Indian actress Sonali Kulkarni made her screen debut in 1992 with Girish Karnad's Hindi film Cheluvi , and soon entered Marathi cinema with Jabbar Patel's Mukta (1994). Throughout the 1990s, she balanced film and television, delivering notable early performances in the award-winning Doghi (1995), Amol Palekar’s internationally acclaimed Daayraa (1996), and the political drama Gharabaher (1999). Kulkarni gained wider recognition with Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Mission Kashmir (2000), which brought her multiple Best Supporting Actress nominations, followed by successful roles in the romantic thriller Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya and Farhan Akhtar's coming-of-age film Dil Chahta Hai (both 2001). [1] Though she experienced a few commercial failures thereafter, she continued to receive critical praise for her performances in Marathi cinema, including Chaitra (2002), Devrai (2004), and the 2005 Gujarati hit Love Is Blind, the first of which earned her a National Film Award Special Mention.
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Kulkarni won Best Actress at the Milan International Film Festival for her performance in the Italian film Fuoco Su di Me. Her versatility was further evident in films such as Taxi No. 9211 (2006), Gandha (2009), Gabhricha Paus (2009), and Singham (2011). She earned significant acclaim for her roles in Deool (2011), in which she portrayed Vahini Saheb, the thriller Pune 52 (2013), and the Gujarati film The Good Road (2013), the first Gujarati feature to be selected as India’s entry to the 86th Academy Awards. [2] From the mid-2010s, Kulkarni delivered some of her most celebrated performances in Dr. Prakash Baba Amte – The Real Hero (2014), Kachcha Limboo (2017), and Gulabjaam (2018), earning multiple Filmfare Marathi Awards and Maharashtra State Film Awards.
In the 2020s, she continued working across films and web series, appearing in Pension (2021), Mumbai Diaries 26/11 (2021–present), The Whistleblower (2021), Dharavi Bank (2022), and Ticha Shahar Hona (2023). [3] Her 2024 performance in the crime thriller Manvat Murders was highly praised and earned her the NDTV Marathi Entertainment Award for Best Actress.