Akshay Kumar has been a leading movie star in Hindi films for decades now, and worked on multiple genres of films. He started his career with action and romance films and then moved on to comedy in the late 1990s. By the mid-2000s, he was doing multi-starrers like Housefull, Heyy Baby and Garam Masala. Post 2010, he has emerged as a bankable patriotic movie star with films like Baby, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, Airlift, and Mission Mangal.
Akshay Kumar is now considered a Bollywood superstar with many hit movies to his name. However, Akshay’s fans love him in comedy movies and his comic timing is lauded by audiences across the country. And so, here are the 7 best comedy films by Akshay Kumar for you to binge-watch over the weekend with your family and instantly lighten up your mood.
1. Hera Pheri
The combination of Paresh Rawal, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar, along with a laugh riot of a climax which is typical of Priyadarshan films, and dialogues that we still remember today, made Hera Pheri an iconic comedy film. Whether it was the chemistry between the lead trio, the comedy scenes that made us all LOL or the climax with Gulshan Grover playing the villain, Hera Pheri is the first film that comes to mind when we think of Akshay Kumar’s comedy films.
2. Housefull
The plot of the movie revolves around the life of a boy named Aarush (Akshay Kumar) who believes that he is jinxed, and he attempts to find true love to get rid of the jinx. But instead, he ends up trapping himself in a series of lies, in order to win over Arjun Rampal, who plays Deepika’s strict brother. A true comedy of errors and the original film in a series that became hugely popular, Housefull started the trend of Akshay Kumar-led multi-starrer comedies of this era.
3. Heyy Baby
Heyy Baby is one of those films where you can’t tell whether is it the comedy scenes involving a baby, the chemistry between Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh and Fardeen Khan or popular songs that made the film such a huge success. The core storyline of this film is loosely based on the Malayalam film Thoovalsparsham (1990) which is an adaptation of the American film Three Men and a Baby (1987).
4. Main Khiladi Tu Anari
There was a spate of films in the 1990s in which Akshay Kumar played a serious, do-gooder cop (Main Khiladi Tu Anari, Mohraa) and the onus of the comedy mostly lay on his costars. In this film, the chemistry between Saif Ali Khan and Akshay Kumar was crackling and is still spoken about even today, decades later. Though this film metamorphosed into an action film by the third act, the comedy bits in the first two acts were appreciated and went on to become iconic.
5. Housefull 4
Housefull 4 has a star cast ensemble of Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Bobby Deol, Kriti Sanon, Kriti Kharbanda and Pooja Hegde who are seen playing double characters. Akshay Kumar is seen playing the character of Rajkumar Baldev Singh and Harry, the main protagonist of the film who suffers from memory loss in his character as Harry. His character Bala who is loved by all the fans is a good-for-nothing prince. The double role, along with the comedy of confusion was loved by fans and Housefull 4 went on to become quite the hit.
6. Garam Masala
Playing a ladies' man who juggles three girlfriends with the help of his friend, played by John Abraham, Garam Masala is a typical masala commercial film with comedy scenes, great songs and impeccable chemistry between Akshay Kumar and John Abraham. Later when Paresh Rawal enters the film, the stakes get higher. A remake of Priyadarshan’s 1980s Malayalam hit Boeing Boeing, which in turn was a remake of the 1960s Hollywood hit of the same name, Garam Masala is considered one of Akshay Kumar’s finest comedy performances.
7. Welcome
A common man falls in love with a woman, only to realise that her brothers are gangsters. Akshay Kumar plays the lead role, with Katrina Kaif paired opposite him and her two brothers are played by Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor. The movie has been the source of several memes in the last couple of years. There is hardly a 10-minute stretch in the movie that won't make you laugh or admire the creativity and sarcasm of the writer/director. The basic plot is inspired by the Hugh Grant movie Mickey Blue Eyes (1999). Even the hero's profession is kept the same as an art-house auctioneer.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication only.