Anees Bazmee was born in a remote town of Modasa in Gujarat, India to an Gujarati poet Abdul Hameed “Nerang” Bazmee and housewife Khatoon Begum. He came to Mumbai in 1976 and worked as a child artist. He later also dabbled in a number of jobs like art direction, editing and sound recording.

Bazmee did his directorial debut with Hulchul in 1995, however his first commercial success in came in 1998 with the film Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha, one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of the year. He achieved further success as well as recognization by directing the top-grossing comedies including No Entry (2005), Welcome (2007), Singh Is Kinng (2008), Ready (2011) and Welcome Back (2015), and also received praise for directing the moderately successful romantic thriller Deewangee (2002).