Salman Khan is the undisputed king of the Eid Bollywood box office, releasing blockbuster hits timed perfectly for the holiday over the past 15 years. This year is no different, as Khan returns in Sikandar, which is being released for Eid Al Fitr on Sunday.
It is the latest instalment in a formidable body of work by an actor devoted to entertaining his vast fan base, while occasionally taking tentative – and sometimes surprisingly successful – steps towards artistic growth. As anticipation builds, here is a look back Khan’s previous Eid releases.
1. Wanted (2009)
Khan’s first foray into releasing films during Eid came with Wanted, a Hindi remake of the Telugu hit Pokiri. In the swashbuckling action film, Khan plays a no-nonsense hitman whose menace is revealed to be driven by a deep desire for vengeance. Wanted, which also starred Ayesha Takia and Prakash Raj, was praised for its stylish execution and mass appeal. The film reportedly grossed nearly 100 crore rupees ($11.7 million), delivering a much-needed hit for Khan after a period of underwhelming box office returns.
2. Dabangg (2010)
Spawning two sequels and a successful touring stage production led by Khan himself, Dabangg was a box office hit precisely because it did not take itself too seriously.
Directed by Abhinav Kashyap, Khan stars as Chulbul Pandey – a self-assured and slightly corrupt police officer who clashes with a rising local politician while falling for the grounded Rajjo (played by Sonakshi Sinha in her debut).
Its simple, crowd-pleasing formula proved a winner, with Dabangg becoming the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2010 and earning the National Film Award for Best Popular Film. The film not only catapulted Khan to a new level of superstardom but also helped build his reign as the king of Eid releases.
3. Bodyguard (2011)
It was a case of third time’s a charm for Khan with this Eid release. By now, both audiences and the film industry had come to recognise the holiday season as his own.
Khan does not stretch himself too far here, playing a terse and tightly-lipped security officer tasked with protecting Divya (Kareena Kapoor), the scion of a powerful business family. As their romance begins to kindle, so does the danger, with a shadowy threat looming over Divya’s life. Bodyguard delivered exactly what fans had come to expect from a blockbuster Khan Eid film – becoming yet another runaway success.
4. Ek Tha Tiger (2012)
Khan channels his inner James Bond in the first instalment of this action film franchise – playing a globe-trotting secret agent. He is on a mission to track a scientist based in Dublin who suspected of leaking sensitive information to foreign security agencies. Featuring winning chemistry with co-star Katrina Kaif, Ek Tha Tiger blends action and romance in equal measure and took the Indian box office by storm.
5. Kick (2014)
Khan goes supernova here – entirely on his own terms. The first film produced under the newly established Salman Khan Films banner, Kick is a high-octane action film that sees the star play a thrill-seeker bored with the monotony of suburban life.
When his relationship with psychiatrist Shaina (Jacqueline Fernandez) begins to fade, he disappears – only to return as the masked vigilante Devil, a Robin Hood – like figure who steals from the rich to support poor and helpless children.
Brimming with swagger and anchored by Khan’s trademark thousand-yard stare, Kick was a massive success, grossing over 400 crore and becoming one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of all time.
6. Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)
A welcome change of pace for Khan – and one of the defining roles of his career. In the touching Bajrangi Bhaijaan, he plays Pavan, a devout and kind-hearted man who stumbles upon a lost six-year-old Pakistani girl, Shahida, who has somehow found herself in India. Determined to reunite her with her family, Pavan embarks on a cross-border journey, facing political and bureaucratic obstacles and forging unexpected friendships.
A tender, humanist film with an important message, Bajrangi Bhaijaan resonated with audiences in India, Pakistan and China – becoming another entry in the list of highest-grossing Indian films.
7. Sultan (2016)
Buoyed by the success of Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Khan takes on another emotionally rich role in this sports drama. Set in the world of Indian wrestling, he plays the title character – a humble athlete whose rise to fame makes him brash and arrogant. When tragedy and hubris derail his career, he makes a weary return to the ring, transformed by the fast-evolving world of mixed martial arts.
A winning mix of brawn and heart, Khan delivers a finely tuned performance that offsets some of the script’s heavy-handedness. Met with a rapturous reception at the box office, Sultan became the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2016.
8. Tubelight (2017)
While Khan’s effort to explore more emotionally layered characters is commendable, not even his commitment can save this cloying melodrama. Set during the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the title refers to the disparaging nickname of Laxman (Khan) – a barrel-chested simpleton whose cognitive abilities are likened to a flickering fluorescent tube.
When his brother is declared missing in action, Laxman is drafted into the Indian Army, embarking on a personal journey that leads him to befriend a Chinese–Indian woman while facing social prejudice during a particularly sensitive chapter in Indian history.
As The National noted in its review, the film’s “flickering moments of quality are rare and fail to convince that Tubelight is anything more than low-voltage fluff”.
9. Race 3 (2018)
More a reboot than a sequel, this new instalment sees Khan replacing Saif Ali Khan in the lead role of Sikander – a member of a powerful crime family – and in doing so, transforms the franchise from a brooding noir to the more predictable and lightweight action fare Khan is known for. The shift was too much for audiences, with the film viciously panned by critics and falling short of commercial expectations.
10. Bharat (2019)
One of Khan’s most ambitious offerings, Bharat is the Hindi adaptation of the Korean film Ode to My Father, reimagined against the emotionally charged backdrop of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. Khan inhabits the title role – a man whose life is shaped by the trauma of being separated from his father at Lahore railway station, and who strives to honour a promise to keep his own family together.
While Khan was praised for his restrained performance, the film’s sensitive historical themes may have contributed to its underwhelming box office return.
11. Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai (2021)
It took a global pandemic Covid-19 to keep Khan away from the Eid big screen in 2020, but he returned the following year with the action adventure film Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai. Once again drawing inspiration from Korean cinema – this time a remake of 2017’s The Outlaws – the film follows Radhe (Khan), an undercover police officer tasked with curbing the rampant flow of drugs into Mumbai. Packed with dizzying action sequences and laced with Khan’s signature dry one-liners, Radhe was hampered by its hybrid release strategy, premiering in select cinemas and on streaming platforms simultaneously due to pandemic restrictions.
12. Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (2023)
By the time he released this latest Eid offering, audiences were beginning to show signs of fatigue with Khan’s formula.
Although there is plenty to enjoy in this action drama – with Khan playing Bhaijaan, a man whose dark past resurfaces to disrupt both his family’s harmony and his budding romance with Bhagya (Pooja Hegde) – it all feels overly familiar. The box office responded accordingly with underwhelming returns. Subsequently, Khan took a year off.
Sikandar (2025)
Things are already looking promising for Khan’s latest Eid release, Sikandar, which has one of the most-viewed Bollywood trailers of all time, amassing more than 57 million views on YouTube over four days. Directed by AR Murugadoss, the action film had a reported production budget of around 200 crore rupees ($23 million), with the story primarily set in Mumbai. While the plot remains under wraps, Sikandar is said to follow Khan’s titular character as he rallies local citizens to rise up against government corruption.
