A reminder on numbers: ratings are reported through weekly charts, and reporting bodies use different panels and scales. Figures below are shown as reported.

Iqtidar (2024 to 2025)

The breakout. Anmol Baloch and Ali Raza lead a story about a young woman taking on a powerful family after her brother's death, written by Hina Huma Nafees and directed by Fahim Burney. It ran 62 episodes and wrapped in April 2025, and The Siasat Daily described it as one of the most watched dramas in the country in 2024. Dawn noted the show was making its ratings on the strength of the leads' chemistry.

Duniyapur (2024 to 2025)

The gamble. A 24-episode family-feud epic, reported as the most expensive drama in Pakistani television history, with Nauman Ijaz, Khushhal Khan, Ramsha Khan, Sami Khan and Manzar Sehbai. Radain Shah wrote it, Shahid Shafaat directed it, and Dawn's reviewer praised its pace, cast and action photography. It wrapped in March 2025.

The library

Green's originals also include Kabuli Pulao, Jindo, Nauroz, Siyaah, 101 Talaqain and Working Women, a slate that shows the channel has been willing to try genres the older networks rarely touch.

What it means for 2026

The two big shows above finished their runs in early 2025, which leaves Green in a building year rather than a winning one. But it has proved the point it set out to prove: a new channel can still change what Pakistani television looks like.

A reminder on numbers: ratings are reported through weekly charts, and reporting bodies use different panels and scales. Figures below are shown as reported.

Aik Aur Pakeezah (2026, completed)

The headliner. Sehar Khan, Nameer Khan, Amna Ilyas and Gohar Rasheed star in a social drama written by Bee Gul and directed by Kashif Nisar, and it has completed its run.

Case No 9 (2025)

Carrying its buzz into 2026, this courtroom thriller led by Saba Qamar drew strong reviews, with Gulf News calling it a must-watch.

The track record

Nobody in Pakistan builds a phenomenon like Geo. Tere Bin became a cross-border obsession in 2022 and 2023, Jaan Nisar was one of the biggest hits of 2024, and the channel's older library still reads like a hall of fame: Khaani, Khuda Aur Mohabbat, Deewangi, Bashar Momin.

The year in one line

Quieter than ARY on the charts, but Aik Aur Pakeezah kept Geo in the conversation, and its archive does the rest.

A reminder on numbers: ratings are reported through weekly charts, and reporting bodies use different panels and scales. Peaks below are shown as reported.

Zanjeerain (2026, on air)

Hum's flagship of the year. Sajal Aly, Ameer Gilani, Danyal Zafar and Ahsan Khan lead a story that stays near the top of the weekly charts and has kept viewers arguing about its turns all season.

Muamma (2025 to 2026, completed)

Saba Qamar leads a mystery thriller written by Imran Nazir and directed by Shaqielle Khan, with Usman Mukhtar, Ali Ansari and Shahzad Sheikh alongside. It ran 35 episodes and peaked at a reported 6.7.

Aap Ki Izzat (2026, on air)

Another year, another Umera Ahmed script to reckon with. Directed by Saife Hassan, it stars Urwa Hocane, Ahsan Khan and Sania Saeed in a portrait of how dignity can slip away inside a home. It is still airing.

Dekh Magar Pyar Se (2026, completed)

The comedy hit of the slate: Yumna Zaidi and Hamza Sohail in a Saima Akram Chaudhry romance that peaked at a reported 6.3.

And from late 2025

Jama Taqseem closed last year with critics on its side; Dawn's reviewer called it a masterpiece in storytelling.

The pattern

Hum's strength in 2026 is tone. No other network moved as confidently between thriller, social drama and comedy this year, and Zanjeerain gives it a flagship that can run well into next season.

A reminder on numbers: ratings are reported through weekly charts, and different reporting bodies use different panels and scales. Peaks below are shown as reported and never blended across sources.

Bas Tera Saath Ho (2026, on air)

Farhan Saeed and Sana Javed lead the family romance, written by Saira Raza and directed by Qasim Ali Mureed, with Saba Hameed and Zoya Nasir in support. Thirty-two episodes in, it is still running.

Doctor Bahu (2026, completed)

Kubra Khan and Shuja Asad star in a social drama written by Sanam Mehdi Zaryab and directed by Mehreen Jabbar. It finished its 35-episode run this year with a reported peak of 11.5, and Adeel Hussain and Saba Hameed round out the cast.

Dar-e-Nijaat (2026, on air)

Umera Ahmed writes and Saqib Khan directs a story about a charmed life upended by betrayal, with Durefishan Saleem, Sheheryar Munawar and Nameer Khan in the leads. It is currently airing.

Toota Huwa Dil (2026, completed)

Agha Ali, Nazish Jahangir and Arez Ahmed headline a story written by Erum Binte Shahid and directed by Syed Wajahat Hussain.

Carried over from 2025: Meri Zindagi Hai Tu

The Bilal Abbas Khan and Hania Aamir romance ran 34 episodes into 2026, written by Radain Shah and directed by Musaddiq Malek, and peaked at a reported 6.2.

Why ARY leads the year

Four titles in the year's top conversations, a reported double-digit peak on two of them, and a star roster that keeps rotating new pairings. On the numbers as reported, nobody else in 2026 has matched that mix.

Before the list, one note on ratings. Pakistani ratings are reported through weekly charts, and different reporting bodies use different panels and scales. The peak figures below are the highest numbers seen in public chart reports, shown as reported and never blended across sources. They are a signal, not a verdict.

ARY Digital: the year's ratings engine

Bas Tera Saath Ho (2026) has been the number to beat, peaking at a reported 15.7. Farhan Saeed and Sana Javed lead the family romance, written by Saira Raza and directed by Qasim Ali Mureed, with Saba Hameed and Zoya Nasir in support. Thirty-two episodes in, it is still on air.

Doctor Bahu (2026) finished its 35-episode run with a reported peak of 11.5. Kubra Khan and Shuja Asad star in a social drama written by Sanam Mehdi Zaryab and directed by Mehreen Jabbar, with Adeel Hussain and Saba Hameed alongside.

Dar-e-Nijaat (2026) is the year's other Umera Ahmed script, directed by Saqib Khan, with Durefishan Saleem, Sheheryar Munawar and Nameer Khan. It is currently airing.

Toota Huwa Dil (2026) completed its run this year: Agha Ali, Nazish Jahangir and Arez Ahmed in a story written by Erum Binte Shahid and directed by Syed Wajahat Hussain.

Late 2025 carried over as well. Meri Zindagi Hai Tu, with Bilal Abbas Khan and Hania Aamir, ran 34 episodes into 2026 and peaked at a reported 6.2.

Hum TV: thrillers and heart

Zanjeerain (2026) has been Hum's flagship: Sajal Aly, Ameer Gilani, Danyal Zafar and Ahsan Khan in a romance with a thriller's pulse, and a fixture near the top of the weekly charts all year.

Muamma (2025 to 2026) put Saba Qamar in a mystery thriller opposite Usman Mukhtar, Ali Ansari and Shahzad Sheikh. Written by Imran Nazir and directed by Shaqielle Khan, it ran 35 episodes and peaked at a reported 6.7.

Aap Ki Izzat (2026) is the channel's social drama of the year, another Umera Ahmed script, directed by Saife Hassan, with Urwa Hocane, Ahsan Khan and Sania Saeed. Its subject is respect inside a marriage, and it is still airing.

Dekh Magar Pyar Se (2026) gave Hum its comedy hit: Yumna Zaidi and Hamza Sohail in a Saima Akram Chaudhry romance that peaked at a reported 6.3.

The channel also closed 2025 with Jama Taqseem, which Dawn's reviewer called a masterpiece in storytelling.

Geo TV: a quieter, steady year

Aik Aur Pakeezah (2026) headlined Geo's year: Sehar Khan, Nameer Khan, Amna Ilyas and Gohar Rasheed in a social drama written by Bee Gul and directed by Kashif Nisar. It has completed its run.

Geo's recent slate also included Case No 9 (2025), a courtroom thriller led by Saba Qamar that drew strong reviews. And the channel's bench remains the deepest in the country when it comes to phenomena: Tere Bin, Jaan Nisar, Khaani, Khuda Aur Mohabbat and Deewangi all started here.

Green Entertainment: the ambitious newcomer

Green launched in 2023 and has been the most adventurous of the new channels since. Iqtidar (2024 to 2025) is its breakout: 62 episodes, Anmol Baloch and Ali Raza in the leads, written by Hina Huma Nafees and directed by Fahim Burney. The Siasat Daily described it as one of the country's most watched dramas of 2024, and Dawn credited the pair's on-screen chemistry for its staying power in the ratings.

