Most Underrated · Women
Ratna Pathak Shah
रत्ना पाठक शाह
“One of India's great comic actors, cast almost exclusively as somebody's amused mother.”
- Screen debut
- 1981
- Best in
- Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016)
- Also see
- Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na · Kapoor & Sons · Nil Battey Sannata · Sarabhai vs Sarabhai · Thappad
No social account is listed here because we could not positively confirm an official one. We link verified first-party accounts only — a fan page or a namesake would be worse than nothing.
The case
Lipstick Under My Burkha gave her a 55-year-old woman with a secret sexual life and she played it without a single apology or wink. The performance sat in a censorship fight instead of an awards race. Her comic work is so effortless that people mistake it for personality.
Where to start
Begin with Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016). Then work through Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na, Kapoor & Sons, Nil Battey Sannata.
See how we defined “underrated” and why some obvious names are missing in our methodology essay.
Career record Wikipedia — Ratna Pathak Shah · data last revised 9 August 2026 · debut year and filmography are read from that article; no award count, box-office figure or rating is claimed here
Editorial Selection as one of the twenty most underrated, and the case made for it — not a measurement · last revised 9 August 2026 · signed by Amit Sharma · the scoring is published in full so the machinery can be argued with, not just the result
In the canon
