Do we like Ranbir Kapoor?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A decent public record and some real volunteering, held back by his defence of Animal and a thin record on the issues that matter to us.
Ranbir Kapoor is one of Hindi cinema's biggest names, and this year TIME put him on its 100 most influential list (the only Bollywood actor on it, per reports). He's now juggling Love & War, due 21 January 2027, which reunites him with director Sanjay Leela Bhansali almost two decades after their Saawariya days, and the Ramayana films.
The big stoush on his CV is Animal (2023). Critics called the film misogynistic, and Ranbir hit back in a 2024 interview, saying social media blew it up: “They needed something to talk about”. He said he doesn't agree with the critics but doesn't argue with them, and that he'd say sorry to people who didn't like his work and try harder next time.
On the harm check, honestly, the record is thin. We found no statements from him on LGBTQ+ people, trans rights, vaccines or climate, and nothing in his own words that targets any group. His recent slate (Bhansali, Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana, a planned Animal sequel) hasn't thrown up any harmful company we could source. The asterisk is Animal and his defence of it, not anything he's said about women himself.
The latest flaps are mild. In November 2025 a clip from the Netflix show Dining With The Kapoors went viral, apparently showing him eating fish and mutton, after earlier reports said he'd gone vegetarian for Ramayana. Deccan Chronicle noted the food wasn't clearly identifiable and he hadn't commented. This month he botched a line in a Kolkata speech and owned it quickly: “I had a slip of the tongue.”
Legally it's small beer. In 2012 a Rajasthan court fined him Rs 200 over smoking in public after images from a film shoot; his lawyer paid it. Separately, in December 2025 a former tenant of his Pune flat filed a civil claim for about Rs 50 lakh, alleging she was forced out before her lease ended. The report carried no response from him, and no outcome has been reported.
On the good side, he joined Aamir Khan's Paani Foundation in 2018, taking part in volunteer labour for drought-hit Maharashtra and becoming a “Jalmitra”. That's real, if a few years old. Beyond that, we couldn't find much documented charity we could verify, so we won't pad it.