Duniyapur (2024 to 2025) was the gamble: a 24-episode family-feud epic reported as the most expensive drama in Pakistani television history, with Nauman Ijaz, Khushhal Khan, Ramsha Khan, Sami Khan and Manzar Sehbai. Written by Radain Shah and directed by Shahid Shafaat, it wrapped in March 2025.

The wider Green library keeps growing, with Kabuli Pulao, Jindo, Nauroz, Siyaah, 101 Talaqain and Working Women among its originals.

How this list is built

Rankings draw on the 2026 slate as reported in public weekly ratings charts, plus our own tracking of which serials kept the conversation going all year. Peaks are shown as reported, with no blending across sources, and no rumour or scandal is ever part of the score.

Quick facts

• Born: 1990
• Profession: Actress
• Known for: Bashar Momin, Parizaad, Aye Ishq e Junoon
• Awards: A Hum Award, a Pakistan Media Award, and a Lux Style Award nomination

A graduate's debut

Shah graduated from York University in Canada before returning to Pakistan, and made her debut with a supporting role in the 2013 romance Mere Khwabon Ka Diya, which won her the Pakistan Media Award for Best Emerging Talent. It took only a season for bigger roles to follow.

The breakout

Bashar Momin (2014) made her a headline name, a thriller that became one of the most talked-about serials of its year, and she spent the following seasons widening her range across romantic and social dramas.

The 2020s run

Her recent work has been her strongest: a memorable arc in Parizaad, one of the biggest hits in television history, and the lead in Aye Ishq e Junoon, which confirmed her place among the most in-demand actresses of the new decade.

She has earned her place the old-fashioned way, one compelling performance at a time.

Where to follow

• X: @ushnashah
• Facebook: Ushna Shah

Quick facts

• Born: 23 October 1969
• Profession: Actor, producer, model
• Known for: Aroosa, Meray Paas Tum Ho, Mom
• Studio: Founder of Cereal Entertainment

From PTV to Hollywood

Siddiqui is best known to an older generation for his role in PTV's classical drama Aroosa (1994), and he went on to work across Lollywood and Hollywood, building a rare international profile for a Pakistani actor of his era.

Across the border and back

In 2017 he made his Bollywood debut in Mom, sharing the screen with Sridevi, and two years later he appeared in Mere Paas Tum Ho (2019), the Hum TV serial that became a national phenomenon and gave his career a second peak.

The producer's chair

Off screen he runs Cereal Entertainment, developing work behind the camera, and he remains an in-demand model and brand face across the industry. Three decades in, Siddiqui keeps finding new chapters.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @adnansid1
• Website: adnan-siddiqui.com

Quick facts

• Born: 1957
• Profession: Screenwriter, lyricist, actor, director
• Known for: Suno Chanda, Kuch Ankahi, and a long list of beloved series and telefilms

The writer's shelf

Frequently credited as Mohammad Ahmed, he is behind series including Mystery Theater, Badtameez, Tum Se Kehna Tha, Shaista Shaista, Azar Ki Ayegi Baraat, Annie Ki Ayegi Baraat, Tanhaiyan Naye Silsilay, Dareecha and Goya, along with telefilms such as Khamoshi and Ghoongat and the film Ramchand Pakistani. His scripts are known for their ear for how people actually talk, particularly the comedy in ordinary households.

The actor's turn

In Suno Chanda his appearance as Shah Jahan, better known to viewers as Agha Jan, drew wide praise and turned him into a recognisable face late in his career. The role put his own dialogue, or dialogue like it, in his voice, and audiences loved the symmetry.

Kuch Ankahi and after

His recent writing, including Kuch Ankahi (2023), showed a writer still willing to experiment with form and family dynamics, while his on-screen appearances have continued to grow.

He is proof that in this industry, words travel furthest, and the people who write them can become stars too.

Quick facts

• Born: 7 May 1979
• Profession: Director, actor, producer, screenwriter
• Known for: Humsafar, Shehr-e-Zaat, Manto, Zindagi Tamasha

The director of the moment, twice

Khoosat directed Humsafar (2011) and Shehr-e-Zaat (2012), the two serials that shaped a generation of Pakistani television and turned the dramas of that era into national phenomena. Very few directors can claim to have made the two shows everyone else is measured against.

Acting and Manto

In front of the camera he is just as fearless. His performance as the writer Saadat Hasan Manto in the 2015 film Manto, which he also directed, is among the most praised Pakistani film performances of the decade, and he has since appeared as an actor for other directors as well.

Zindagi Tamasha

His 2019 film Zindagi Tamasha was selected as Pakistan's entry for the Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, taking his work to the world's biggest platform. The film's journey to release was complicated, but its maker's reputation only grew.

Why he endures

Khoosat is the rare Pakistani artist equally at home in television, film and theatre, and he treats all three with the same seriousness. He is considered one of the finest filmmakers of his generation, and he is constitutionally unable to do the same thing twice.

Every project with his name on it is still an event.

Quick facts

• Born: 29 December 1971
• Profession: Director, producer
• Known for: Doraha, Nadaan, Dobara, Doctor Bahu
• Awards: Lux Style Award for Best TV Director, for Doraha (2008)

A career behind the camera

Jabbar's work for the 2008 series Doraha won her the Lux Style Award for Best TV Director and set the tone for a filmography that favours texture and character over noise. Her serials, including Nadaan and Dobara, have drawn praise for performances and pacing, and she has also worked as a producer, helping get other people's projects made.

She has spent much of her career based in New York, which has given her work a particular vantage point on the stories she tells about Pakistan, close enough to see clearly, distant enough to see whole.

Back in serials

In 2026 she returned to the serial format with Doctor Bahu, one of the most-watched dramas of the season, bringing her signature control to a nightly audience again. For viewers who grew up on her work, it has been like hearing a favourite voice come back on the radio.

Why she matters

Directors rarely become names in Pakistani television, but Jabbar is one of the exceptions: a filmmaker whose choices are visible in every frame and whose body of work keeps growing decades in.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @mehreenjabbarofficial
• Website: mehreenjabbar.com

Quick facts

• Profession: Actor, model
• Known for: Khaie (2024), Aye Ishq e Junoon (2024), Tan Man Neel O Neel (2024), Doctor Bahu (2026)

A fast learner

Asad's television career took off in 2024 with three dramas in a single year: Khaie, a story rooted in revenge and tribal custom, Aye Ishq e Junoon, and Tan Man Neel O Neel. Each required something different, and he delivered a different version of himself in each.

Leading Doctor Bahu

In 2026 he took the lead opposite Kubra Khan in Doctor Bahu, one of the biggest dramas of the season. Carrying a primetime show at this point in a career is rare, and the performance has made him one of the most followed young actors in the country.

The model turned actor

Asad also works as a model, and his screen presence carries the polish of someone comfortable in front of cameras since long before the cameras knew his name. But the reason to watch him is simpler than that: he listens on screen, which is the hardest skill of all.

The next few years will decide what kind of leading man he becomes. The start could hardly be stronger.

Quick facts

• Profession: Writer, novelist, screenwriter
• Known for: Zindagi Gulzar Hai, Shehr-e-Zaat, Alif, Hum Kahan Ke Sachay Thay, and the novel Pir-e-Kamil

The novelist first

Ahmed came to fame as a fiction writer, and novels such as Pir-e-Kamil made her one of the most widely read authors in Urdu. Her fiction deals in faith, class, psychology and the lives of women with a directness that readers found addictive and critics found serious.

The screen adaptations

Television came calling, and the adaptations of her work became a golden run: Shehr-e-Zaat (2012), Zindagi Gulzar Hai (2012), Alif (2019) and Hum Kahan Ke Sachay Thay (2021) are among the most discussed dramas of their respective eras. Her other adaptations include Durr-e-Shehwar, Daam, Man-o-Salwa, Qaid-e-Tanhai, Digest Writer, Maat, Kankar, Meri Zaat Zarra-e-Benishan and Doraha.

Why her work endures

Ahmed writes characters whose inner lives are as consequential as their circumstances, and she takes belief seriously in a way most television does not. That combination has given Pakistani drama some of its most quoted lines and memorable endings.

She is one of the creators who made modern Urdu television what it is, and her shelf of stories keeps growing.

Where to follow

Her novels and the dramas adapted from them are widely available across Pakistani streaming platforms.

