[1] Bajpayee was born in a Hindu Brahmin family[2] on 23 April 1969 in a small village called Belwa near the city Bettiah in West Champaran, Bihar.

[4] He then attended director and acting coach Barry John's workshop after actor Raghubir Yadav's suggestion.

[9][10] Following his one-minute role in Govind Nihalani's Drohkaal (1994),[7] Bajpayee acted in the biographical drama Bandit Queen (1994).

[5] Bajpayee was a struggling actor when Mahesh Bhatt offered him the soap opera Swabhimaan (1995), which aired on Doordarshan.

[14] Director Ram Gopal Varma discovered Bajpayee when he was casting for Daud (1997), a comedy film, where he had a supporting role.

In the film, Bajpayee played gangster Bhiku Mhatre, who accompanies the title character to form their nexus in the Mumbai underworld.

[17] Anupama Chopra called Bajpayee and others' performances "[..] so good that you can almost smell the Mumbai grime on their sweaty bodies.

[22] Shool saw him play the role of an honest police officer who finds himself in the politician-criminal nexus of the Motihari district in Bihar.

[33] He subsequently portrayed Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav in J. P. Dutta's ensemble war film LOC: Kargil.

[35] Bajpayee's next roles were in Jaago (2004) opposite Raveena Tandon, Makarand Deshpande's Hanan and the thriller Inteqam.

[38][39] In 2005, Bajpayee acted in Dharmesh Darshan's drama Bewafaa, the thriller Fareb, and the English language film Return to Rajapur.

The film tells the story of six Indian army soldiers, who escape from the Pakistani prison after they were captured during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

[44] Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN, criticised the film but wrote: "[Bajpayee] is in great form, he holds back mostly and in the process, constructs a character that says more with his eyes than with words.

Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India in her review mentioned that Bajpayee "[..] grab[s] eyeballs in [his] scenes" and "brings back memories of his mesmeric performances.

[69] His final release of the year was Chakravyuh, where he played a Naxalite; a role which required him to lose 5 kilograms weight.

[71] On the contrary, a review carried by India Today called it an "amateurish attempt", but praised Bajpayee's acting.

[74] It was followed by the crime film Shootout at Wadala, where he played a character inspired by the gangster Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar.

[78] Bajpayee then provided the voice of Yudhishthira for Mahabharat, a 3D animation film based on the Indian epic of the same name.

Directed by Devashish Makhija, the film showcased the pressure and scenarios faced by an honest police constable, and was released on YouTube.

[97] In 2018, Bajpayee reunited with Neeraj Pandey with the crime thriller Aiyaary, where he played Colonel Abhay Singh who is in pursuit of his protege Major Jai Bakshi (Sidharth Malhotra).

[99] Later that year, Bajpayee acted and made his debut as a producer with the psychological thriller Missing, co-starring Tabu.

[103] The same year he appeared in the psychological drama Gali Guleiyan, directed by debutant Dipesh Jain, where he played an electrician living in Old Delhi, who starts losing his grasp over reality.

[106][107] His final release of the year was Tabrez Noorani's ensemble drama Love Sonia, a film about sex trafficking.

[108] In Devashish Makhija's Bhonsle, Bajpayee played a terminally ill retired Mumbai cop who befriends a North Indian girl when the locals are trying to get rid of the migrants in the city.

"[114] Later, he appeared in the spy action drama web series The Family Man, directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K.

Bajpayee played the role of Srikant Tiwari, a middle-class man who secretly works for an intelligence agency.

The series and his performance received positive response from critics with Rohit Naahar of Hindustan Times writing: "Manoj Bajpayee is, as he usually tends to be, effortlessly excellent.

[117] His final release of the year was the comedy flick Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari alongside Diljit Dosanjh and Fatima Sana Shaikh.

[121][122][123][124] Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui has cited Bajpayee's performance in Aks as the inspiration for his role as the antagonist in Kick (2014).

"[129] Bajpayee's performance as Bhiku Mhatre in Satya is considered to be one of the most memorable characters of Hindi cinema, along with his dialogue in it: "Mumbai ka king kaun?