3 Idiots is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, edited and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, co-written by Abhijat Joshi and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The film stars Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi in the title roles, while Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Mona Singh and Omi Vaidya play supporting roles. Narrated through two parallel timelines, one in the present and the other set ten years earlier, the story follows the friendship of three students at an Indian engineering college and is a satire about the intrinsic paternalism under the Indian education system.
Adapted loosely from Chetan Bhagat's novel Five Point Someone, It is produced by Chopra under the banner Vinod Chopra Films.
Upon its release, 3 Idiots received widespread critical acclaim with praise directed towards its direction, themes, humour, story, screenplay, soundtrack and performances of the cast. The film became a major box office success and one of the few Indian films at the time to become successful in East Asian markets such as China and Japan, eventually bringing its worldwide gross to 460 crore (US$90million) — it was the highest-grossing Indian film ever at the time until 2013, when Dhoom 3 surpassed it.
At the 57th National Film Awards, 3 Idiots won three awards, including Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. Additionally, it won a leading 6 awards at the 55th Filmfare Awards (tying with Dev.D), including Best Film, Best Director (Hirani) and Best Supporting Actor (Irani). Overseas, it won the Grand Prize at Japan's Videoyasan Awards, while it was nominated for Best Outstanding Foreign Language Film at the Japan Academy Awards and Best Foreign Film at China's Beijing International Film Festival.
Considered to be among the greatest Indian films ever made, the film also had a social impact on attitudes toward education in India, as well as in other Asian countries such as China and South Korea and a huge cult following for its relevance and humour. It was remade in Tamil as Nanban (2012), which also received critical praise and commercial success. A Mexican remake, 3 Idiotas, was also released in 2017.
Plot
Past
At the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE), Ranchoddas "Rancho" Shamaldas Chanchad arrives as an academically gifted student, challenging professors with his unconventional beliefs. He befriends fellow engineering students Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi. After the suicide of Joy Lobo, a student whose project was rejected by the director, Dr. Viru "Virus" Sahastrabuddhe, because he had repeatedly delayed his project to focus on his dad's health, Rancho holds Virus responsible, leading to a prolonged rivalry between them.
The conflict escalates when the three attend a wedding hosted by Virus, where Rancho meets Virus's daughter Pia, a medical student. In retaliation, Virus pressures Raju into moving out of Rancho's dormitory and into the room of Chatur Ramalingam, a competitive student. During a formal event welcoming college administrators, Rancho and Farhan alter Chatur's speech with obscene phrases. Following this, Chatur challenges Rancho to determine who will achieve greater success in the next ten years.
Farhan and Raju consistently rank at the bottom of their class, while Rancho tops the examinations. Rancho encourages Farhan to pursue wildlife photography instead of engineering and Raju to confront his insecurities. After urinating on Virus's residence during a night of drinking, Raju is caught and given two choices: betray Rancho or face expulsion. Hesitant to make either choice, Raju subsequently attempts suicide by jumping from a window. He survives the fall and secures a prestigious job after recovering from a coma. Farhan obtains his father's support for his photography career.
Wanting to undermine Raju's placement, Virus designs a particularly difficult exam. With Pia's help, Rancho and Farhan break into his office to obtain the exam paper. Raju refuses to use it, and all three are caught and expelled. Pia reveals to her father a suicide note left by her late brother, who had died by suicide due to academic pressure.
That night, a severe storm cuts off the city's power grid. Virus's elder daughter, Mona, goes into labor. Using makeshift campus equipment and with the assistance from his classmates, Rancho helps deliver the baby. Virus rescinds the expulsion and acknowledges Rancho's contributions to the college.
Present
Chatur Ramalingam, now a wealthy businessman, returns to India to secure a contract with the reclusive inventor Phunsukh Wangdu. He reunites with Farhan and Raju and the three embark on a journey to find Rancho, who vanished after graduation.
Arriving at Shimla, the trio learn that the student they knew as Rancho was Chhote, son of the Chanchaḍ family gardener. The real Ranchoddas Chanchad's father had sponsored Chhote's education, to obtain a degree for the family, under the condition he never contacted his former classmates.
The group find and rescue Pia from a forced marriage in Manali before proceeding to Ladakh, where they reunite with Chhote, who now operates a school focused on alternative education. Chatur mocks his profession as a village teacher and demands he sign a declaration of surrender. Chhote then reveals himself to be Phunsukh Wangdu, the inventor Chatur had sought. Chatur accepts defeat as the four run along the shoreline laughing
Cast
Production
Development
After the success of Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), the director Rajkumar Hirani and screenwriter Abhijat Joshi had plans for third instalment on the Munna Bhai franchise, titled Munnabhai Chale Amerika. But Hirani felt exhausted working on consecutive films on the same format, and decided to work on fresh script outside the franchise. While writing the first draft of the film, he thought of a new project rather than the new instalment from the film series, but he had concentrated more on the project and then worked on the former first. While thinking about how the project coming under fruition, he got the popular novel Five Point Someone by the author Chetan Bhagat. The latter gave this novel for Hirani to read, in order to have an idea about the script. Impressed by the novel, he decided to adapt the screenplay by making changes to the original novel and work on it as a feature film.
