Arbaaz Khan & Vinod Khanna Movies Together List — 4 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 75% of everything they made together. The 1990s belonged to Hulchul; the 2010s to Dabangg. Strictly Hindi cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Arbaaz Khan didn't just act with Vinod Khanna in Dabangg — he produced it. And he specifically cast Khanna as the villain because he wanted a face that could match Salman's star power. Khanna agreed on one condition: his character had to have a real backstory, not just a generic bad guy.
• In Dabangg, Vinod Khanna played the cold-blooded gangster Chhedi Singh. Arbaaz later said Khanna's stillness on set made everyone else raise their game — because he never overacted, so the younger actors had to find subtlety to keep up.
• Arbaaz has said in interviews that Vinod Khanna was the only co-star who would call him before every Dabangg sequel shoot to discuss the script — not just his own scenes, but the whole film. They'd talk for an hour each time.
• The Dabangg franchise — which Arbaaz produced and co-starred in with Khanna — directly launched the 'mass action hero' trend in 2010s Bollywood. Without their pairing as hero and villain, films like Singham and Rowdy Rathore might not have found their template.
• Arbaaz Khan on casting Vinod Khanna in Dabangg: 'I needed someone who could make the audience believe that this man could actually kill Salman. Only Vinod sir had that weight.'
• Their first film together, Hulchul (1995), was a flop. But 15 years later, Arbaaz — now a producer — brought Khanna back for Dabangg. He told a journalist: 'I remembered how he carried himself even in a bad film. That dignity was what Chhedi Singh needed.'