Introduction

Chatur Ramalingam ("Silencer"), a vice-president of a reputable company, reminds his former engineering classmates Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi of a bet he made with their classmate Rancho ten years ago. Meeting up, the three of them set out to Shimla to find Rancho, reminiscing about their days at the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE) in Delhi.

Plot (Flashback)

Raju's and Farhan's roommate Ranchhoddas Shamaldas Chanchad ("Rancho") was passionate about learning, and his playful attitude to engineering put him at odds with the rigid approach of the college's President, Dr. Viru Sahastrabuddhe ("Virus"). When a student named Joy Lobo is denied graduation by Virus on the ground of failure to submit a project, Rancho fixes Joy’s project, only to find him having hanged himself. Rancho criticises Virus about the extreme pressure placed on ICE students, but is rudely rebuffed.

Love, College & Life

One night, the trio gatecrashes a wedding party, not knowing that it is for Virus's daughter Mona. Mona's younger sister, Pia, is initially upset by Rancho’s behaviour, but is attracted to him after he pranks her materialistic fiance Suhas to demonstrate his obsession with money and status, leading Pia to break up with Suhas. A furious Virus warns Farhan and Raju about the risks of their association with Rancho.

The Chatur Challenge

Raju then transfers into the room of Chatur, a competitive and arrogant Uganda-born Tamil student who favours rote learning but is not fluent in Hindi. As Chatur's roommate Raju is bothered by the silent but smelly flatulence caused by the memory-enhancing pills that Chatur constantly takes (whence Chatur's nickname "Silencer"). To teach Chatur a lesson about memorisation, Rancho and Farhan secretly make obscene modifications to his all-Hindi Teachers Day speech. For example, Rancho changed chamatkar (magic) into balatkar (rape), dhan (money) into stan (breast). This leads to Chatur's humiliation in front of the Minister of Education and Virus. Furious, Chatur challenges Rancho to meet in ten years and see who is more successful.

Career Choice: Passion or Pressure

On the night before their final exams, Raju's father has a heart attack. With Pia's help, Rancho saves him. During the yearly class photo, Virus makes a bet with Rancho that neither Raju nor Farhan gets a job from on-campus interviews or he will shave off his mustache. In their fourth year, Rancho tells his friends why they consistently place last: Farhan's passion is photography, not engineering, and Raju lacks self-confidence. After Farhan and Raju promise to confront their problems if Rancho confesses his feelings for Pia, the three of them drunkenly break into Virus' house; Farhan and Raju drunkenly urinate on his letterbox. Virus notices Raju and threatens to rusticate him unless he witnesses against Rancho. Not willing to disappoint his family nor betray Rancho, Raju attempts suicide but survives, leading Virus to revoke the rustication. Raju recovers and is successful in a job interview, while Farhan convinces his father to let him become a photographer.

Revenge & Realization

Humiliated at Raju's success in getting a job and losing his mustache, Virus tries to destroy Raju's chances of success by setting an unfairly difficult exam. With Pia's help, Rancho and Farhan steal the exam paper but Raju refuses to cheat and throws it away, but the three of them are caught and expelled. Pia later confronts her father over her brother's suicide, which was prompted by similar pressure placed on him by Virus. That night, during a heavy rainstorm, a pregnant Mona goes into labour. Unable to drive to a hospital, Rancho modifies a vacuum cleaner into a ventouse and delivers the baby with the help of Pia, Farhan, and Raju. A grateful Virus acknowledges Rancho by giving him a valuable Space Pen, which he promised to give only to his most distinguished student, and revokes the trio's expulsions. On graduation day, Rancho suddenly disappears.

Plot (Present)

In the present, upon reaching Shimla, where Chatur has located Rancho's house, they come across a different man, whose face is pasted over Rancho's in their graduation portrait. The man explains that the "Rancho" at ICE was his family's gardener's son "Chhote", who was incredibly intelligent and gifted. Ranchhoddas' father paid for Chhote to attend ICE, on the condition that he use his son's name and, after graduating, cut all contact with anyone at ICE. Chhote, who was more interested in learning than in getting a degree, agreed, but afterwards warned that two idiots would come looking for him one day. Ranchoddas gives them Chhote's address in Ladakh. On the way there, Farhan and Raju gatecrash Pia's wedding to Suhas in Manali and convince her to come with them to find Rancho. At the address in Ladakh, the group is astonished to find a thriving school. They are greeted by "Millimetre", formerly an errand boy whom they met at ICE, now Rancho's assistant, who tells them that Rancho has keenly followed their careers.

Epilogue

They reunite with Rancho on a sandbar near the Pangong Lake. Rancho admits he is still in love with Pia and the two share a kiss. Chatur, who assumes that Rancho is only a mere schoolteacher, mocks him and takes Virus' pen from him. After being asked about his real name, Rancho reveals himself to be Phunsukh Wangdu, a successful scientist and entrepreneur which Chatur's company is courting. Chatur, shocked that Rancho is Phunsukh Wangdu, accepts defeat as the others run away from him laughing.

Film Shooting & Production

In December 2008, the entire cast and crew, including Khan, Madhavan, Joshi and Hirani, headed to Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore campus which served as Imperial College of Engineering.The climax was being shot at the Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh. The pregnancy scene was initially supposed to be placed in Hirani's debut film Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003), but as he felt that the placement was irrelevant in the film, the team decided against doing so, and then was used in this film. The hospital scenes were shot at Fortis Hospital (Noida). The film uses real inventions, with brains behind these innovations include Remya Jose, a student from Kerala, who created the pedal operated washing-machine; Mohammad Idris, a barber from Hasanpur Kalan in Meerut district in Uttar Pradesh, who invented a bicycle-powered horse clipper and Jahangir Painter, a painter from Maharashtra, who made the scooter-powered flour mill. The character Phunsuk Wangdu drew inspiration from Ladakhi inventor Sonam Wangchuk, a mechanical engineering graduate from the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar.

Awards & Recognition

At the 57th National Film Awards, 3 Idiots won 3 National Film Awards, including Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. Additionally, the film received 11 nominations at the 55th Filmfare Awards, including Best Actor (Khan), Best Actress (Kapoor) and Best Supporting Actor (Madhavan and Joshi), and won a leading 6 awards (tying with Dev.D), including Best Film, Best Director (Hirani) and Best Supporting Actor (Irani). Overseas, it won the Grand Prize at Japan's Videoyasan Awards, while it was nominated for Best Outstanding Foreign Language Film at the Japan Academy Awards and Best Foreign Film at China's Beijing International Film Festival. 3 Idiots is now considered to be among the greatest Indian films ever made. The film also had a social impact on attitudes toward education in India, as well as in other Asian countries such as China and South Korea. It was remade in Tamil as Nanban (2012), which also received critical praise and commercial success.A Mexican remake, 3 Idiotas, was also released in 2017.