Quick facts

• Born: 11 July 1990
• Profession: Actress
• Known for: Daasi, Ehd-e-Wafa, Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum

Theatre to screen

Butt is a theatre-trained performer, and her early television work quickly marked her as a different kind of presence: precise, physical, unafraid of big choices. She is known for playing Ghazala Habib in Ehd-e-Wafa (2019), the hit drama about friendship and army life, and for Irma in Daasi, which earned her wide recognition across the industry.

The Rubab phenomenon

Her performance as Rubab Mansoor Khan in Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum (2024) became one of the most talked-about roles of the year. In a drama that dominated the national conversation, her character gave the story its friction and its danger, and viewers debated her long after every episode ended.

What's next

With a theatre performer's discipline and a rising profile in prime time, Butt is now among the most in-demand actresses of her generation. She picks roles the way she used to pick plays: looking for the ones with teeth.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @naeemabutt

Quick facts

• Born: 1990
• Profession: Actress, model
• Known for: Zinda Bhaag, Good Morning Karachi, Saat Din Mohabbat In, Baaji, Ready Steady No

From the runway to the frame

Ilyas began modelling at around twenty and moved into acting in 2013, and her first films established the pattern: Zinda Bhaag (2013) and Good Morning Karachi (2014) were both independent-minded projects that put her among the most expressive young faces of Pakistani cinema's revival years.

The wider screen

She went on to appear in Saat Din Mohabbat In (2018), one of the biggest Eid releases of its year, and in Baaji (2019) and Ready Steady No (2019), two films that showed completely different sides of her range. Her work has also stretched across streaming and a long list of television dramas, including the popular Tum Mere Paas Raho.

The range test

The through-line in everything she does is expressiveness: Ilyas acts with her whole face, and directors use her for moments that need to land without dialogue. That quality has kept her in demand across every format the industry has invented, from cinema to series to streaming.

She remains one of the most reliable choices for anyone casting a woman with an inner life.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @aamnailyas

Quick facts

• Profession: Actress, director
• Known for: Family Front, Mere Humsafar, Doctor Bahu, Bas Tera Saath Ho

Comedy first

Hameed earned early recognition as Sumbul in the sitcom Family Front, which ran for five years and became one of the most beloved comedy shows in Pakistani television history. The role made her a household name and set up a career that has never stopped moving between registers.

The dramas that followed

She went on to appear in a long run of acclaimed serials, including Kahin Deep Jaley, Mere Humsafar and Fitoor, usually as the character who holds the family, and the story, together. Directors cast her when a scene needs weight, and comedians cast her when it needs timing; not many actors get asked for both.

Still at the centre in 2026

Her recent work has kept her at the heart of prime time: Doctor Bahu and Bas Tera Saath Ho have made her one of the most visible performers of the 2026 season, proof that her particular combination of warmth and authority has never been more in demand.

A career this long is built on trust, and Saba Hameed has the industry's, completely.

Where to follow

• Website: sabahamid.com

Quick facts

• Born: 28 September 1992
• Profession: Actress
• Known for: Sanam Teri Kasam, Aangan, Ek Tamanna Lahasil Si
• Film firsts: Bollywood debut in Sanam Teri Kasam (2016); Pakistani film debut in Jawani Phir Nahi Ani 2 (2018)

The early years

Born Mawra Hussain, she made her acting debut on television in 2011 and quickly earned praise for portrayals including Nadia in Ek Tamanna Lahasil Si (2012). Her screen presence, warm and watchable, made her a natural lead for dramas aimed at a young audience.

Crossing over

In 2016 she made her Bollywood debut in the romantic tragedy Sanam Teri Kasam, a film that became a cult favourite in India years after release. Two years later she made her Pakistani film debut in the hit comedy Jawani Phir Nahi Ani 2 (2018), one of the biggest films of that year.

The streaming age

With Aangan and a string of dramas and streaming projects, Hocane has kept her range broad and her output steady, building a following that spans generations and borders.

She has grown up on screen in front of two countries, and both are still watching.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @mawrellous
• X: @MawraHocane

Quick facts

• Born: 1972
• Profession: Actress, television host
• Known for: Raqeeb Se, Sang-e-Mah, and decades of theatre and screen work
• Awards: Four Lux Style Awards, four Hum Awards, and a PTV Award

From street theatre to the small screen

Saeed's first television appearance came in 1989, in a street theatre play televised for International Women's Day, and theatre has remained central to her work ever since. That theatrical grounding shows in everything: her timing, her stillness, the way she can do more with a pause than most actors manage with a monologue.

The great dramas

Over the years she has been a fixture of the country's most serious television, and her recent run may be her finest. In Raqeeb Se (2021) she played a woman reckoning with a first love and a lifelong duty, and in Sang-e-Mah she brought gravitas to a story about honour and inheritance. Both performances drew the kind of reviews usually reserved for cinema.

An actor's actor

Four Lux Style Awards, four Hum Awards and a PTV Award sit alongside a reputation as one of the performers younger actors study most closely. She has also worked as a television host and as a mentor and advocate for the arts.

Sania Saeed proves that power on screen has nothing to do with volume.

Where to follow

• Facebook: Sania Saeed

Quick facts

• Born: 2 May 1984
• Profession: Actor
• Known for: Seedlings (2013), The Legend of Maula Jatt (2022), and a steady run of television roles
• Recent work: Aik Aur Pakeezah

Film first

Rasheed's film work in Seedlings (2013) earned him awards attention, including nominations at the ARY Film Awards and the Lux Style Awards, and marked him as one of the most interesting film actors of his generation. In 2022 he appeared in The Legend of Maula Jatt, the highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time, adding the country's biggest cinematic event to his résumé.

A face you know

On television he has been a constant presence across genres and networks, moving between comedy and menace with the ease of a performer who treats every role as a lead. That versatility, and the recent run of work including Aik Aur Pakeezah, has made him one of the most recognisable faces of his generation.

His career is a reminder that in an industry obsessed with leads, the most valuable players are often the ones who can do anything.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @goharions
• X: @GoharRsd

Quick facts

• Born: 1956
• Profession: Actress, comedian, singer, playwright
• Known for: A career spanning six decades of Pakistani television
• Honours: Presidential Pride of Performance (1989)
• Recent work: Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum (2024)

A performer from the start

Ansari began in front of audiences as a child performer, and over the decades that followed she became a fixture on Pakistani television in every genre: comedy sketch shows, family drama, theatre, music. Her comic timing made her an institution, and her command of pathos made her irreplaceable in dramas that needed a matriarch who felt real.

Writer and singer too

Beyond acting she has worked as a playwright and a singer, a breadth that explains why her performances carry a writer's understanding of structure and a musician's sense of rhythm.

Still vital in the 2020s

In 2024 she appeared in Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum, one of the most-watched Pakistani dramas of the decade, bringing six decades of craft to an ensemble that spans three generations of actors. The Pride of Performance she received in 1989 has only looked more earned with time.

Few careers in the industry's history are this long, and fewer still remain this relevant.

Where to follow

• Website: bushraansari.com

Quick facts

• Born: 1989
• Profession: Actress
• Known for: Aunn Zara, Shanakht, Diyar-e-Dil, Mann Mayal, Teefa in Trouble
• Awards: A Lux Style Award and three Hum Awards

From Durr-e-Shehwar to Aunn Zara

Born Maryam Tanveer Ali, she began with a brief role in the telenovela Durr-e-Shehwar, then won wider recognition as the titular character in the romantic comedy Aunn Zara (2013), a performance that made her a household name overnight. Shanakht (2014) followed, a social drama about faith and identity that showed a completely different register.

The golden run

Her breakthrough era arrived with Diyar-e-Dil (2015) and Mann Mayal (2016), two of the most popular dramas of the decade, both of which turned her into the face of their seasons. A Lux Style Award and three Hum Awards followed across the run.

The big screen

On film she headlined Teefa in Trouble (2018), one of the biggest commercial hits of modern Pakistani cinema, sharing the screen with Ali Zafar in a comedy that travelled far beyond Pakistan's borders.

She remains one of the most loved stars of her era, and every new project she announces still breaks the internet.

Quick facts

• Born: 1985
• Profession: Actress, singer, former model
• Known for: Zindagi Gulzar Hai, Diyar-e-Dil, Cake
• Awards: Lux Style Awards for Best Television Actress

From Daam to Kashaf

Saeed made her television debut in Daam (2010) after a modelling career, but it was Kashaf Murtaza in Zindagi Gulzar Hai (2012) that made her a national star. Her performance opposite Fawad Khan won her widespread acclaim and Lux Style Award honours, and the character remains one of the most self-possessed heroines in Pakistani drama.

