Nana Patekar: Cinema’s fierce maverick

A tempestuous maestro who stripped acting of its artifice, Nana Patekar fell silent on Thursday (October 8, 2026) after a sudden cardiac arrest. From the terrifying vulnerability of Parinda (1989) and primal scream against communalism in Krantiveer (1994) to the tragic grandeur of Natsamrat (2016), he harnessed a staccato rage and colloquial realism that redefined the contours of the screen hero.

Nana Patekar passes away

Before Patekar’s rise to prominence in the late 1980s, anger in commercial Indian cinema was largely stylised and structured around the angry young man trope. Patekar introduced a visceral, unpredictable, and highly localised form of rage, something the man on the street could identify with. Over a career lasting more than four decades, his distinctive style bridged parallel art-house movements and mainstream commercial cinema.

Patekar actively resisted Bollywood’s assembly-line casting, refused to become a slave to fame, and chose characters that defied easy categorisation. The three-time National Award and four-time Filmfare winner could discern which characters would stay with audiences and create a meaningful intervention in times. If in the rasping Krantiveer (1994) he exposed the hypocrisy of demagogues, then in the deeply philosophical Prahaar (1991), a film he also directed, he redefined nationalism. “Borders do not define it, but the moral discipline and collective empathy of a civilian society, he once told this journalist. “To me, a villain also has a bright side and a hero also has grey shades,” he said, and he loved to explore the creative estuary where the heroic and dark shades intertwined. It meant that while the films aged, the characters remained relevant.

Perhaps that’s why his characters who speak up to the system and those who work for it became equally popular at different stages of his career. In fact, his filmography mirrors a transition from defiance in the late 1980s and 1990s (Ankush, Prahaar, Wajood) to institutional exhaustion and pragmatism in the 2000s and beyond (Ab Tak Chhappan, Raajneeti, Apaharan). In his second spring, he chose Sankalp, his last collaboration with Prakash Jha, where his character, Maat Sab, drew comparisons to Chanakya and revolutionary leader Jayaprakash Narayan.

A generational talent, critics and audiences universally recognise that he could carry a flawed narrative on the strength of his magnetic screen presence and explosive dialogue delivery, and a generation of actors and filmmakers looked up to him as a disruptive force, an ultimate anti-escapism antidote who could break the class-mass barrier. Who can forget his furious rant capturing the grinding, repetitive exhaustion of an ordinary citizen’s daily life in Yeshwant, where he explains how a mosquito makes a man impotent. Or, for that matter, his blistering comment on bigotry in Krantiveer, where he points out the shared identity of human blood.