He had his first commercial success in Ziddi (1948) and gained widespread recognition with the blockbuster crime thriller Baazi (1951), which is regarded as the forerunner of the spate of "Bombay Noir" films that followed in Bollywood in the 1950s.

Anand acquired a romantic image with films such as Manzil (1960), Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai (1961), Hum Dono (1961), Asli-Naqli (1962) and Tere Ghar Ke Samne (1963).

Pishori Lal Anand was also a freedom fighter and scholar affiliated with the Arya Samaj organization, who would study world religions in different languages (the Bhagavad-Gita in Sanskrit, the Bible in Hebrew, the Qur'an in Arabic while he also knew Persian).

[21] Anand quoted in an interview that "I remember when I gate-crashed into the office of the man who gave me the first break, he kept looking at me – Babu Rao Pai of Prabhat Film Studios.

Initially, Suraiya's family used to welcome Anand at home, but when her maternal grandmother found out that the two were in love, and even planned an actual marriage on the set of Jeet, she started monitoring them.

The two shared love letters and messages through their co-actors, like Durga Khote and Kamini Kaushal, who went out of their way to engineer secret rendezvous.

He spotted Anand hanging around in the studios and picked him as the hero for the Bombay Talkies production Ziddi (1948), co-starring Kamini Kaushal, which became an instant success.

His association with Kishore Kumar started when the former sang the first solo of his playback singing career – "Marne Ki Duayen" – picturised on Dev Anand in the movie Ziddi.

The film Baazi saw the debut of Kalpana Kartik (aka Mona Singha) as the lead female actress and Guru Dutt as a director.

[37] With his acting in the box office success Kala Pani (1958) opposite Madhubala and Nalini Jaywant, as the son who is willing to go to any lengths to clear his framed father's name, he won his first Filmfare award for Best Actor for the film.

[38] He attempted films of tragic genre occasionally, such as Pocket Maar (1956), Kala Pani (1958), Bombai Ka Baboo (1960) and Sharabi (1964) and tasted success with them.

In the sixties, Dev Anand acquired a romantic image with films such as Manzil and Tere Ghar Ke Samne with Nutan, Kinare Kinare with Meena Kumari, Maya with Mala Sinha, Asli-Naqli with Sadhana Shivdasani, Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai, Mahal with Asha Parekh and Teen Deviyaan opposite three heroines Kalpana, Simi Garewal and Nanda.

One of his notable films of the early sixties was Hum Dono (1961) which he produced and acted in, as Anand, a young lover who joins the army in frustration over being shunned by the father of his love Meeta (played by Sadhana Shivdasani).

Anand played a double role in the film, also acting as Major Varma, his look-alike who he runs into in the army and forms a deep friendship.

[40] Dev Anand tapped his friends in Hollywood to launch an Indo-US co-production that was shot in Hindi and English simultaneously and was released in 1965.

Combining style with substance, he gave an affecting performance as a man grappling with his emotions in his passage through love, shame, and salvation.

He reunited with Vijay Anand for the movie Jewel Thief (1967), based on the thriller genre which featured Vyjayanthimala, Tanuja, Anju Mahendru, Faryal and Helen and was very successful.

He delivered commercial hits again with young heroines like with Sharmila Tagore in Yeh Gulistan Hamara (1972), with Yogeeta Bali and Raakhee in Banarasi Babu (1973), with Hema Malini in Chhupa Rustam (1973) and Amir Garib (1974),[44] with Zeenat Aman in Heera Panna (1973), Warrant (1975),[45] Kalabaaz (1977) and Darling Darling (1977) and with Parveen Babi in Bullet (1976).

[47] The 1978 hit Des Pardes, directed by Dev Anand was the debut movie of actress Tina Munim and this film's success gave him the tag of the Evergreen Star.

But films with Dev Anand as the lead hero in Hum Naujawan (1985) and Lashkar (1989) continued to be box office successes and were appreciated by critics.

The English language film The Evil Within was a 20th-Century Fox production that couldn't get the nod from the concerned authorities due to its parallel track dealing with opium selling and thus the Indian viewers were deprived of this American venture.

His association with music composers Shankar-Jaikishen, O. P. Nayyar, Kalyanji-Anandji, Sachin Dev Burman and his son Rahul Dev Burman, lyricists Hasrat Jaipuri, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Gopaldas Neeraj, Shailendra, Anand Bakshi, and playback singers Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi and Hemant Kumar produced some very popular songs.

Burman, Jaidev, Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Yash Johar, Shekhar Kapur and Kabir Bedi were given breaks into Hindi films and Dev launched actors Zaheera, Zaheeda Hussain, Zarina Wahab, Natasha Sinha, Ekta Sohini and Sabrina.

[79] Commenting on his style, Rachel Dwyer said, "Dev Anand’s offscreen persona was that of the modern Indian citizen created by the new state of India.

[81][82] In September 2007, Dev Anand's autobiography Romancing with Life was released at a birthday party with the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

[84][85] Anupama Chopra termed Anand the "most dashing hero", Indian cinema has ever seen and added, "The nodding head, flopping arms, casual charm inspired a legion of actors.

[87] On this, filmmaker Sriram Raghavan said, "Much before Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, much more than Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, it was Dev Anand’s bold film choices that shaped what is called the Bombay noir.

"[93] Siddharth Bhatia said, "Anand's various roles – whether in the black-and-white 1950s, when he usually played a down-at-heel cabbie or con artist, or in the 1960s when he matured, and even later – were all marked with a can-do spirit; maudlin self-pity was not his style.

[104][105] On the occasion of 100 years of Indian cinema, a postage stamp bearing his image and likeness was released by India Post to honour him on 3 May 2013.

[137] In 2023, an exhibition at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Noida, named "Sitaare Zameen Par", had portraits of Anand that were captured by JH Thakkar.