Anurag Kashyap is a film director, producer, writer, editor and actor. Anurag Kashyap is the son of Sri Prakash Singh, a retired chief engineer of the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation. He has a sister, Anubhuti Kashyap, and a brother, filmmaker Abhinav Kashyap.

Anurag Kashyap did his schooling from Green School, Dehradun, and Scindia School, Gwalior. He aspired to become a scientist and graduated in zoology from Hans Raj College, University of Delhi. In 1993, he joined a street theatre group called Jana Natya Manch and participated in many street plays. He watched Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves at a film festival in Delhi and decided to become a filmmaker.

Kashyap came to Bombay in 1993 and struggled with accommodation after running out of money. In 1995, he was inspired to write after watching Martin Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver (1976).

In 1997, he wrote some episodes of Mahesh Bhatt’s television series Kabhie Kabhie (1997). In 1998, he got the opportunity to co-write the script of Ram Gopal Varma’s crime film Satya with Saurabh Shukla. The movie was a commercial success and there was no looking back for Kashyap. He went on to script Kaun (1999) and wrote the dialogues for Shool (1999).

He then made a short film, Last Train To Mahakali (1999), which was telecast on the STAR Plus channel and won the Special Jury award at the 8th Annual STAR Screen Awards.

Kashyap has written and directed several films like Black Friday (2007), No Smoking (2007), Dev.D (2009), Gulaal (2009), Mumbai Cutting (2010), That Girl In Yellow Boots (2011), Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012), Bombay Talkies (2013), Ugly (2014), Bombay Velvet (2015), Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016), Mukkabaaz (2018) and the anthology Lust Stories (2018).

He has also been screenwriter for many popular movies like Nayak (2001), Yuva (2004), Main Aisa Hi Hoon (2005), Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd (2007), Udaan (2010), Talaash: The Answer Lies Within (2012) and Bhavesh Joshi: Superhero (2018).

He founded a production company called Anurag Kashyap Films that released its first movie Udaan in 2010 and he won the Filmfare award for Best Story and Best Screenplay. In 2011, Kashyap started another production company, Phantom Films, with Udaan director Vikramaditya Motwane, Vikas Bahl and Madhu Mantena. The company produced many movies like the period romance Lootera (2013), romantic comedy Hasee Toh Phasee (2014), comedy drama Queen (2014), thriller Ugly (2014), drama NH10 (2015), sex comedy Hunterrr (2015), period film Bombay Velvet (2015), Masaan (2015), Udta Punjab (2016), Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016) and Gujarati film Wrong Side Raju (2016). The company was dissolved on 5 October 2018 after accusations of sexual harassment and molestation emerged against partner Vikas Bahl.

In 2013, Kashyap co-produced the romantic film The Lunchbox with Guneet Monga and Arun Rangachari. The same year, he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the government of France. He has won many awards, including one National Film award and four Filmfare awards.

Kashyap has made cameo appearances and acted in some films like Black Friday, No Smoking, Luck By Chance (2009), Dev.D, Gulaal, Shagird (2011), Soundtrack (2011), Trishna (2014), Bhoothnath Returns (2014), Happy New Year (2014), Akira (2016) and the Tamil-language thriller Imaikkaa Nodigal (2018).