After watching his previous directorial venture Masoom, a 1983 family drama about children, Boney Kapoor approached Kapur to make another film with similar themes.

Principal photography, handled by Baba Azmi, took place in Srinagar, Mumbai, and other locations in India, starting in July 1985, and finished after 350 days.

After filming ended, Waman Bhonsle and Gurudutt Shirali jointly edited it; Peter Pereira completed the special effects.

Arun is a street violinist and philanthropist who rents an old house to take care of ten orphans with the help of his cook named "Calendar".

He had written several comic books that received international acclaim: Devi, Snakewoman, The Warlord, The Omega Crystal, and Mantra.

Anil Kapoor plays Arun, a poor street violinist and philanthropist who rents a large, old house to help ten orphans.

[14] Satish Kaushik, who also served as an associate director alongside Raj Kanwar, portrays Calendar, Arun's assistant.

[19][20] When asked by The Hindu about his character's name, he explained it originated from his father's (a Delhi-based salesman) dealer who liked to insert the word calendar while talking.

[19] Amrish Puri was cast as Mogambo, a character that was inspired by Ibn-e-Safi's Jasoosi Dunya, following his meeting with Boney Kapoor and Kapur while shooting the 1987 thriller Loha in Ooty.

[23][24] The part was initially offered to Anupam Kher, however, after his screen test, the crew believed he looked "more funny than ferocious".

[5][19] In later years, Kapur recalled it as "terrible days" for him and spoke the difficulties he and the film's cast and crew members faced in this period.

[2] The film's opening scene, featuring a group of governmental officers alighting from heavily armoured vehicles, was shot at the Sophia College for Women in Mumbai.

[29] In an interview in Filmfare's December 1992 issue, she called the sequences "my all-time favourite" and revealed that the film's crew loved her while she wore the costume.

[31] Saroj Khan found it to be the "most difficult song" of her career, and said she took fifteen minutes to do the choreography, requiring her to create "sensuous movements".

[36] M. Rahman of India Today wrote it "has started a trend and film-goers will be hearing similar music over and over again in several forthcoming films".

[37] In 2018, Scroll.in praised Kapur's ability to "insert grown-up feelings into an otherwise family-friendly film without being tasteless" in "Kaate Nahin Kat Te".

The song, which Nikhat Kazmi labelled as the "encapsulation of the feminine nonpareil",[38] was parodied in Rangeela (1995), Aiyyaa (2012), and Gunday (2014), and sampled in "O Janiya" from Force 2 (2016).

(1988),[40] inspired the title of Amole Gupte's 2014 drama film,[41] and was remixed for Tumhari Sulu in 2018;[42][43] Sridevi performed it at the Hope '86 concert in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata).

[31][65][66] On 31 May, The Illustrated Weekly of India's editor Pritish Nandy described it as an "enjoyable potboiler", and opined Sridevi's joie de vivre uplifted the film.

[31] In his 31 July review for The Indian Express, the critic C. D. Aravind praised Anil Kapoor for giving "a reasonably good performance".

[70] Saibal Chatterjee summarized, "The comic-strip simplicity of narrative and the infectious exuberance of the storytelling made it extremely easy for the massed to relate to the film.

Under his direction and Salim–Javed's penmanship, it celebrates compassion and human spirit with generous doses of humour, thrills, music and contrivances."

[48] Planet Bollywood's Shahid Khan felt the director "deftly mixes all the elements of sci-fi, romance and comedy so well.

[74] Mr. India attained cult status in Hindi cinema,[75][76] and many critics have considered it one of the greatest Indian films of all time.

[77] Director and critic Raja Sen claimed the film "remains one of the most watchable of that decade, a groundbreaking piece of work with the power to create a new Bollywood genre".

[81] In an article published in Verve, Karthik Keramalu credited the film for "[opening] the gates to the idea of a superhero" and "[inspiring] a generation of directors".

[84] Prawaal Raman declared it as his "all-time favourite", adding, "That's why while making Gayab [(2004)], I never even thought of comparing my film to Mr. India.

[90] In 2003, the Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema noted, "Mr. India is most remembered for the outrageously exaggerated villainy of Mogambo who seems to have been inspired by the combined eccentricities of the [James] Bond villains.

[97] The actor Sunny Deol's role in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy (2003) and the musician Riz Ahmed's 2018 single (from The Long Goodbye album) were modelled and named, respectively, after the character.

[107] In June 2018, at the 19th IIFA Awards, Anil Kapoor admitted that Sridevi's death four months before and the absence of Puri (who died in January 2005)[109] affected the production, but he added: "We will try our best to follow their legacies so that we can make them proud that we made good films and they all appreciate what we have done.