Diyar-e-Dil and beyond

The 2015 family epic Diyar-e-Dil confirmed her range in an ensemble of heavyweights, and she has continued to favour independent-spirited roles ever since, from period work to dramas about women negotiating the modern world.

Cake and the big screen

On film, her leading role in Cake (2018) brought her some of the best reviews of her career and introduced her work to a new, younger audience. The film's portrait of a family in quiet crisis suited exactly the register she does best: powerful, unhurried, precise.

She remains choosy about scripts, which is why every one of them is worth waiting for.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @sanammody
• X: @sanammodysaeed

Quick facts

• Born: 9 October 1981
• Profession: Actor, producer, television host
• Known for: Udaari, Fraud, and a long list of popular serials and films

The films first

Khan began with the 1998 film Nikah and went on to appear in films including Billi, Ghar Kab Aao Gay, Sultanat, Ishq Khuda and Dil Mera Dhadkan Teri before television became his mainstay. The pivot worked: he became one of the most recognisable faces on the small screen within a few seasons.

The roles that changed the conversation

Udaari (2016) gave him one of the most divisive characters of his career, an antagonist that audiences loved to hate, and showed a darker range under the charm that had defined his earlier work. Fraud (2022) kept him at the centre of prime time and demonstrated his comic timing and control in equal measure.

Host with the most

Hosting is a parallel career: he fronted the quiz show Hayya Allal Falah and has spent years leading Ramadan transmissions on PTV Home, a role that has made him part of the country's evenings.

His willingness to change lanes is exactly what has kept him on the road this long.

Quick facts

• Born: 14 September 1984
• Profession: Singer-songwriter, actor, entrepreneur
• Known for: Udaari, Suno Chanda, Mere Humsafar
• Also: Former lead vocalist of Jal; owns the Cafe Rock restaurant in Lahore

The Jel years

Saeed fronted Jal during the band's most commercially successful era, and his voice carried songs that are still played in every corner of the country. When he moved on, he already had the kind of name recognition that takes other actors decades.

The acting chapter

He made his acting debut with De Ijazat Jo Tu (2014) and had his breakthrough in Udaari (2016), a drama that earned him a Hum Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Then came Suno Chanda, the Eid comedy that became an annual tradition, and Mere Humsafar (2022), one of the decade's most popular dramas, which turned him into a leading man whose name alone can sell a show.

Still singing

Music has never left the picture: he continues to record, and his wedding-era favourites remain fixtures of the airwaves. He is also a businessman, with the Cafe Rock restaurant in Lahore among his ventures.

Two careers, one name, and no intention of slowing down.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @farhan_saeed
• X: @farhan_saeed

Quick facts

• Born: 1986
• Profession: Actor, writer, choreographer
• Known for: Diyar-e-Dil, Chupke Chupke, Ehd-e-Wafa
• Awards: Two Hum Awards, an ARY Film Award, and two Lux Style Award nominations

The roles that made him

Butt first came to national attention as Wali Sohaib Khan in Diyar-e-Dil (2015), a character that turned him into a household name. Ehd-e-Wafa (2019) built on that success with his Malik Shahzain, and the feel-good comedy Chupke Chupke (2021) proved that he could carry a show's lightest moments as naturally as its heaviest.

A writer's instinct

His work as a screenwriter and essayist feeds his acting: Butt writes with the same humour and precision that audiences see on screen, and the combination has made him a sought-after collaborator for shows that need both warmth and wit.

Beyond the set

Outside acting he is a familiar voice on social media and in theatre circles, still connected to the scene that shaped him. Two Hum Awards and an ARY Film Award have followed, along with repeated Lux Style Award nominations.

Versatility is easy to claim and hard to sustain, and Butt has built a career on actually sustaining it.

Quick facts

• Born: 1986
• Profession: Actor
• Known for: Parizaad, Ehd-e-Wafa, Laal Kabootar

An early start

Akbar made his television debut in 1999, at the age of thirteen, in PTV's drama Stop Watch, and later appeared in the 2013 film Siyaah. His professional acting career began in 2014, and a run of supporting roles followed before the industry began to see what leading men could look like when they were built on range rather than gloss.

Parizaad

In Parizaad (2021), Akbar played the titular character, a quiet, poetry-loving man navigating a world that keeps underestimating him. The serial became a cultural event, with its hero's verses quoted across social media, and it won him a shelf of awards and the kind of recognition that comes once in a career.

Range and next steps

Ehd-e-Wafa had already shown his ensemble instincts, and the film Laal Kabootar demonstrated that his intensity translated to the big screen. Today he is one of the first names producers consider for difficult, interior roles, and the standard he set with Parizaad now follows him into every new script.

He continues to choose characters over categories.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @ahmedaliakbarofficial

Quick facts

• Born: 11 September 1989
• Profession: Actor, writer, producer, host
• Known for: Ranjha Ranjha Kardi, Dil Lagi, Raqs-e-Bismil, Namak Haram
• Awards: Best TV Actor, 19th Lux Style Awards, for Ranjha Ranjha Kardi

Building the craft

Ashraf worked steadily through the 2010s, with Dil Lagi (2016) among the dramas that showed his comic and romantic range, before Ranjha Ranjha Kardi (2018-19) changed the trajectory of his career. Critics called the role fearless; audiences simply kept watching.

Writer and producer

Behind the camera he is a writer and producer as well, contributing scripts and helping shape the projects he leads. Raqs-e-Bismil (2020-21) showed his darker register, and Namak Haram added another complicated lead to his list.

What drives him

In interviews he talks about characters the way craftsmen talk about tools: what they can do, what they refuse to do, and how to make them honest. That seriousness is why producers keep handing him their most difficult roles.

He remains one of the very few actors in the industry who can carry a show on technique alone, and he is just getting started.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @imranashrafawan

Quick facts

• Born: 14 February 1965
• Profession: Actor
• Known for: Raqeeb Se, Sang-e-Mah, Parizaad
• Awards: Ten Lux Style Awards, seven Hum Awards, and the President's Pride of Performance (2012)

A career measured in decades

Ijaz came up through state television, where he spent years building the kind of range that only volume can teach: comedies, tragedies, social dramas, and everything between. He has stayed with each era of the industry, from PTV's single-channel days to the streaming age, without ever seeming nostalgic for any of them.

The late-career purple patch

Rather than easing off, his recent work may be his most admired. In Raqeeb Se (2021) he played a man caught between old love and family duty, in Sang-e-Mah he added another unforgettable character to the canon, and in Parizaad he showed how a supporting role can quietly steal a scene from anyone. Younger viewers discovered him through these, while longtime fans saw the same precision they have watched for decades.

The honours

Ten Lux Style Awards and seven Hum Awards put him among the most decorated television actors in the country, and in 2012 he received the President's Pride of Performance.

He is proof that in this industry, the longest careers are built on craft first.

Where to follow

Fans can find his work across Pakistan's major streaming platforms.

Quick facts

• Born: 5 April 1984
• Profession: Actress
• Known for: Baaghi, Cheekh, Fraud, and her Hindi film debut Hindi Medium (2017)
• Awards: Two Lux Style Awards, three PTV Awards, a Filmfare nomination, plus the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz (2012) and the Pride of Performance (2016)

Against the grain

Qamar's work in Baaghi, a drama about a controversial television host, and Cheekh, a story of revenge and justice, made her one of the most discussed actresses in the country. Fraud (2022) added another sharp turn, mixing family drama with a con artist's game of wits, and her range has kept her among Pakistan's most popular and highest-paid actresses.

Crossing borders

Her Hindi film debut in Hindi Medium (2017) earned her a Filmfare nomination and introduced her to audiences across the border, a rare feat for a Pakistani actress of her generation.

National recognition

The Government of Pakistan honoured her with the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz in 2012 and the Pride of Performance in 2016, recognising a body of work that has consistently chosen substance over safety.

Her reputation rests on fearless choices, and that is unlikely to change any time soon.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @sabaqamarzaman
• X: @sabaqamar

Quick facts

• Born: 26 October 1973
• Profession: Actor, television host, producer
• Known for: Boota from Toba Tek Singh (1999) and a career spanning comedy, cinema and prime-time drama
• Awards: More than 20 national awards

The boy from Toba Tek Singh

Quraishi first became a household name playing the leading role of Boota in the television series Boota from Toba Tek Singh (1999), a performance that remains one of the defining characters of his generation of actors. From there he built a career that refused to sit in one lane: comedy, romantic drama, cinema, and hosting.

