The actor started his career as a child artist in the 1970 film Mera Naam Joker and then made his full fledged debut in 1973 with Bobby which is probably the biggest debut ever. The film smashed all records and was not just the biggest hit of that year but remains one of the biggest blockbusters of Hindi cinema till date.
Bobby made Rishi Kapoor a sensation and the stardom was consolidated a few years later with blockbusters like Laila Majnu (1976) and Hum Kisse Kum Nahin (1977). The 70's was the golden period of Hindi cinema with huge multi starrer blockbusters but it was Rishi Kapoor who delivered the biggest solo grossers of the 70's. It was the time of box office titans but Rishi Kapoor made a place for himself among these titans.
The biggest BLOCKBUSTER of Rishi Kapoor is Bobby (1973) which was also his first film as main lead. The film will have business of 500 crore nett plus based on its footfalls and the average ticket rate of 2018. The film was a huge craze celebrating around 30 silver jubilees across the country.
Many of the Rishi Kapoor blockbusters are musicals and this is where the actor scored heavily. A sign of a popular actor in India is the comfortabilty in songs and Rishi Kapoor excelled here. The songs are the toughest part in Hindi cinema because it is very easy to look out of place and very few have managed to succeed here and this is proven by the fact that every generation has so few genuinely popular actors. Actually in India its the ability to perform in songs that separates the greats with the others. Its one of the reasons that in the 100 year history of Hindi cinema that many actors have been called great by the media but the audience never put them on the same pedestal and this will continue is the future also as the audience demands the near perfect hero. All the actors in the 25 plus HIT group above were supremely comfortable in songs whether they could dance or not.
The list of Rishi Kapoor films which will have a value of 200 crore nett or today is below. All the films listed below will have a classification of SUPER HIT or higher. The numbers are apprx and grouped as the films have not been entered into the database to get the exact number.
500 crore plus
1. Bobby (1973)
400 crore plus
2. Coolie (1983)
3. Naseeb (1981)
300 crore plus
4. Amar Akbar Anthony (1977)
5. Laila Majnu (1976)
250 crore plus
7. Hum Kisse Kum Nahin (1977)
8. Prem Rog (1982)
9. Kabhi Kabhie (1976)
10. Sargam (1979)
11. Nagina (1986)
200 crore plus
12. Kaatilon Ke Kaatil (1981)
13. Henna (1991)
14. Chandni (1989)
15. Deewana (1992)
Rishi Kapoor is among the ten actors in the Hindi film industry to have given 25 HITS as male lead in the 100 year history of Hindi cinema. The other nine being Dilip Kumar, Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna, Jeetendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan. This is not counting the HITS given as character artistes which will add to the numbers. These actors are the biggest that the Hindi film industry has ever seen.
