Dhoni: The Untold Story is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language biographical sports drama film directed and co-written by Neeraj Pandey.

It is based on the life of former Test, ODI and T20I captain of the Indian national cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The film stars the late Sushant Singh Rajput as MS Dhoni, along with Disha Patani, Kiara Advani, and Anupam Kher.

The idea of the biopic was put forward by Dhoni's manager, Arun Pandey, after encountering an incident at an airport after the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final.

After achieving much fame, Mahi is selected for the Ranji Trophy but his draft notice is held up due to which he is late in reaching Kolkata despite his friends' help.

Development of a Dhoni biopic began after the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final and the discussion about the idea went on over the following years but remained dormant.

His manager, Arun Pandey, asked why he spent that much time and Dhoni replied how his answer was pivotal in benefiting and motivating the boy.

This incident then prompted Pandey to make a film about him saying [to Dhoni] that his story has the power to motivate millions of children like him.

[10] After the idea coalesced, Pandey began to convince Dhoni himself in order to adapt his life into a full-length feature film.

Pandey recruited a team of researchers who collated data and background information while the director was busy directing Baby (2015).

"[10] Pandey revealed several prominent aspects of Dhoni's life that were hidden before including the fact that Dhoni initially disdained cricket and had a predilection for football instead, his signature "helicopter shot" was taught to him by his friend Santosh Lal, he likes women who don't recognise him, he and Yuvraj Singh had close ties even before their respective stardom and it was Dhoni who ousted Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid from the team since he wanted to build a young team for the 2011 World Cup with better fielders and he wasn't too happy with the 'fitness' levels of the aforementioned cricketers.

He knew that they were chronicling almost 30 years of a sportsman's life "in a highly compressed manner" and said that had he extended the script to his sudden retirement during an ongoing series, the run time of the film would shoot up to six hours.

In order to prepare for his role, he had to go through an exhaustive prolonged training for a period of 18 months before shooting began and watched his videos for hours, to a point that he subconsciously started picking up some of his traits.

[20] Former wicketkeeper Kiran More personally coached Rajput for thirteen months, including wicket-keeping and batting before he started learning Dhoni's body language.

[24] In an effort to stay true to the crux of the biopic, Neeraj also shot scenes from the film in Dhoni's real home in Ranchi, Jharkhand where his parents and brother Narendra currently live.

Shooting also took place at Kharagpur railway station where Dhoni once worked as a Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE), his old school, Jawahar Vidya Mandir and at the quarter number 142 of Mecon Limited he shared with his four roommates while studying engineering.

[27] Rajput learned Dhoni's signature 'helicopter' shot by the end of the first day, but suffered a hairline fracture and had to leave for two weeks.

[29][30] Sabina Islam, media and marketing manager of the distributor IMGC Global Entertainment in Pakistan told The Express Tribune, "We wouldn't want to release anything that can aggravate the current situation of the two countries.

The two cars were unveiled by Dhoni and R S Kalsi, Maruti Suzuki India Executive Director of Marketing and Sales in Hyderabad on 24 September.

Through a chain of distributors the film also went out in non-regular Bollywood territories such as Japan, Spain, France, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines and the West Indies.

[4][29][47][56][57] The film was noted for omitting certain aspects of Dhoni's life and in the realm of cricket that were deemed noteworthy such as the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 press conference, where Dhoni brought the entire team and read out a statement of unity, the 2013 Indian Premier League spot-fixing and betting case and the alleged rift with Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.

The film also does not include Dhoni's take on the two-year ban imposed on Chennai Super Kings from playing in the Twenty20 which he captained at that time, which ultimately led to the Supreme Court asking N. Srinivasan to step aside as BCCI  President.

The film also does not provide any explanation to Dhoni's purchase (and eventual sale) of the 15% stake in the player management firm Rhiti Sports, or why he was named the vice-president of India Cements.

[4][58] While the film featured his sister Jayanti, there was no mention about his real life elder brother, Narendra Singh Dhoni, who is a politician.

Karsan Ghavri, who was the coach of East Zone at that time, praised Dhoni's century saying that "this lad will represent the country one day.

"[60] The Hindu said, "of course such sanitisation makes the film lose out on interesting layers and complexity, but, curiously, the focused, unwavering eulogising of Dhoni also helps it get an unmistakeable emotional acuity.

He quoted John Briley's famous line from the script he wrote for Richard Attenborough's Gandhi: "No man's life can be encompassed in one telling.

[37] Several professional Indian sportsmen and sportswomen, such as cricketer Mohammad Kaif[62] and badminton player Saina Nehwal,[63] had high regards for the film.

She concluded by saying, "I learned more about Mr. Dhoni — his enigmatic character and what marked him as a great captain — by reading about him after watching this movie than I did during three long hours.

The 10-song album features the voices of singers Armaan Malik, Arijit Singh, Siddharth Basrur, Rochak Kohli and Palak Muchhal; it was released in three different language versions: Tamil, Telugu and Marathi.