Nawazuddin Siddiqui is the lead actor in eight unreleased films made in the last six years!
Subhash K Jha (DNA; December 24, 2016)

It took Nawazuddin Siddiqui 11 years to find a foothold in the film industry. But since becoming a star of sorts with 2012’s Gangs Of Wasseypur, he has been struggling with releasing some of his films.

When it began...
This began during GOW and Kahaani’s releases and the struggle continues to this day. In 2011, he was a part of Mangesh Hadawale’s Dekh Indian Circus, about a dad struggling to send his children to see this circus. The project remains unreleased.

Wins hai toh kya?
The internationally lauded Patang, (2012) by Prashant Bhargava remains unreleased. Geetu Mohandas’s road film Liar’s Dice, that won leading lady Geetanjali Thapa the National award for Best Actress was ignored by the distributors.

The brutal saga of gangsterism Monsoon Shootout, directed by Amit Kumar made an impact at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, but left Indian exhibitors unimpressed. That same year, Nawaz played a detective in Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s political satire Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa. But no release!

Abhi bhi unreleased
In 2015, he played a teacher having an affair with an underage student in Haraamkhor, directed by Shlok Sharma, which remains unreleased. That same year, Bishnu Dutta announced Gawah The Witness with Nawaz and Emraan Hashmi in the lead. It never even went on the floors.

Sarthak Dasgupta’s The Music Teacher is complete and unreleased. There are other projects with Nawaz in the lead which are in financial trouble and may or may not eventually get released.

Says Nawazuddin, “What can I say? All these are films to which I have given my blood sweat and tears. I’ve worked hard and for nominal fees for these, as I believed in these films. They are important films not only to my career, but also as works of cinematic brilliance by directors who know their jobs. I was hopeful that after the success of my solo-hero film Freaky Ali, some of these films would get released.”