Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia, better known by his stage name Akshay Kumar, was born in Amritsar, Punjab, India, on 9th September 1967. Akshay is an actor, film producer, martial artist, and television personality. He was born in India but is a naturalized Canadian citizen.
In his Bollywood career of almost 3 decades, he has worked in over 100 movies, which includes movies from various genres. He initially set foot in Bollywood as an action star but about a decade later he started featuring in comic movies, making him a multi-genre star.
Here are the top 5 Akshay Kumar comedy movies:
- Hera Pheri (2000)
Director: Priyadarshan
Box office collection: ₹ 214 million worldwide
Movie stars: Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, and Tabu.
IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
Hera Pheri is a comedy film directed by Priyadarshan and released in India on 31 March 2000. The film is a remake of a Malayalam film Ramji Rao’s Remarks released in 1989.
The film is as follows: In dire need of cash, two tenants (Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty) and their landlord (Paresh Rawal) happen onto a ransom call via a cross-connection. They devise a scheme to recover the ransom for themselves.
The movie received a great response from the audience and is termed a classic.
A sequel to the movie, Phir Hera Pheri was released in 2006.
- Welcome (2007)
Director: Anees Bazmee
Box office collection: ₹1.22 billion worldwide
Movie stars: Feroz Khan, Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Mallika Sherawat, and Paresh Rawal.
IMDb Rating: 7/10
Welcome is a 2007 Hindi comedy film produced by Firoz Nadiadwala, directed and co-written by Anees Bazmee.
Dr. Ghunghroo (Paresh Rawal) wishes for his nephew Rajeev (Akshay Kumar) to marry a good girl from a respectable family. Uday (Nana Patekar) and Majnu (Anil Kapoor), mafia dons, dupe him into believing they are law-abiding citizens because they, too, want their sister Sanjana (Katrina Kaif) to marry into a nice family. When Rajeev and Sanjana meet, they immediately fall in love. Everything appears to be going well so far, however, Ghungroo discovers the deception.
In an attempt to break up the marriage, he sends his sister-in-law, Ishika (Mallika Sherawat) as Rajeev’s sweetheart, but both Uday and Majnu fall in love with Ishika. Meanwhile, Rajeev motivates Majnu and Uday to leave up their criminal lifestyles. Another mafia don, RDX (Feroz Khan), and his son Lucky (Shereveer) become involved in the chaos as well. The film comes to a funny conclusion.
The success of the movie led to the production of its sequel, Welcome Back in 2015.
- Bhagam Bhag (2006)
Director: Priyadarshan
Box office collection: ₹678 million worldwide
Movie stars: Govinda, Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Lara Dutta, Rajpal Yadav, Jackie Shroff, Arbaaz Khan, Shakti Kapoor, Manoj Joshi, Razak Khan, Sharat Saxena, Asrani, and Gurleen Chopra
IMDb Rating: 6.5/10
Bhagam Bhag, directed by Priyadarshan and released on December 22, 2006, is an Indian Hindi-language comedic thriller film.
Champak Chaturvedi (Paresh Rawal), the owner and director of a theatre group, travels to London after being offered the opportunity to organize a show with Bunty (Akshay Kumar) and Babla (Govinda), as well as other members of his organization. They quickly become involved in a murder case with which they had nothing to do with.
The movie received mixed and some harsh reviews. In 2008, the movie was remade in Telugu.
- Bhool Bhuliya (2007)
Director: Priyadarshan
Box office collection: ₹1.55 billion worldwide
Movie stars: Akshay Kumar, Ameesha Patel, Vidya Balan, Shiney Ahuja, Paresh Rawal, Manoj Joshi, Asrani, Rajpal Yadav, Vikram Gokhale, and Vineeth
IMDb Rating: 7.3/10
Bhushan Kumar and Krishan Kumar’s T-Series Films produced Bhool Bhulaiyaa, a 2007 Indian Hindi-language psychological horror comedy film.
Siddharth (Shiney Ahuja) and Avni (Vidya Balan), Badri’s (Manoj Joshi) elder brother’s son and daughter-in-law, come to their native village from the United States and opt to dwell in their family palace. Badri is opposed because the palace is reputed to be haunted. What Badri fears, comes true. Avni is possessed by Manjulika’s ghost, a Bengali classical dancer. Siddharth contacts his friend, psychiatrist Dr. Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar) to resolve the situation.
Dr. Aditya believes Siddharth’s childhood love interest Radha (Ameesha Patel), Badri’s adopted daughter, is behind it all, but his ideas are shattered when he has a supernatural encounter. Later, he uses an elaborate ruse to fix the problem.
The sequel to the film is set to release in November 2021 and it stars Kartik Aaryan, Tabu, and Kiara Advani.
- Housefull (2010)
Director: Sajid Khan
Box office collection: ₹1.81 billion worldwide
Movie stars: Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Ritesh Deshmukh, Arjun Rampal, Lara Dutta, Jiah Khan, Boman Irani, Randhir Kapoor, Chunky Pandey, and Malaika Arora
IMDb Rating: 5.5/10
Sajid Khan directed and Sajid Nadiadwala produced Housefull, a 2010 Indian Hindi-language comedy film. It is partially based on the Tamil film Kaathala Kaathala, which was released in 1998.
The story follows Aarush (Akshay Kumar), who is a ‘panauti’ (unlucky man) and carries his bad luck wherever he goes. His quest to find love only makes his life more miserable as he ends up in complicated situations one after another.
On April 30, 2010, the film was released internationally to mixed critical acclaim. Despite this, the movie was a commercial success.
The movie paved the way for the Housefull series. After the movie’s release in 2010 another 3 movies were released in 2012, 2016, and 2019 respectively.
Akshay has worked in numerous movies. Even if we consider only the comedy genre, still there are many other movies that one can watch, such as Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004), Garam Masala (2005), Singh Is Kinng (2008), Desi Boyz (2011), Jolly LLB 2 (2017) and others.
Edited by Anupama Roy
