10 Best Tabu Movies That Changed Hindi Cinema (2026 Update)

The best Tabu movies include Maachis, Chandni Bar, Maqbool, The Namesake, Cheeni Kum, Haider, Drishyam and Andhadhun. Across three decades, Tabu has picked roles that broke the mould of the Hindi film heroine, and two of them, Maachis and Chandni Bar, won her the National Award for Best Actress. Here are ten that changed the game.

Born Tabassum Fatima Hashmi on 4 November 1971, Tabu turns 55 in November 2026. She has worked in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and English films, and moves easily between big commercial hits and smaller, director-driven cinema. She received the Padma Shri in 2011 and has seven Filmfare Awards.

Tabu movies: quick facts

Streaming availability was checked in October 2026 and can change.

10 Tabu movies that broke the mould

1. Maachis (1996)

Gulzar’s political drama is set in 1980s Punjab during the years of militancy. Tabu plays a Sikh woman who follows her fiance into a militant group after police brutality destroys her family.

Her performance is quiet and controlled, and it won her the first of her two National Awards for Best Actress.

2. Astitva (2000)

Mahesh Manjrekar’s film asks why infidelity is treated as unforgivable only when a woman is involved. Tabu plays Aditi, married to the controlling Srikant Pandit, who will not even let her take a job.

The film is remembered for her monologue in the climax, which sums up its argument. It was a bold subject for mainstream Hindi cinema in 2000.

3. Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000)

Rajiv Menon’s Tamil adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was a big hit. Tabu plays Sowmya, the calm and composed elder sister, opposite Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s emotional younger sister, Meenakshi.

It shows how much Tabu can do with restraint, letting small reactions carry the scene.

4. Chandni Bar (2001)

Madhur Bhandarkar’s film looks at Mumbai’s dance bars and the crime around them. Tabu plays Mumtaz, who loses her family in communal riots, moves to Mumbai with her uncle and is pushed into dancing at a bar.

It won her a second National Award for Best Actress and is still counted among her finest work.

5. Maqbool (2003)

Vishal Bhardwaj’s version of Macbeth did modest business but earned huge critical respect. Tabu plays Nimmi, mistress of the don Abba Ji, who pushes Maqbool, played by Irrfan, to kill him.

Her Nimmi is an Indian Lady Macbeth, and she holds her own in a cast that includes Pankaj Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri.

6. The Namesake (2006)

Mira Nair’s adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel follows a Bengali couple who move from Kolkata to New York. Tabu plays the mother, Mrs Ganguli, opposite Irrfan as her husband.

She plays a woman who slowly finds her feet in a foreign country while her son Gogol pushes away from his roots. She was 35 at the time and played the mother of an adult son.

7. Cheeni Kum (2007)

R. Balki’s film is a romance between a 34-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man. Tabu plays Nina Verma, cool and independent, who more than matches the ego of Amitabh Bachchan’s Buddhadev.

Few actresses would have taken the part at the time, and she makes it look easy.

8. Haider (2014)

The third film in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Shakespeare trilogy adapts Hamlet and sets it in Kashmir. Tabu plays Ghazala, Haider’s mother, caught between her son, her idealist husband and her opportunist brother-in-law.

Her character tries to hold the family together and fails, and it is one of the most complex mother roles in Hindi cinema.

9. Drishyam (2015)

Nishikant Kamat’s thriller pits Tabu’s Inspector General Meera Deshmukh against Ajay Devgn’s Vijay Salgaonkar. She is a strict officer and a grieving mother, and she bends the rules while searching for her missing son.

She returned as Meera in Drishyam 2 (2022), directed by Abhishek Pathak.

10. Andhadhun (2018)

Sriram Raghavan’s dark thriller is a landmark for modern Hindi cinema. Tabu plays Simi Sinha, a shifty, manipulative woman who keeps the audience guessing until the end.

It is one of the most talked-about grey roles by a Hindi film actress in recent years.

Tabu’s recent work: 2022 to 2026

Tabu has had a busy few years. In 2022 she played twin sisters in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and returned in Drishyam 2. In 2023 she appeared in Kuttey, Ajay Devgn’s Bholaa and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Netflix spy film Khufiya.

In 2024 she starred in Crew with Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon, Neeraj Pandey’s Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, and the series Dune: Prophecy as Francesca. In 2026 she reunited with Akshay Kumar and director Priyadarshan in the horror comedy Bhooth Bangla, which was a commercial success and now streams on Netflix in India. Her next announced project is the Telugu film Slumdog: 33 Temple Road, directed by Puri Jagannadh, with Vijay Sethupathi.

For more on Hindi film stars, read our Bollywood coverage and celebs profiles.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Tabu (Wikipedia), JustWatch India.