Anupama Chopra
Anupama Vinod Chopra (Chandra) is an Indian author, journalist and film critic who served as the festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival from 2015 to 2023. She is also the founder and editor of the now-defunct digital platform Film Companion, which offered a curated look at cinema with an emphasis on Indian film. She has written several books on Indian cinema and has been a film critic for NDTV and India Today, as well as the Hindustan Times.
Anupama Chopra

Bollywood Hungama · CC BY 3.0
- Name
- Anupama Chopra
- Birth Name
- Anupama Chandra
- Birthplace
- Calcutta, West Bengal, India
- Education
- * St.
- Occupation
- * Author
- Born
- 1967 · Prayagraj.
- Nationality
- India
- Known for
- Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge · Sholay: The Making of a Classic
- Languages
- English
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Anupama Vinod Chopra (Chandra) is an Indian author, journalist and film critic who served as the festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival from 2015 to 2023. She is also the founder and editor of the now-defunct digital platform Film Companion, which offered a curated look at cinema with an emphasis on Indian film. She has written several books on Indian cinema and has been a film critic for NDTV and India Today, as well as the Hindustan Times.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Anupama Chopra. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
not yet certified
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q526008 · wikipedia · Anupama Chopra
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
She hosted a weekly film review show, The Front Row With Anupama Chopra, on Star World. She won the 2000 National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema for her first book Sholay: The Making of a Classic. Chopra joined the Indian outlet of The Hollywood Reporter as it was launched in 2024.
• Name — Anupama Chopra • Birth Name — Anupama Chandra • Birthplace — Calcutta, West Bengal, India • Education — * St. Xavier's College, Mumbai • Medill School of Journalism (Northwestern University) • Occupation — * Author • journalist • film critic • Mother — Kamna Chandra • Relatives — * Vikram Chandra (brother) • Tanuja Chandra (sister) • Ramanand Sagar (brother-in-law) • Children — Zuni Chopra and Agni Chopra
Early life and background
Early life and background
Born as Anupama Chandra in Calcutta, India to Chandra Prasad family, she has also lived in Badayun, a city in Uttar Pradesh. Her father, Navin Chandra, was the eldest among his siblings. Anupama's grandfather, originally from Delhi, was an executive with Union Carbide in Kolkata. Her mother, Kamna Chandra, was a scriptwriter who wrote dialogue for such films as Prem Rog (1982) and Chandni (1989). Chopra grew up with her brother and sister in Mumbai, where her family lived in the Nepean Sea Road neighbourhood, and then in Cuffe Parade. Her sister, Tanuja Chandra, is an Indian film director and screenwriter; her brother, Vikram Chandra, is a novelist, who splits his time between California and India. She also lived in Hong Kong for several years as a teenager. She graduated from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai with a BA in English Literature in 1987. Later, Chopra earned her MA in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She won the Harrington Award for "academic excellence and promise for success in the field of magazine journalism" while at Medill. She later said, "Film journalism was untouchable at the time. Everybody was ashamed and nobody wanted to admit that I worked for movies."
Career
Career
After her education, Chopra started her career as a film journalist and critic and over the years has written several books on films, especially Hindi cinema. She has written about the Hindi film industry since 1993 and has explored cinema in several mediums – print, television and digital. Her first book Sholay: The Making of a Classic (2000) won the 2001 National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema (India). Chopra's 2011 book First Day First Show: Writings from the Bollywood Trenches, is a compilation of her articles on Hindi cinema over two decades, published by Penguin India. • Illustration — Chopra at her book launch, 2012 Chopra hosted a film review show, Picture This, on NDTV 24X7 news channel. In 2012, she started her weekly review show called The Front Row with Anupama Chopra, on Star World, which ran until June 2014. In 2013, she released two books, Freeze Frame, based on the interviews with film makers and actors on the TV show, and 100 Films to See before You Die based on her weekly film columns. In 2014, she also hosted a Hindi show called Star Verdict on Star Plus. In November 2014, Chopra replaced Srinivasan Narayanan to become the festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival organized by the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI). She remained in this role until June 2024, when she stepped down and was replaced by interim festival director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. In December 2025, while working with The Hollywood Reporter India, she posted a review of the spy thriller Dhurandhar, which was met with social media trolling and widespread backlash. This resulted in the video being made private.
Personal life
Personal life
Chopra is married to Vidhu Vinod Chopra, a producer and director of Hindi films. Her daughter Zuni Chopra (born 2001) is the author of three books, including a novel and two books in poetry. Her son Agni Dev Chopra is a cricketer.
Identity
Identity
Anupama Chopra is recorded as journalist, writer, film critic and film director.

Journalist Anupama Chopra attends the 9th Mumbai Film Festival
Bollywood Hungama
Film Companion
In July 2014, Chopra founded the website Film Companion as a pan-India platform for entertainment journalism. The platform carried reviews, interviews, features and masterclasses on cinema, television and web series content. Chopra, Rahul Desai, Sucharita Tyagi and Pratayush Parasuraman wrote for the platform. Baradwaj Rangan also wrote for many years before leaving on 15 March 2022. In July 2024, Chopra announced that she was moving on to The Hollywood Reporter India, and that the Film Companion site was closing down.
Awards
• 2000 National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema for Sholay: The Making of a Classic
Literature
Scholarly footprint
A count of publications is evidence of attention, not of standing, and is given here only as a measure.
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q526008: Anupama ChopraWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
37,408 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Anup BhandariPerson
- Anup SinghPerson
- Anup SoniPerson
- Anupam KherPerson
- Anurag BasuPerson
- Anurag KashyapPerson
- Anurag SinghPerson
- Anusha RizviPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Anupama Chopra?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.