The Most Famous
ACTORS from Afghanistan
This page contains a list of the greatest Afghan Actors. The pantheon dataset contains 13,578 Actors, 1 of which were born in Afghanistan. This makes Afghanistan the birth place of the 121st most number of Actors behind Fiji, and Côte d'Ivoire.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Afghan Actors of all time. This list of famous Afghan Actors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Kader Khan (1937 - 2018)
With an HPI of 50.33, Kader Khan is the most famous Afghan Actor. His biography has been translated into 37 different languages on wikipedia.
Kader Khan (22 October 1937 – 31 December 2018) was an Indian actor, screenwriter and film producer. As an actor, he appeared in over 300 Bollywood films after his debut in the 1973 film Daag, starring Rajesh Khanna, as a prosecuting attorney. He was a prolific actor and screenwriter in Hindi cinema in the period late 1970s to 90s and wrote dialogues for 200 films. Born in Afghanistan, Khan graduated from Ismail Yusuf College affiliated to Bombay University. Before entering the film industry in the early 1970s, he was a professor of civil engineering in M. H. Saboo Siddik College of Engineering, Mumbai.
2. Leena Alam (b. 1978)
With an HPI of 26.78, Leena Alam is the 2nd most famous Afghan Actor. Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages.
Leena Alam (Persian: لينا علم; is an Afghan film, television, and theater actress. She has appeared in films such as Kabuli Kid, Black Kite, Loori, A Letter to the President and Hassan. She is widely known to have worked on film and TV that speak of child marriage, gender inequality, women's rights and social conflicts. She has also been known as "Shereen of Afghanistan" (شیرین افغانستان) after playing in the taboo-smashing feminist television drama, Shereen (شیرین), the first of its kind to have been made in Afghanistan, directed by Ghafar Azad and produced by Kaboora and Tolo TV. Shereen was nominated for Best Mini-Series Drama alongside The Night Manager, Mr. Robot and Deutschland 83 and Leena Alam was nominated for Best Actress at the Seoul International Drama Awards 2016. In 1991, Alam and her family moved to the United States of America because of the civil war in her homeland. She began her acting and cinema career in 1998. In 2021 she was named as one of the BBC's 100 Women.
3. Marina Golbahari (b. 1989)
With an HPI of 24.12, Marina Golbahari is the 3rd most famous Afghan Actor. Her biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Marina Golbahari (Dari: مارینا گلبهاری; born 1989) is an Afghan actress who earned international fame for her role as the title character in the 2003 film Osama, playing a girl who had to dress and act as a boy to support her family during the Taliban years.
People
Pantheon has 3 people classified as Afghan actors born between 1937 and 1989. Of these 3, 2 (66.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Afghan actors include Leena Alam, and Marina Golbahari. The most famous deceased Afghan actors include Kader Khan. As of April 2024, 2 new Afghan actors have been added to Pantheon including Leena Alam, and Marina Golbahari.
