taxes. The cast includes Khan, Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley, Paul Blackthorne, Suhasini Mulay and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and A. R. Rahman composed the songs, among them “Ghanan Ghanan” and “Mitwa”.

The taxes in the film belong to a wider colonial system, which tuput’s piece on how Britain drained India’s wealth describes. The game at the centre of the story is the one in which India’s women won a first World Cup on 2 November 2025, covered in tuput’s account of that final.

WION calls Lagaan the third Indian film to be nominated for the Oscar, after Mother India and Salaam Bombay!. It did not win. The Tribune reports that it won eight awards, including best popular film at the 49th National Film Awards. For its 25th anniversary the film returned to cinemas across India on 12, 13 and 14 June 2026, announced by Aamir Khan Productions, and Khan hosted a reunion of cast and crew in Mumbai on 12 June, WION reports.

Taare Zameen Par: the film Khan directed

Khan’s 2006 release Rang De Basanti has its own tuput article, on the India Gate vigil and the MiGs. Taare Zameen Par followed on 21 December 2007. Khan produced and directed it, and Amol Gupte is credited with the story and screenplay, according to Box Office India. Darsheel Safary, Tisca Chopra and Tanay Chheda appear with Khan in the cast.

Ambar Chakravarty summarised the premise in the Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology in 2009. Ishan Awasthi, a boy with dyslexia, is ridiculed at school and at home. His art teacher, Ramashankar Nikumbh, recognises the condition from his notebooks and finds his talent, and the boy wins a school painting competition. Chakravarty wrote that the film should open the eyes of parents of dyslexic children.

The Press Information Bureau records that the 55th National Film Awards, announced on 7 September 2009, named it best film on family welfare, with further awards for best male playback singer and best lyrics. At the 53rd Filmfare Awards in Mumbai, the Associated Press reported on 25 February 2008, it won best film and Khan won the directing award, among five wins. Box Office India rates the film a “Super Hit,” with an India net gross of ₹61.83 crore (618.3 million rupees) on a budget of ₹18 crore, and notes it was tax-free in Maharashtra and Delhi from its second week.

Dangal and the Phogat family

Dangal opened in India on 23 December 2016. Nitesh Tiwari directed it, and Khan, Kiran Rao and Siddharth Roy Kapur produced it, according to Box Office India, which lists Khan, Sakshi Tanwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra in the cast. Screen Daily says Aamir Khan Productions and Disney India co-financed it. Khan plays Mahavir Singh Phogat, who trains his daughters Geeta and Babita as wrestlers.

The sporting result behind it is on record. Geeta Phogat won the 55 kg gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which ESPN describes as the first for a woman wrestler in India, and she competed at the 2012 Olympics in the same weight class. ESPN writes that the story inspired a blockbuster film and a generation of young wrestlers.

At the 62nd Filmfare Awards, held in Mumbai on 14 January 2017, Dangal won best film, Tiwari won best director and Khan won best actor, Business Recorder reports. Shah Rukh Khan, nominated for Fan, and Salman Khan, nominated for Sultan, were in the same category, the first time in 19 years that all three Khans competed for the award.

What the film changed

Dangal is a dramatisation, and the Tribune lists where it departs from the record. In the film Mahavir is locked in a room during the 2010 final. The Tribune reports Geeta Phogat as saying this never happened, though she said her father was denied an entry pass and kept off the mat after her win, and the paper cites the biography Akhada in placing him in the stands for the bout.

The Tribune says the film blames a national coach for Geeta’s poor international results before 2010, and notes that she won Commonwealth Championship golds in 2009 and 2011. O. P. Yadav, a former chief national coach, says the film took cinematic liberty in how it showed a national coach, and Geeta credits the national camps and coaches for her success.

The India and China numbers, outlet by outlet

Box Office India lists Dangal’s India total net gross at ₹374.53 crore (3.75 billion rupees) on 4,250 screens, with a budget of ₹132 crore and the verdict “All Time Blockbuster.” It is one outlet’s figure; others print different ones.

Worldwide, the figures diverge more. Box Office Mojo lists $303,726,694, made up of $193,050,870 from China, $77,319,500 from India and $12,391,761 from the United States. On 27 June 2017 Business Today, citing Forbes, reported that Dangal had passed ₹2,000 crore worldwide and called it the highest-earning Indian film, ahead of Baahubali 2, which it put at about ₹1,700 crore. India TV News reported on 4 July 2017 that a spokesperson for Khan gave the official worldwide gross as ₹1,864 crore “as of Thursday” and said the film had yet to reach ₹2,000 crore.

How it ran so long in China

Dangal opened in China on Friday 5 May 2017, second to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, on 13 per cent of screens, Screen Daily reports. By the end of its first week it was first, with 31 per cent of screens. It ended its run on 4 July and was then China’s 17th highest-grossing film of all time, foreign or local, at the $190 million Screen Daily gives. The previous Indian record there was PK, at about $20 million in 2015.

Screen Daily’s named sources, the distribution executives Prasad Shetty of Strategic Alliance and Allen Liu of E Stars Films, credit three things: a release date away from crowded weekends, positioning Khan as a socially conscious actor, and endorsements from Chinese stars. Deng Chao, Wang Baoqiang and Yao Chen engaged early, and Feng Xiaogang, Lu Han and Fan Bingbing recommended it later. Khan was already known to Chinese audiences through 3 Idiots (2009), Dhoom 3 (2013) and PK (2014), the article says, though it adds that stardom alone does not guarantee a hit.

Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan

The Ministry of Home Affairs’ Padma Awards directory lists Aamir Khan, under art and the state of Maharashtra, with a Padma Shri in 2003 and a Padma Bhushan in 2010.