Amar Akbar Anthony is a 1977 Indian Hindi-language masala film directed and produced by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan.

Released in India on 27 May 1977, the film stars an ensemble cast of Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Neetu Singh, Parveen Babi, Shabana Azmi, Nirupa Roy, Pran and Jeevan.

It was later remade in Tamil as Shankar Salim Simon (1978), in Telugu as Ram Robert Rahim (1980),[7] and in Malayalam as John Jaffer Janardhanan (1982).

[8] Kishanlal, a chauffeur, is released from prison on 15 August, 1955, after serving a sentence for the fatal hit-and-run accident committed by his employer, crime lord Robert.

Taking his sons with him, he eludes pursuit to place the boys at the foot of Mahatma Gandhi's statue in Borivali National Park, leaving the eldest in charge.

Amar, the eldest, runs after his father, is knocked down by Robert's goons and adopted by Hindu Police Superintendent Khanna.

Middle son Anthony goes in search of food for his crying baby brother; left alone, Raju is found and adopted by kindly Muslim tailor Darji Ilahabadi.

Kishanlal escapes the car crash and finds Robert's gold; returning to the empty park a rich man – he is devastated to be alone.

Bharati, now a flower seller, is the victim of a hit-and-run accident outside a church and is rushed to a private hospital by Anthony, the moonshining Robin Hood of the neighborhood.

Later, Amar tracks down highway robbers and meets Lakshmi, forced by her abusive criminal stepmother and stepbrother Ranjeet to act as bait to protect her elderly, wheelchair-bound grandmother.

With the gold Robert reinstates himself as a crime lord and plans to get Jenny back and kill Kishanlal, hiring Ranjeet in the process.

Bharati, taken hostage by Robert, suffers a minor head injury while escaping; miraculously, her sight is restored at a festival hosted by Akbar in honor of Sai Baba of Shirdi.

Further, she identifies Akbar as Raju from a childhood photograph with Mr. Ilahabadi, while he recognizes her as the blind woman he drove home that fateful night.

Akbar, made suspicious when strangers try to collect Jenny's wedding dress, disguises himself as an elderly dithering tailor who goes with them to make last minute alterations.

Happy that he is alive, Bharati is distraught to learn Kishanlal will go to prison for his crimes, but he reassures her: their reunited family is the only thing that matters to him.

[12][15] Shooting was scheduled so that the entire cast didn't have to appear together except for the climactic sequence and the title song ("Anhoni Ko Honi"), where they all perform as a group.

Analysts such as Virdi (2003) and Kavoori & Punathambekar (2008) note that the themes of Desai's "magnum opus" include religious pluralism and secular nationalism.

As a result, four of Desai's films, Dharam Veer, Chacha Bhatija, Parvarish, and Amar Akbar Anthony, were released in 1977.

[3] For the film's marketing, erasers with the images of Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, and Amitabh Bachchan were sold to students.