3 Idiots is considered to be the first of the two adaptations from the novel Five Point Someone — the second being Kai Po Che! (2013), which also drew inspiration from the novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life written by Bhagat. In the third collaboration with Hirani after the Munna Bhai film series: Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003) and Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), Vidhu Vinod Chopra produced the project under the production company Vinod Chopra Films (which earlier named Vinod Chopra Productions). Besides producing, Chopra further associated with Hirani and Joshi, by co-writing the screenplay. In his biography Unscripted: Conversations on Life and Cinema, he discussed the experiences as a co-writer being associated in the project.
An official announcement regarding the film was made during early-2008, after working in the script for more than one-and-a-half year. During the pre-production, Hirani went to multiple engineering colleges, including those under the Indian Institutes of Technology in Mumbai and Delhi, to authenticate the lives of engineering students. He met many students and took pictures along with them. He needed the references for the clothes used, their looks and things they brought as many IIT-students were older than the fictional characters. The film also had shared many anecdotes from his college life, since Hirani had used to study in hostel during his young period. Hirani had carefully looked upon the notion in the lives of engineering students, as there are few things apart from drugs, sex and violence. However, Hirani had said that the film plays a satirical take on social pressures under an Indian education system. Apart from that, the film also addresses the issue of tussle between parents and children, but in a "sugar-coated manner". During the promotions of the film, Hirani stated that "the film is completely different of the Munna Bhai film series; in terms of the characters, story and the environment. However, both the films fall in the same genre, where all three films are heartwarming stories with lovable characters making it feel good. Both films have true emotions in the heart, happiness, sadness and also leave a strong message to the audience in the ending that make us satisfy".
The basis of the lead character, Ranchoddas "Rancho" Chanchad / Phunsukh Wangdu, is unclear. According to Hirani, he was based on a fellow student at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) who similarly attended the school under a friend's identity under a mutual arrangement. Chopra claimed that the character was based on himself instead, and later said the character's name was based on that of a classmate at FTII. It has often been speculated that the character was based on educator and activist Sonam Wangchuk. Wangchuk had stated he had met Aamir Khan, who ultimately starred as Wangdu / Rancho, in 2008, but had never met with the filmmakers and wrote to them about his meeting with Khan following inquiries from some students who saw similarities between him and character. During Wangchuk's 2026 hunger strike, Omi Vaidya, who starred as Chatur, issued a statement in support, linking him to Wangdu / Rancho. Afterwards, Aamir Khan answered that the character was not based on Wangchuk in a Q&A session, saying "we didn't know about Mr. Sonam" during production.
Casting
The casting of the lead actors was considered to be "complex", according to Hirani. He thought of many actors playing the lead roles and also went on a six-month audition across the country, during which newcomers like Rajkummar Rao, Jacqueline Fernandez, Amruta Khanvilkar, Jitendra Joshi, Gurmeet Chaudhary and Pulkit Samrat also had auditioned. Rohan Mapuskar, one of the casting directors, revealed that Khanvilkar was originally finalised for the role of Pia, and even her payment was discussed. Meanwhile, Joshi was selected for Raju's role before the casting decisions were changed. However, Hirani thought of established actors playing the roles, since the film had two looks and the actors needed experience. He had plans for Shah Rukh Khan playing the lead character, Ranchoddas Chanchad. Hirani tried to rope Khan after the latter exited from the titular role Munna Bhai in the director's debut venture Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003), which was later essayed by Sanjay Dutt. However, Khan refused being a part of the film due to his prior commitments. Ranbir Kapoor, then a relative newcomer, also declined the lead role, but agreed to a short cameo as Varun Sahastrabuddhe. Hrithik Roshan also turned down the character. Aamir Khan was later finalised to play the lead role.
R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi were also finalised for the other two leads Farhan and Raju. Originally, the roles initially went to John Abraham and Saif Ali Khan, but the actors rejected the film due to date issues. Arshad Warsi, who also collaborated with Hirani in the two Munnai Bhai films, auditioned but could not take up the role. Before R. Madhavan was cast, Bangalore-based Rajeev Ravindranathan shot for his character for two months before his scenes were removed in favour of casting a "known face". Ravindranathan later played a college senior. On being questioned about casting older actors to play the titular college students, Hirani said in an interview to Rediff that "the actors chosen have that quality which he wanted for the film apart from the body language, mannerisms and innocence portrayed on-screen".