Host, producer, mainstay

For years he hosted Muskurati Morning with Faisal Qureshi, a morning show that became part of the country's daily rhythm, and behind the camera he works as a producer as well. In front of it, he remains a reliable anchor for any prime-time slot: producers know he can carry comedy and tragedy in the same season.

Why he still matters

The industry's working rhythm has changed many times since 1999, but Quraishi has stayed in demand through all of it, a rare example of a performer whose range and discipline have outlasted every trend.

His long run is a lesson in versatility, and the next production is already in the works.

Quick facts

• Born: 23 June 1986
• Profession: Actor, director
• Known for: Pyarey Afzal, Mann Mayal, Alif, The Legend of Maula Jatt

The 2013 breakthrough

Abbasi's career took off with the drama Pyarey Afzal (2013), where his performance as Afzal made him a household name. On film the same year he appeared in Main Hoon Shahid Afridi and Waar, winning both Best Star Debut Male and Best Supporting Actor at the first ARY Film Awards.

Peak TV years

He followed with Mann Mayal (2016), where his portrayal of Salahuddin became one of the most quoted characters of its season, and later with Alif (2019), a drama about faith and art that matched his introspective instincts. Between projects he is known for speaking thoughtfully about belief, work, and the responsibilities of fame, a stance that has made him one of the most discussed actors of his generation.

Maula Jatt

In 2022 he played Noori Natt, the antagonist in The Legend of Maula Jatt, the highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time. His thundering performance opposite Fawad Khan gave the film its counterweight and introduced him to a new global audience.

With one of the most selective filmographies in the industry and a reputation for meaning every scene, his next move is always worth waiting for.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @realhamzaaliabbasi
• X: @iamhamzaabbasi

Quick facts

• Born: 27 July 1971
• Profession: Actor, producer
• Known for: Meray Paas Tum Ho, Love Guru, Jawani Phir Nahi Ani films
• Studio: Founder of the production house Six Sigma Plus
• Awards: Lux Style Awards and ARY Film Awards, among others

An actor who describes himself as a student

Saeed has often called himself a method actor, and his approach has produced a long run of characters that audiences remember by name. On television, his turn in Meray Paas Tum Ho (2019) became one of the most-watched dramas in Pakistani history and a genuine television event.

Behind the camera

He also runs Six Sigma Plus, a production house behind television serials and commercial films, which has made him one of the most influential figures in the business. The Jawani Phir Nahi Ani films, which he headlined, are among the biggest hits of Pakistani cinema's modern era.

Love Guru and the next chapter

In 2025 he starred opposite Mahira Khan in the romantic comedy Love Guru, which became the biggest commercial success of the year and set new box-office benchmarks for Pakistani cinema. It was a reminder that his instincts, in front of the camera and behind it, remain as sharp as ever.

He is one of the few figures in the industry who has shaped both the shows people watch and the business that makes them possible, and he shows no sign of slowing down.

Quick facts

• Born: 12 March 1983, Wazirabad
• Profession: Singer, songwriter, composer, actor
• Known for: "Aadat", "Tere Bin", "Jeena Jeena", playback work across Pakistani and Indian cinema
• Acting: Television debut as Hilmand in Sang-e-Mah (2022), for which he also sang the title track

A voice that travelled

Aslam's music career took off with the song "Aadat", and by 2005 he had made his Bollywood debut when it was featured in Kalyug. What followed was a run of chart-topping playback songs in both Pakistani and Indian films, a fanbase that stretched from Karachi to Delhi to Toronto, and a style often described as a meeting point between pop and Sufi rock.

Stepping on screen

In 2022 he made his acting debut as Hilmand in Sang-e-Mah, and he also recorded the drama's title song. The performance, in a story built around honour and old grudges, drew praise and proved he could hold a scene as well as a melody.

In concert and beyond

Live shows remain his strongest suit: his tours fill arenas across three continents, and a generation of fans knows every word. He continues to record for films and special projects, choosing his spots carefully.

Where to follow

• X: @itsaadee
• Website: aadeez.com

Two decades on, that voice is still the first one many listeners think of when they think of Pakistani music.

Quick facts

• Born: 4 June 1993
• Profession: Actor
• Known for: O Rangreza, Cheekh, Pyaar Ke Sadqay, Ishq Murshid, Meri Zindagi Hai Tu
• Awards: Three Lux Style Awards; named among 30 under 30 global Asian stars (2021)

Rising through the 2010s

Khan first drew attention as a second lead in the romantic thriller Dumpukht - Aatish-e-Ishq (2016), then rose to prominence with O Rangreza (2017) and the thriller Balaa (2018). The revenge drama Cheekh (2019) showed how far he was willing to travel from the soft romance his early fans expected, and critics took notice.

The breakthrough

Pyaar Ke Sadqay (2020) opposite Yumna Zaidi became the turning point, a coming-of-age story that made him one of the most respected actors of his generation. Then came Ishq Murshid (2023), where his double role as a rich heir and his own alter ego became the season's biggest talking point, complete with a soundtrack that followed the show everywhere.

In 2025 and 2026 he led Meri Zindagi Hai Tu opposite Hania Aamir, one of the biggest television events of the season, which drew record audiences in both Pakistan and India before its finale in March 2026.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @bilalabbas_khan

He has said that he wants every role to teach him something new, and that willingness to start over each time is exactly what keeps the audience watching.

Quick facts

• Born: 1989
• Profession: Actress
• Known for: Pyaar Ke Sadqay, Parizaad, Tere Bin, Bakhtawar
• Awards: Seven Lux Style Awards, two Hum Awards

From supporting roles to leading lady

Zaidi first appeared on screen in a supporting role in ARY Digital's domestic drama Thakan (2012), and spent the following seasons playing leads in serials such as the family drama Meri Dulari and the revenge-themed Ullu Baraye Farokht Nahi. Each one widened her range: social drama, romantic drama, and the kind of roles that require holding a quiet frame.

The roles that defined a generation

Pyaar Ke Sadqay (2020) paired her with Bilal Abbas Khan in a story about two young people navigating marriage, loss and self-discovery, and became one of the most discussed dramas of its year. Parizaad (2021) turned her into a national name all over again, and Tere Bin (2022) became a cross-border phenomenon that cemented her as one of the most bankable stars of Urdu television. A later turn in the title role of Bakhtawar showed a darker register as well.

Awards and honours

Zaidi's seven Lux Style Award wins include Best Television Actress honours that TV critics cite as some of the finest performances of the past decade, and her two Hum Awards round out one of the most decorated shelves in the industry.

What's next

She remains one of the most sought-after leads in the country, and her next choices are among the most watched casting decisions in Pakistani television.

Regular viewers do not simply watch a Yumna Zaidi drama. They come to it, and stay, because of her.

Quick facts

• Born: 26 June 1983, Karachi
• Profession: Actor, producer, television host
• Known for: Jeeto Pakistan, Actor in Law, Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum, Aag Lagay Basti Mein
• Role off camera: Founder of the production house Big Bang Entertainment

From films to prime time

Born Fahad Salahuddin in Karachi, he built his career across both sides of the industry. On film he became one of the most reliable box-office draws of modern Pakistani cinema, with hits including Actor in Law, while his production house, Big Bang Entertainment, has produced a long slate of well-received series and given younger talent a platform.

On television he ranges from hosting to flagship drama, and since 2014 he has fronted Jeeto Pakistan, which the industry now treats as the biggest game show in the country.

Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum

Mustafa's return to prime-time drama, opposite Hania Aamir in Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum (2024), became the drama event of the year and one of the most-watched Pakistani serials in recent memory, in both Pakistan and the diaspora.

2026 and beyond

In 2026 he starred in Aag Lagay Basti Mein alongside Mahira Khan and Tabish Hashmi. The film crossed the Rs 100 crore mark worldwide within weeks of release, one of the strongest commercial performances ever for a Pakistani film, and added another line to a career that keeps producing firsts.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @mustafafahad26
• X: @fahadmustafa26

He is a lead actor, a producer, a game-show host and one of the industry's most recognisable faces, and the audience still cannot get enough of him.

This is how the student from Rawalpindi became the face of a generation of Pakistani television, and where her career goes from here.

