Vote: The Best Sanjay Dutt performance!

On April 26, 1981, a lanky actor was born to the screen, making a stunning debut in a film directed by his dad.

Sanjay Dutt's Rocky had an endearing charm, and he rode that bike straight into our hearts.

Over time, Dutt became the proverbial Phoenix who would rise after every fall, whose life would become as dramatic as his lifestyle. On screen, he's a charmer, a terrific actor who can make you cry and laugh as if it was for this that he was born.

As Sanjay Dutt completes 30 years in showbiz today, we trace his best performances. Check them out, and vote for the best at the end of the slide show.

Naam



Mahesh Bhatt's successful collaboration then solo scriptwriter Salim Khan, Naam is remembered for two people: Pankaj Udhas' soulful voice in Chhithi Aayi Hai and Sanjay Dutt's Dubai-returned gangster, who wants to make amends.

It's clear that the film is influenced by Deewar but Dutt becomes the very cause for watching Naam.

Our own Taxi Driver? Not quite.

Yet, this one has Dutt at his intense best. In love with a young woman being pushed into prostitution, Dutt rescues her single-handedly.

Although relying much on action, stunts and masculinity, Dutt is tender in the romantic moments, making it a fully potboiler-ish performance.

The film would be the same even if you remove the Choli Ke Peechhe song. But the moment you distance Dutt from Khalnayak, it falls irredeemably.

With a Wayne-ish patch on one eye, Ballu is a terrifying criminal who'll go to any length to win Ganga's (Madhuri Dixit) love. Ballu is as bad as it can get and is rather unapologetic about his misdoings.

Director Sanjay Gupta's attempt at male bonding and friendship -- a theme which would eventually become a hallmark of his later films -- Aatish's Baba and Nawab are 1990s' most loved movie characters. 

Baba will do anything for Nawab. He lords over the gangland and he trusts Nawab with more than just his business. It helps, indeed, to have Dutt take on the screen name of Baba for the first time.

The Kashmiri top cop, Inayat Khan, is a doting dad. Yet, his ultimate fight is to preserve Kashmiriyat.

Dutt beautifully brings out the two dimensions his role demanded a man walking the thin line between personal and national, who has a duty towards the twin families of his beloved (if conflict-torn) state and his wife and son.

Major, tu sirf bhaukega, ya kaatega bhi," remarked Dutt mordantly to the much-senior Amitabh Bachchan and nearly all the dialogue-loving cineaste loved it.

In a film which top-lines five other characters, the foxy club-owner Ajju stands out sharply with his cold detachment, street-side mannerisms and cool attitude.

It takes a goon, a self-styled doctor (quack, even) to teach us lessons of humanity.

In the titular role, Dutt surpasses his talent, exceeds his limits as an artist showing a great flair for tragicomedy. Here's an actor, who's been buttonholed as Bollywood's in-house gangster springing a surprise with his upliftingly humanistic performance.