Khans of Bollywood

Salman Khan (left), Shah Rukh Khan (middle), and Aamir Khan (right)

The term Khans of Bollywood refers to several actors of Bollywood, the Mumbai-based Hindi language Indian film industry, whose surnames are Khan. Most commonly, this involves the Three Khans: Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan. The three are unrelated, but happen to share the same surname,^[1] and were all born in 1965.^[2] Due to their longevity and high popularity, they are considered among the most successful movie stars in the history of Indian cinema.

The dominance of the three Khans at the Indian box office has been compared to that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Hollywood.^[1] Shah Rukh Khan frequently appears among the top three wealthiest actors in the world, while Aamir Khan has been the only Eastern actor to be ranked first in the world's highest-earning actors in films, and Salman Khan has been the highest paid celebrity in South Asia several times. They have also earned critical acclaim, between them winning 6 National Film Awards and 26 Filmfare Awards. They are some of the most famous Indians known overseas, and some of the world's biggest movie stars.^[3] They have been reported by various sources to command high salary packages up to ₹50 crore (US$8.53 million) per movie.^[4][5][6] The three Khans have had successful careers since the late 1980s,^[7] and have dominated the Indian box office since the 1990s, across three decades.^[8]

Combined, they have starred in seven of the top ten highest-grossing Bollywood films ever, six out of ten highest-grossing Indian films,^[9] and nearly every annual top-grossing Bollywood film between 1989 and 2017 (except for 1992–1993).^[9][10][11] They officially created the 100 Crore Club:^[12] the first films to gross ₹100 crore domestically was Salman's Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994) ^[13][11] and Aamir Khan's Ghajini (2008) was the first to net ₹100 crore.^[12] Aamir's Dangal (2016) created the Bollywood 1000 Crore Club, owing to its overseas success in Chinese markets, and eventually created the 2000 Crore Club, becoming the highest-grossing Indian film ever (worldwide and overseas), and one of the highest-grossing films in China and India, with his earnings from the film estimated to be ₹300 crore (US$46.07 million),^[14] the highest payday for a non-Hollywood actor.^[15] In 2014, Shah Rukh was the richest non-Hollywood actor and the richest actor inhighest-paid the world, with an estimated net worth of US$290 million.^[16] On the 2016 Forbes list of the 10 actors in the world, Salman ranked sixth, with total earnings of US$33.5 million for the year.^[17] On 2017's ^[18] and 2018's ^[19] Forbes list of the ten highest-paid actors in the world, Salman Khan ranked ninth both years, earning $37 million and $38.5 million in 2017 and 2018, first richest non-Hollywood actor and the richest actor in the world with an estimated net worth of US$20 billion respectively.

In addition to the three Khans, there have been other Khans in Bollywood. The most famous Khan prior to them was Dilip Kumar, whose real name is Muhammad Yusuf Khan, for which he has been referred to as the "First Khan" of Bollywood. Kumar was the biggest Indian star of the 1950s and 1960s,^[20] a matinee idol and the country's highest paid actor of the period.^[21] His 1960 film Mughal-e-Azam was the first Indian film with an adjusted gross over ₹2000 crore, making it the highest-grossing Indian film for over six decades.^[22][23] The term "fourth Khan" is used to refer to Saif Ali Khan.