Year: 1978
Runtime: 166 mins
Language: Hindi
Director: Chandra Barot
A ruthless gangster known as Don is killed in a police bust, and only DSP D’Silva witnesses the event. To dismantle the crime syndicate, D’Silva recruits Vijay, a dead‑ringer for Don, to assume the dead boss’s identity and infiltrate his gang. D’Silva’s plan to capture the whole operation unravels when he is killed in a raid, taking the secret of Vijay’s true identity with him.
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Read the complete plot breakdown of Don (1978), including all key story events, major twists, and the ending explained in detail. Discover what really happened—and what it all means.
In Mumbai’s shadowy underworld, Don commands a feared crime empire that keeps law enforcement on edge across eleven countries. A relentless pursuit by the authorities seems always just out of reach, as the net tightens around his illicit network.
During a tense chase, the mastermind is severely wounded and dies in front of D’Silva, who secretly buries him and keeps the death hidden from everyone. To topple the operation from within, D’Silva hatches a high-stakes plan and identifies a look-alike, Vijay, a street performer, to infiltrate the gang.
D’Silva trains Vijay and sends him back into Don’s world as an amnesiac Don, living in an apartment complex, gathering intelligence on the crime network. As the undercover mission unfolds, Vijay comes into possession of a diary that contains the network’s deepest secrets and hands it over to D’Silva, hoping to secure a path to justice.
Vijay’s presence stirs trouble when Roma, Roma—driven by grief after her brother Ramesh and his fiancée Kamini were killed by Don earlier—tries to stop him. The tension escalates until D’Silva reveals a startling truth to Roma: he is Vijay, not Don, and the deception is a necessary shield to bring down the gang.
Before a key party, Don secretly feeds information about a meeting, and chaos erupts into a shootout that leaves D’Silva dead. The police, now led by R.K. Malik, move to capture the infiltrator, and Vijay is taken into custody, with the diary a pivotal missing link in his defense.
Vijay asserts his innocence but the missing diary leaves him with little proof, and he escapes from a police van to seek answers. He teams up with Roma again and learns that the diary was stolen by a man named Jasjit to locate his own children, Deepu and Munni, who are also in danger. Together, the trio tracks Jasjit down and forms an uneasy alliance as they race to recover the truth.
As the layers peel away, the trio discovers a brutal truth: Malik is actually Vardhaan, who captured the real Malik and posed as him to cover his crimes; Vardhaan killed D’Silva during the party and had already exposed Roma’s identity to the gang, with Deepu and Munni kidnapped to force surrender. The confrontation culminates in a graveyard showdown where Deepu and Munni are held hostage by Vardhaan and his gang.
In a tense stand-off, Vijay, Roma, and Jasjit confront the captors. Vardhaan grabs the diary from Roma and tosses it into a fire, hoping to erase the trail. Yet Vijay reveals that the burned diary was a blank decoy, and he passes the real diary to the authorities, exposing Vardhaan’s true identity. The gang is arrested, and Vijay, Roma, Jasjit, Deepu, and Munni walk away from the police station, ready to start anew.
Last Updated: October 05, 2025 at 11:28
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