Quick facts

• Born: 12 February 1997, Rawalpindi
• Profession: Actress
• Years active: 2016 to present
• Known for: Janaan (2016), Anaa (2019), Ishqiya (2020), Mere Humsafar (2022), Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum (2024), Sardaarji 3 (2025)
• Awards: three Hum Awards, a Lux Style Award, a Recognition Award at the UK Parliament (2025), and a place on Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia list (2026)

From student to screen

Born in Rawalpindi into a family with roots in Murree, Aamir was studying when she auditioned for Janaan, the 2016 comedy that marked her film debut. She has said she left her studies to work, and the bet paid off quickly. More films followed, including the heist caper Na Maloom Afraad 2 (2017) and the air-force drama Parwaaz Hai Junoon (2018), alongside her first television roles. Her performance in the drama Phir Wohi Mohabbat (2017) won her the Hum Award for Best Television Sensation Female.

The drama years

The last decade of Pakistani television could almost be told through her filmography. Aamir anchored Anaa (2019) as its free-spirited heiress and led two of 2020's most talked-about serials, Ishqiya and Dil Ruba. By Mere Humsafar (2022) she was one of the most bankable names in the industry, and Sang-e-Mah (2022) and Mujhe Pyaar Hua Tha (2023) kept her at the centre of the conversation.

Then came Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum (2024), the romantic drama opposite Fahad Mustafa that became one of the most-watched Pakistani serials of its year, at home and across the diaspora.

Late in 2025 she returned in Meri Zindagi Hai Tu, the ARY drama opposite Bilal Abbas Khan that grew into one of the biggest television events of the season, drew record audiences in both Pakistan and India, and wrapped with an emotional finale in March 2026.

A first in Indian cinema

In 2025 Aamir made her Indian film debut in Sardaarji 3, a Punjabi-language romantic comedy starring Diljit Dosanjh. The same year, she was honoured with a Recognition Award at the UK Parliament in London, presented at a ceremony in the House of Commons, for her contribution to Pakistani entertainment.

The follower count

On Instagram, Aamir is the most-followed Pakistani woman, a following that passed 20 million in April 2026. In May 2026, Forbes named her to its 30 Under 30 Asia list. She is also one of the country's most in-demand brand ambassadors, representing Peshawar Zalmi in the Pakistan Super League and a portfolio of international fashion and consumer brands.

She uses that reach with intent. In September 2026 she spoke out against the online culture of using women as punchlines, a conversation that carried across the region's press for days.

A new voice

Music is her newest chapter. After singing the title track of Anaa early in her career, Aamir released her first single in September 2026: "Pablo", a Punjabi hip-hop track whose video made headlines across the region and confirmed that her audience will follow her anywhere. The same month marked ten years since her screen debut.

Awards at a glance

• Hum Award for Best Television Sensation Female, Phir Wohi Mohabbat (2017)
• Three Hum Awards and one Lux Style Award across television and film
• Recognition Award at the UK Parliament, London (2025)
• Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list (2026)

What's next

With Meri Zindagi Hai Tu wrapped, her next moves are already taking shape. She has begun boxing training with the boxer Usman Wazeer, a WBO youth champion, with a debut bout reported to be in the works, and music looks set to stay in the picture after the reception of "Pablo". Whatever she chooses next on screen, the audience for it is already waiting.

Where to follow

Aamir's official Instagram account is the most followed of any Pakistani woman, a fitting home for a career built largely in public.

Almost ten years after that first audition, Aamir remains the rare star whose relationship with her audience feels like a conversation. The watchers now number in the tens of millions, and they are watching closely.

Today she is one of the highest-paid actresses in Pakistan, the winner of seven Lux Style Awards and eight Hum Awards, and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. This is the story of how the presenter became the star, and of the records she keeps collecting along the way.

Quick facts

• Born: 21 December 1984, Karachi
• Profession: Actress, producer
• Years active: 2006 to present
• Known for: Humsafar (2011), Bin Roye (2015), Raees (2017), Verna (2017), Superstar (2019), The Legend of Maula Jatt (2022), Love Guru (2025), Aag Lagay Basti Mein (2026)
• Awards: seven Lux Style Awards, eight Hum Awards, a Lifetime Achievement honour at the UK Parliament (2024)

Early life

Mahira Hafeez Khan was born in Karachi and completed her A-Levels at Foundation Public School. At seventeen she moved to California, the first woman in her family to travel abroad alone, and studied at Santa Monica College before enrolling at the University of Southern California for a master's degree in English literature. She worked part-time jobs, including shifts at a pharmacy, and has said the experience made her strong and independent. After a year she left her studies and flew home, drawn to acting.

First frame: the VJ years

Khan began her on-camera career in 2006 as a video jockey at MTV Pakistan, hosting the live show Most Wanted five days a week. She later presented Weekend with Mahira on AAG TV. The presenter's chair turned out to be a training ground: quick thinking, warm conversation, and no fear of a live camera, all skills that would define her screen presence.

The Humsafar years

Her acting debut came in 2011 with a supporting role in Shoaib Mansoor's Bol, one of the highest-grossing Pakistani films of its time. Later that year came Humsafar, and everything changed. As Khirad in the adaptation of Farhat Ishtiaq's novel, Khan became a household name at home and across South Asia, and won the Lux Style Award for Best Television Actress.

Critically acclaimed dramas followed. Shehr-e-Zaat (2012) and Sadqay Tumhare (2014) each brought her a Hum Award for Best Actress, and Bin Roye (2016), the serial version of her own film, confirmed her as one of the country's leading actresses.

Film stardom

In cinema, Khan won Lux Style Awards for Best Film Actress for Bin Roye (2015) and Ho Mann Jahaan (2016). In 2017 she made her Hindi film debut opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Raees, one of the highest-grossing Indian films of the year. Verna, Shoaib Mansoor's social drama about a woman seeking justice, brought her a third Lux Style Award and some of the best reviews of her career. Saat Din Mohabbat In (2018) and Superstar (2019) followed, the latter earning her both the critics' and the viewers' Lux Style Awards.

Records and returns

After a five-year break from television, Khan returned in 2021 with Hum Kahan Ke Sachay Thay and produced and starred in Aik Hai Nigar, a biopic of Nigar Johar, Pakistan's first female three-star general. In 2022 she appeared in the action comedy Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad and, in her most widely seen role to date, The Legend of Maula Jatt, which became the highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time. She narrated the 2023 mini-series Razia, then returned to cinemas in 2025 with two major releases: the romantic comedy Love Guru with Humayun Saeed, and Neelofar with Fawad Khan.

In 2026, Aag Lagay Basti Mein crossed the Rs 100 crore mark worldwide within weeks of release. With Maula Jatt, Love Guru and Aag Lagay Basti Mein, Khan now appears in three of the highest-grossing Pakistani films of all time.

Producer, ambassador, advocate

Beyond acting, Khan founded Soul Fry Films and produced the sports drama Baarwan Khiladi (2022), and co-founded Mashion, a media platform focused on women's empowerment and mental health. In 2019 she was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, working on behalf of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and she has campaigned with the Commonwealth's "No More" initiative against domestic abuse.

Khan represented Pakistan at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 and, the following year, became the first Pakistani actor to walk at Paris Fashion Week. In November 2024 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK Parliament for her work as a cultural ambassador and for women's empowerment.

Awards at a glance

• Seven Lux Style Awards, including multiple Best Actress honours across television and film
• Eight Hum Awards, including Best Actress for Shehr-e-Zaat and Sadqay Tumhare
• Lifetime Achievement Award, UK Parliament (2024)
• Appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Afghan refugees in Pakistan (2019)

What's next

Khan is attached to Mitti De Baway, a Green Entertainment series announced in 2026 with Wahaj Ali, and to Jo Bachay Hain Sang Samait Lo, Pakistan's first Netflix original series.

Where to follow

• Instagram: @mahirahkhan

From a live television desk in Karachi to the summit of the country's box office, Khan's career has been built on range, timing and an audience's trust. The records are a by-product. The work, as she has said herself, is meant to last.

Born in Karachi and raised partly abroad, Khan is today one of the most respected screen actors in South Asia, the recipient of a Filmfare Award, two Lux Style Awards and six Hum Awards. This is the arc of that career so far, in three acts.

