Kangana Ranaut ( pronounced [kəŋɡənaː raːɳoːʈʰ] ; born 23 March 1987) is an Indian film actress. She has established a career in Bollywood and is the recipient of a National Film Award and Filmfare Awards in three categories.

Born in Bhambla, a small town in Himachal Pradesh, Ranaut initially aspired to become a doctor at the insistence of her parents. Determined to build her own career path, she relocated to Delhi at age sixteen, where she briefly became a model. After training under the theatre director Arvind Gaur, Ranaut made her feature film debut in the 2006 thriller Gangster, for which she was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She received praise for portraying emotionally intense characters in the dramas Woh Lamhe (2006), Life in a... Metro (2007) and Fashion (2008). For the last of these, she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Filmfare Award in the same category.

Ranaut featured in the commercially successful films Raaz: The Mystery Continues (2009) and Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai (2010), though she was criticised for being typecast in neurotic roles. A comic role opposite R. Madhavan in the 2011 box office hit Tanu Weds Manu was well-received, though this was followed by a series of brief, glamorous roles in films that failed to propel her career forward. She then played a mutant opposite Hrithik Roshan in the science fiction film Krrish 3 (2013), one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of all time and won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress for playing the protagonist of the comedy-drama Queen (2014). These accomplishments established her as a leading actress of Hindi cinema.

Ranaut is particularly known in the media for expressing her honest opinions in public and is frequently credited as one of the most fashionable Indian celebrities.