She was discovered at age 14 by the filmmaker Raj Kapoor, who cast her in the title role of his teen romance Bobby (1973), which opened to major commercial success and gained her wide public recognition.

Appearing in films ranging from marital dramas to literary adaptations, she played troubled women sometimes deemed reflective of her personal experience, and received acclaim for her performances in Kaash (1987), Drishti (1990), Lekin... (1991), and Rudaali (1993).

(2004), Pyaar Mein Twist (2005), Phir Kabhi (2008), Tum Milo Toh Sahi (2010) and What the Fish (2013), but she attained more success with character roles in Being Cyrus (2006), Luck by Chance (2009), Dabangg (2010), Cocktail (2012) and Finding Fanny (2014).

[17] In a 1985 interview with India Today, she remarked, "The life and happiness in our house came to an end the day I and Rajesh got married", saying her unhappy marital experience had included inequality and her husband's infidelity, and called their marriage "a farce".

[46][47] Bhawana Somaaya of The Hindu credits Kapadia with starting the merchandising of film memorabilia in India, and Mukesh Khosla of The Tribune said Bobby established her as a "cult figure" because she led the fashion trends.

[15] In 2008, Raja Sen from the web portal Rediff.com ranked her performance in Bobby as the fourth-best female debut of all time in Hindi cinema: "An elfin little girl with big, lovely eyes, nobody quite portrayed innocence as memorably as Dimple in her first outing.

"[65] Feroz Khan's Janbaaz (1986), which is about a man fighting drug addiction,[66] became known for a love scene in which Kapadia and male lead Anil Kapoor share a kiss, a rarity in Hindi cinema at the time.

Kapadia and Jackie Shroff starred as an estranged couple who, during a relentless legal battle over the custody of their only son, learn that the boy has brain tumour and reunite to spend the last months of his life as a family.

[88][89][90] She was the action star in Mera Shikar, a revenge saga directed by Keshu Ramsay, playing Bijli, a once joyous young woman who trains in martial arts to punish a notorious gangster for the crimes inflicted upon her sister.

Drishti, a marital drama that was directed by Govind Nihalani and inspired by Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage (1973), starred Kapadia and Shekhar Kapur as a married couple from Mumbai's intellectual milieu, and followed their trials and tribulations, extramarital affairs, divorce, and eventual reconciliation.

[111][112] Gulzar's romantic mystery Lekin..., which is based on Rabindranath Tagore's short story Hungry Stones (1895),[113] features Kapadia as Reva, a restless spirit who haunts an ancient Rajasthani palace seeking liberation.

The film traces Reva's intermittent apparitions in front of Sameer (Vinod Khanna), a museum curator who arrives at the palace and—upon watching her visual recreation of events from her tragic story—resolves to set her free.

[126][127] In Haque (1991), a political drama directed by Harish Bhosle and scripted by Mahesh Bhatt, she played Varsha B. Singh, an Orthodox Hindu woman who, after years of subservience, acts in defiance of her oppressive husband.

[161] In 1994, in Mehul Kumar's Krantiveer, Kapadia portrayed the journalist Meghna Dixit, a rape victim who persuades an alcoholic, unemployed village man (Nana Patekar) to be a champion of justice for those around him.

[196][197] A year later, Kapadia and Rishi Kapoor reunited as a lead couple for the third time after Bobby and Saagar in Pyaar Mein Twist, starring as middle-aged single parents who fall in love and are subsequently confronted with the reaction of their children.

[202] In 2006, Kapadia co-starred with Saif Ali Khan and Naseeruddin Shah in the black comedy Being Cyrus, an English-language independent feature and the directorial debut of Homi Adajania, who would often cast her in his future endeavours.

[207][208] The BBC's Poonam Joshi stated, "the descent into despair of Dimple Kapadia's Katy is enthralling"[209] but other critics, including Derek Elley from Variety and Shradha Sukumaran from Mid-Day, criticised her for excessively overacting.

[223] Deepa Karmalkar from Screen characterised her role as "gloriously bitchy"[224] while Avijit Ghosh of The Times of India believed Kapadia had delivered "one of her most nuanced performances" in a character he found to be "a rare kind of Hindi film mother" who is "hawk-eyed, tough as nails but vainglorious, and in a strange way, vulnerable as well".

[226][227] Reviews for Kapadia's role were varied; Blessy Chettiar of Daily News and Analysis likened her character to "the mothers in Hindi cinema of yore, self-sacrificing, torn between relationships, slightly over-the-top, likeable nevertheless".

[228][229] Next followed Tum Milo Toh Sahi (2010), a romantic comedy which stars Kapadia as Delshad Nanji, a Parsi woman in charge of an Irani café whose business is under threat from developers and who falls in love with the lawyer (Nana Patekar) who represents her in court.

[236][237] Cocktail, a romantic comedy, saw her play Saif Ali Khan's loud Punjabi mother, Kavita Kapoor, an appearance to which Aniruddha Guha of Daily News and Analysis referred as a "veritable treat".

[265][266] The show opened amid massive protests and police complaints against its makers for allegedly insulting Hindu deities and hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus,[267][268] following which Zafar cut several scenes and issued a formal apology.

[290] Kapadia played a scientist in the romantic comedy Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024), starring Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon, and featured alongside an ensemble cast in Adajania's mystery film Murder Mubarak.

[291] She will next have a starring role opposite the former's father, Pankaj Kapur, in Saurabh Shukla's Jab Khuli Kitaab, a romantic comedy about an older couple who seek divorce after 50 years of marriage.

[54] Virdi said Kapadia's forthright manner made a major contribution to her career: "Speaking candidly to the press, she and the reporters plotted her life's narrative from the innocent teenager snared into an impossible marriage to the emergence of a mature 'woman with experience'.

[299][300] Admitting her limited professional drive, she attributed it to the lack of worthy offers and the "huge effort" expended in film acting,[301] which consumes time otherwise spent on her family and private life.

[202][304] Similar thoughts were expressed by Mumbai Mirror's Trisha Gupta, who was impressed with Kapadia's diverse repertoire of maternal roles, ranging from Luck by Chance (2009) and Dabangg (2010) to Finding Fanny (2014).

[79] The Times of India wrote in reference to her role in Saagar, "Dimple was a vision of lush beauty; quite the forbidden fruit, rising from the ocean like Aphrodite emerging from the waves and surf".

[79] Speaking of her post-comeback screen persona, the critic Khalid Mohamed observed, "Her arsenal comprised, among other elements, expressive cognac eyes, a nuanced, resonating voice skilled in Hindustani dialogue delivery, easy body language, and that seductive toss of her auburn hair.

[6] According to Dinesh Raheja, Kapadia's casting in Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and Leela (2002), in which she played middle-aged women who are the object of younger men's desire, served as "a kind of tribute to her eternal beauty".