Quick facts

• Born: 29 November 1981, Karachi
• Profession: Actor, producer, singer
• Years active: early 2000s to present
• Known for: Khuda Kay Liye (2007), Dastaan (2010), Humsafar (2011), Zindagi Gulzar Hai (2012), Khoobsurat (2014), Kapoor & Sons (2016), Ms. Marvel (2022), The Legend of Maula Jatt (2022)
• Awards: Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut, two Lux Style Awards for Best Actor, six Hum Awards
• Official website: fawadkhanofficial.com

Act one: the band and the small screen

Khan's family moved often for his father's work before settling in Lahore when he was thirteen. He studied at Lahore Grammar School and later earned a bachelor's degree in software engineering from the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences. Programming jobs proved hard to find. Music proved impossible to resist.

By the early 2000s he was fronting Entity Paradigm, the rock band formed with the team behind Jutt and Bond, the sitcom in which Khan had made his first television appearance alongside bandmate Ahmad Ali Butt. The band's debut album, Irtiqa (2003), and its romantic single "Rahguzar" made them one of the biggest acts in the country. Khan has said he played around 250 shows before leaving the band to concentrate on acting.

His film debut came in Shoaib Mansoor's Khuda Kay Liye (2007), a social drama that became one of Pakistan's highest-grossing films and won Khan the Lux Style Award for Best Actor. Television followed: the partition-era epic Dastaan (2010), which brought him a Pakistan Media Award; Humsafar (2011), the serial that turned him and Mahira Khan into household names across South Asia; and Zindagi Gulzar Hai (2012), which won him a second Lux Style Award.

Act two: across the border

Khan's Hindi film debut, the romantic comedy Khoobsurat (2014) opposite Sonam Kapoor, brought him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. He followed it with Kapoor & Sons (2016), a family drama that earned him a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor and a diversity award at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, and with a supporting role in Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016).

That same year, industry bodies in India halted work by Pakistani artists as political tensions rose between the two countries, and the chapter closed. Khan returned to Lahore and, for several years, kept a deliberately low public profile.

Act three: the comeback

The return, when it came, was global. In 2022 Khan joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Hassan in Ms. Marvel, and played the title role in Bilal Lashari's The Legend of Maula Jatt, the action epic that became the highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time and, by trade-press accounts, the highest-grossing Punjabi-language film ever made. The comedy Money Back Guarantee followed in 2023, and in 2024 he led Asim Abbasi's fantasy series Barzakh, which drew strong reviews.

In 2025 he reunited with Mahira Khan for Neelofar, a romantic drama that premiered in April, completing a screen partnership that began with Humsafar.

The work that matters

• Television: Dastaan, Humsafar, Zindagi Gulzar Hai, Barzakh
• Film: Khuda Kay Liye, Khoobsurat, Kapoor & Sons, The Legend of Maula Jatt, Neelofar
• Music: Irtiqa and "Shor Macha" with Entity Paradigm; Coke Studio appearances; a judge's chair on Pepsi Battle of the Bands in 2017

Beyond the screen, Khan is one of Pakistan's most in-demand brand ambassadors, and he has lent his name to charitable work for years: fundraisers for the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Islamic Relief USA, and appearances for SOS Children's Villages.

Awards and honours

• Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut, Khoobsurat (2014)
• Filmfare Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Kapoor & Sons (2016)
• Diversity Award, Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (2016)
• Two Lux Style Awards for Best Actor, for Khuda Kay Liye and Zindagi Gulzar Hai
• Six Hum Awards, including Best Actor Popular
• Pakistan Media Award, Best Drama Actor, Dastaan (2010)

The road ahead

Several projects are in the works. Khan has filmed Abir Gulaal, a romantic comedy with Vaani Kapoor shot in London, with release details still to be confirmed. He is set to lead Jo Bachay Hain Sang Samait Lo, Pakistan's first Netflix original series, adapted from Farhat Ishtiaq's novel and co-starring Mahira Khan and Sanam Saeed. And Albela Rahi, a long-announced biopic in which he is expected to portray the pop singer Alamgir, remains in the pipeline.

Where to follow

Fawad Khan's official website is fawadkhanofficial.com.

Two decades in, Khan's career reads less like a sprint through genres and more like a series of considered bets, each one placed on a role rather than on a moment. Audiences keep following every one of them, and the next act is already in production.

The budget is the aesthetic

Every one of the six was made for less than the cost of a mid-range car, on cameras that fit in a jacket. But the debuts do not wear their poverty the way earlier low-budget waves wore theirs, as a badge of authenticity. They wear it the way a swimmer wears water: the constraint is the medium, not the statement.

The city as a character with a temper

What the films share, beyond geography, is a refusal to use the city as backdrop. In Farah Deeb's Concrete Orchard, the buildings are not photographed: they are listened to. In Milo Grant's Two Rivers, No Bridge, the transit system provides the film's only timekeeping. The directors have grown up inside a city that is under permanent construction, and their work has the patience of people who have learned to live with a thing that will never be finished.

These are not films about arriving. They are films about remaining, which is a harder story to tell and a truer one to be young in.

Nobody is waiting for the green light

The generational break, when you talk to the directors, is not aesthetic at all. It is procedural. None of the six applied for the traditional development track; all of them shot first and apologised later, a strategy that would have been reckless five years ago and is now merely sensible.

"It cost less to make the film than to apply for the money," Deeb says flatly, and the sentence has become the movement's manifesto by attrition. The grants follow the films now, not the other way around, and the establishment, which spent decades guarding a door, has discovered the wall no longer exists.

Whether the wave produces a masterpiece is a question for the next decade. What it has already produced is a working method: small crews, fast shoots, no waiting. The debut is no longer a permission slip. It is a first act, and the city, half-built and patient, has been cast in all six. Audiences should consider themselves warned, and cast too.

Pakistan Actors: You have said the first hour of daylight is the only honest light. What does that mean?

The light at dawn has not decided anything yet. By ten in the morning it has opinions. It is bright, it is hard, it tells you where to stand. At dawn it is still asking questions. You put an actor in it and you can see them think.

Pakistan Actors: Does that make life difficult? Crews, permits, actors.

Yes. Everybody hates it and then they see the footage and they forgive me. The budget person forgives me last, usually after the festival.

Pakistan Actors: Meridian is your first film with almost no dialogue in the first act. Was that a reaction to anything?

It was a reaction to my own habits. I write dialogue the way some people eat: quickly, and to feel better. This time I wanted to see how long I could keep a room together with faces and weather. It turns out you can keep it a long time. Audiences are far more patient than the industry believes. What they cannot forgive is being lied to.

Pakistan Actors: You have never used a second unit.

A second unit is a confession that some of your film does not need you. If a scene does not need me, why does it need to be in the film? I would rather lose the scene. This is why I am expensive to employ and why the films are short.

Pakistan Actors: Your films are also famously quiet. Almost no score.

Music tells the audience what to feel about the time they just spent. I want them to decide. If they leave the theatre feeling nothing, at least the feeling is theirs and it is true. That is the contract.

Pakistan Actors: What do you want an audience to carry out of Meridian?

One image, maybe two. Not the plot. Nobody remembers plots. They remember a woman on a roof at the wrong hour of the morning, and they do not know why it stayed with them. That is the whole job, to make an image that outlives its explanation.

Meridian opens the festival circuit this autumn. Roux is already scouting for a film about rivers, which she says will require her to shoot at night, and which she is dreading.

Pakistan Actors: People say you "fix" films in the grade. Does it feel like fixing?

It feels like conducting a last movement. The picture is written, the performance is shot, the edit is locked. What remains is feeling. Colour is the last chance to tell the audience how to feel, and it is the only one you can take back.

Pakistan Actors: Take back?

In the shoot, a decision is permanent. In the grade, I can move the audience one degree warmer and watch the whole scene change meaning, and then move it back. I have a month of second thoughts. Directors sleep in my room, metaphorically. I am where their doubt goes to work.

Pakistan Actors: What do directors get wrong about your job?

They think it is about making the image look better. It is usually about making it look stranger. A film that grades to "beautiful" is a film I have failed. I am looking for the one decision that makes the story unavoidable. Sometimes that decision is ugly. Sometimes it is making the fog slightly green so the audience cannot say why they are uneasy for the next forty minutes.

A colourist does not make films look good. A colourist makes them impossible to look away from.

Pakistan Actors: Is there a shot you are proudest of?

There is a scene in a hospital corridor, two actors walking away from camera, and the director wanted us to feel the distance between them in colour. We did it in the walls. The corridor shifts from a green that is slightly too clean to a green that is slightly too old over four seconds. Nobody in the audience can name it. Everybody feels it. That is the whole trade: invisible work, visible feeling.

Pakistan Actors: Does the work linger when you leave the room?

