Amar Akbar Anthony is a 1977 Indian masala film directed and produced by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan. The film stars an ensemble cast of Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Parveen Babi, Shabana Azmi, Nirupa Roy, Pran and Jeevan. The plot focuses on three brothers who get separated in childhood and are adopted by people of different faiths; Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. As fate would have it, the trio reunite by chance in adulthood and set out to seek revenge from the person who is responsible for their separation. The soundtrack album was composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal and the lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi. The film was released on 27 May 1977 and earned at the Indian box office, becoming the highest-grossing Indian film of that year, alongside Dharam Veer and Hum Kisise Kum Naheen. Religious tolerance became a landmark theme in Bollywood masala films, building on the masala formula pioneered a few years earlier by Nasir Hussain's Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973). Amar Akbar Anthony also had a lasting impact on pop culture with its catchy songs, quotable one-liners, and the character of Anthony Gonsalves (played by Bachchan). It won several awards at the 25th Filmfare Awards, including Best Actor, Best Music Director and Best Editing. It was later remade in Tamil as Shankar Salim Simon (1978), in Telugu as Ram Robert Rahim (1980), and in Malayalam as John Jaffer Janardhanan (1982). In Pakistan, the film was unofficially remade in Punjabi as Akbar Amar Anthony (1978). Plot Amar Akbar Anthony is the story of three brothers separated in childhood who grow up in the families of different religions respectively and fate reunites them in adulthood. 1955 The film begins on the Independence Day of India with Kishanlal Tripathi (Pran) a poor simpleton, being released from prison who took the blame of a fatal car accident in place of his employer Robert D'Souza (Jeevan), a notorious crimelord for whom Kishanlal worked as a chauffeur, and was thus arrested by the police. Despite Robert's assurance that his family will be paid money thrice his salary after his arrest, Kishanlal is shocked to learn upon returning home that his wife Bharati Tripathi (Nirupa Roy) is suffering from tuberculosis while his three young sons are starving badly from hunger. He angrily visits Robert's mansion and blames him for his wife's illness and children's starvation, begging him to offer him