I see the world in scopes now. A sunset will do something in the highlights and I will think, that is clipping, I would bring that down. My partner says I have ruined weather for both of us. It is true. But I also see more than I did. The job rewires you to look. That is not a bad way to spend a life.

Han is currently grading a documentary about deep-sea cable-laying, which she describes as the most colourful footage she has ever been given and the most difficult to make quiet.

"I am not nostalgic," she says, in a tone that suggests she has had this argument before. "I am exact. A colour you buy has already made its decisions. A colour you make is still deciding until the moment it touches the panel."

The shelf of stones

The pigments line a shelf like jars in an apothecary: malachite and lazurite, ochres dug from a hillside near Sintra, a black she burned from vine cuttings in an iron pot. Some of them behave. Some of them hate her.

"The green that comes from copper is a small animal," she says. "If the air is humid it will not dry. If it is dry it will crack. I make the green in October, and I plan my year around that fact."

A painting is a slow chemical argument between the artist and the weather. I only referee.

Why she stopped selling

Falcão trained as a conservator, which she calls the best and worst thing that ever happened to her. "You spend ten years reversing other people's materials and you learn exactly which shortcuts die first." When a gallery offered her a solo show in her twenties, she spent a year on the paintings and then watched two of them cloud over in storage. "I repainted them for free. I was so angry. After that, everything I put on a surface had to be able to survive me."

The economics of this honesty are brutal. A single panel can take eight months. She shows rarely, prices high, and takes two students a decade. The rest of the time she grinds, tests, and waits.

What the waiting is for

There is a painting in the far corner of the studio, almost finished, a night harbour in which the water is painted with a grey she has been refining for six years. It looks, in the flat studio light, like silver that has been left out in the rain and decided it prefers it.

"I will know in a year if it works," she says, of the grey. "If the sea and the sky still agree with each other. If they don't, I grind again." She shrugs, the shrug of a person who has made peace with the material world. "The painting is not late. It is only asking."

The audience begins to fidget, and then, unmistakably, stops. You can hear it in a full cinema, a room-wide settling, like a building finding its footing.

What a long take actually asks

The endurance shot has a bad reputation, and it has earned most of it. Too often the technique is a display of logistics: look what the crew could do with a crane and a stopwatch. But when duration is used as meaning rather than muscle, three things happen at once.

• The geography becomes real. We stop assembling a location from cuts and start living in it.
• Performance stops being an assembly of chosen moments and becomes a continuous act.
• The viewer's body joins the scene. Restlessness, boredom, relief: these become part of the film's material.

The last point is the one that separates Vey's work from the choreography of lesser imitators. His camera does not move to impress. It moves because the character keeps walking.

A long take does not test your patience. It tests whether the film has earned your time.

The cost of not cutting

Vey has said, in the press notes and then again, more candidly, in the corridor after the premiere, that the take cost him eight days of the schedule and one argument he is still having with his editor. Twelve of the shots were unusable for reasons as small as a cloud. One was lost to a drone that wandered into frame and hovered there, confused and cinematic, before being waved off by a runner.

That fragility is the point. A cut is insurance. A long take is a bet, placed once, held for as long as the film can stand it.

Why now

It would be neat to say the endurance shot is back because audiences are hungry for slowness. The truth is less romantic: cameras got smaller, gimbals got stronger, and a generation of directors grew up watching surveillance footage, which never cuts and never blinks. The aesthetic migrated from security monitors into art houses.

What matters is not the technology but the ethic. A long take says: this moment was not assembled in a room afterward. Somebody stood in the weather and watched. In an era of infinite retakes, that promise is worth something. It is the closest a moving image can come to a first draft, and the closest an audience can come to being present.

The Quarry opens in select cinemas this October.

At one in the morning, attendance is sparse and formal: couples, students, a night nurse in scrubs who tells me she came because it was the only hour that belonged to her. By two, the crowd has thinned to the point where you can hear footsteps change rooms, and the paintings, freed from jostling, seem to inhale.

What late-night looking reveals

Museums measure almost everything except attention. They count visitors, memberships, dwell time in seconds. But the quality of looking, which is the only thing the institution exists to produce, is left unexamined, partly because it refuses measurement and partly because daytime conditions actively prevent it.

Nobody hurries at three in the morning. The hurry was never about art. It was about the day.

Watch a stranger in front of a large painting at midday: the glance, the phone, the two-and-a-half second inventory of subject and era, the exit. Watch the same stranger at 3 a.m.: ten minutes, then a step closer, then a step back, then, sometimes, a laugh, which is the surest sign of real looking.

The daylight problem

The museum's architecture is designed for conservation and throughput, not for looking. Daylight flattens the surface and flatters nothing. The crowd sets an agenda of efficiency that every visitor inherits without knowing it. Remove the sunlight and the schedule and you discover what the paintings were always waiting for: a silence long enough to say something.

The experiment has produced one other finding, which the gallery has not yet published because it is embarrassing to a movement: people cry more at night. The guards keep count, diplomatically calling it "rest room visits of unusual duration." Twenty-two in the last session, half of them in front of a single small landscape that by day is passed without a second glance.

The lesson is not that art needs the dark. The lesson is that attention is a compound, and like most compounds, it cannot form under pressure. The night shift does not add anything to the paintings. It subtracts the day from the viewer, and it turns out the day was mostly what stood in the way.

Night Shift runs four more weekends. Coffee is served at three, and the small landscape, we hear, has started to be watched back.

The panel that arrived two years ago was catalogued as an anonymous devotional work, mid-fifteenth century, condition poor. Its surface was a varnish that had gone the colour of strong tea, muting everything beneath it. Photographs from 1908 show the same rectangle: it had bored viewers for a century.

What layers hide

Old varnish is not dirt. It is a coating applied with good intentions, usually a natural resin that was meant to be renewed every generation and then was not. As it oxidizes it becomes saturated with yellow, and yellow is a colour that flattens: it pushes everything behind it into silhouette.

Cleaning is not making a painting brighter. It is giving its dark passages back their air.

Under the first removal passes, the conservators found not a single composition but a conversation. The sky had been repainted, probably in the eighteenth century, by someone who did not trust its original blue. A hand had been enlarged. A small dog, visible in an early engraving, had been painted out entirely, presumably by an owner who found it unserious.

The moment of the sky

The blue that emerged in the second year is not a decorative blue. It is the deep mineral blue of a pigment that cost more than gold leaf by weight, applied to a panel that was, apparently, a provincial commission. The discovery rewrote the painting's provenance in a single afternoon: whoever paid for this panel paid for the sky first and the faces second, which tells you what they were buying. Not a portrait of a saint. A weather, held open.

The conservators will not call it a masterpiece. That word belongs to a different department, and probably a different century. What they will say is that the panel is coherent again, that its decisions are all visible at once, and that a viewer standing in front of it is, at last, seeing an argument rather than a summary.

The cleaning of a painting is slow for a reason: every swab takes away something that someone chose. The restorer's discipline is to keep asking whose choice it was. Most of the time, the answer is the artist. Sometimes it is a vandal with good taste. Knowing the difference is the entire profession.

Bankole came to film from theatre, where costumes survive for years and failure is public. "In the theatre, the audience is ten metres away. Fabric has to have opinions at ten metres. In film, the camera comes closer than the actor's own mother. Everything gets caught."

The physics of a character

She talks about costume the way engineers talk about bridges: load, movement, weather. A hemline is not decoration. "A long coat slows a walk by almost half a second per step. If your character is being chased, the coat changes the physics of the scene. I have to know what the scene needs before I choose the fabric."

The actor does not wear the costume. The costume wears the actor's patience, balance, temperature, and temper, and gives back a person.

For the flood drama she is currently finishing, half the exteriors were shot in real rain, which ruled out most of her first choices. "Wool drinks. Cotton dies. We ended up building the coat from oiled canvas, and it was so heavy that the actor walked differently, and the director looked at the monitor and said, that is the character. The budget person looked at the invoice and said, that is the budget."

What the audience never sees

The showiest work in a film is often invisible by design. Bankole's proudest construction, she says, is a suit with no visible seams in a film about a returning soldier. "He is a man who has been put back together wrong. The suit is tailored so cleanly that it looks like it was not made by human hands. That is creepy, and it is perfect, and nobody has ever mentioned it in a review. That is how you know it worked."

She teaches two days a month now, mostly to talk students out of beauty. "They arrive wanting to design looks. I tell them: looks are for magazines. You are designing behaviour. If you cannot say what the garment does to the body, you have not designed anything yet. You have decorated."

The flood drama, titled High Water, opens in festivals next spring.