| Director | Rajkumar Hirani |
|---|---|
| Genre | comedy film, drama film, musical film, speculative fiction film |
| Runtime | 153 min |
| Country | India |
| Budget | ₹122 crore |
| Box office | ₹769.9 crore |
A humanoid alien lands in Rajasthan, India, on a research mission, but is immediately stranded when a local thief steals his spaceship's remote-control amulet. Concurrently in Bruges, Belgium, an Indian journalism student, Jagat "Jaggu" Janani Sahni, falls in love with a Pakistani student, Sarfaraz Yousuf. Jaggu's father, a devout follower of the fraudulent Hindu godman Tapasvi Maharaj, fiercely opposes the interfaith relationship. When Tapasvi predicts that Sarfaraz will inevitably betray her, a defiant Jaggu proposes an immediate registry marriage. However, at the chapel, she receives an unsigned letter calling off the wedding, leaving her heartbroken and prompting her return to India.
In New Delhi, Jaggu, now a television journalist, encounters the stranded alien, who is distributing pamphlets seeking a "missing" God. Intrigued after witnessing him get arrested for attempting to retrieve money from a temple donation box as compensation for "broken promises," Jaggu secures his release and gains his trust. The alien recounts his experiences: upon landing, he survived by stealing clothes from couples parked in secluded areas and was befriended by Bhairon Singh, a sympathetic Rajasthani brass bandmaster. By holding hands with individuals to absorb their memories via tactile transference, he acquired fluent Bhojpuri from a sex worker. His subsequent eccentric attempts to locate his stolen amulet across various places of worship earned him the local moniker "PK" (meaning "drunk").
Told by locals that only God could locate his missing device, PK rigorously explored Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam, participating in disparate rituals to no avail. He eventually discovers that Tapasvi Maharaj possesses the amulet, which the godman publicly misrepresents as a divine relic from the Himalayas. After verifying PK’s extraterrestrial nature, Jaggu promises to use her media platform to help him retrieve it.
PK soon concludes that self-appointed religious intermediaries are communicating with God via a metaphorical "wrong number," inadvertently or intentionally deceiving humanity through fabricated dogmas and rituals. He encourages the public to distinguish between the ultimate Creator of the universe and fraudulent human duplicates. Backed by Jaggu’s television network, PK’s "wrong number" campaign transforms into a massive nationwide movement that systematically exposes religious exploitation, deeply threatening Tapasvi's spiritual monopoly. Meanwhile, Bhairon Singh tracks down the original thief in Rajasthan, who confesses to selling the amulet to Tapasvi. However, before Bhairon can deliver the thief to Delhi to testify, both are killed in a retaliatory terrorist bombing at a railway station.
The narrative crisis culminates when a cornered Tapasvi challenges PK to a live, televised debate to defend his divine authority. During the broadcast, Tapasvi attempts to discredit PK by citing his accurate prediction of Sarfaraz’s betrayal as proof of his spiritual foresight. Having previously absorbed Jaggu’s memories, PK realizes the logistics of the chapel incident were flawed. He deduces that the unsigned letter was actually delivered to the wrong pew and was intended for another bride. Jaggu immediately contacts the Pakistani Embassy in Belgium, confirming that Sarfaraz had discovered the exact same letter on a different counter, erroneously believing Jaggu had rejected him. The live international broadcast publicly exposes Tapasvi's structural deceit, forcing Jaggu's disillusioned father to demand the immediate return of the remote control.
Having successfully retrieved his device, PK prepares to depart Earth. Although he has secretly fallen in love with Jaggu, he chooses to suppress his feelings out of respect for her relationship with Sarfaraz, filling suitcases with audio recordings of her voice as his only memento. Jaggu discovers his hidden love notes but allows him to depart gracefully, later publishing a bestselling biographical book detailing his experiences.
One year later, PK returns to Earth, leading a new expedition of his species to continue studying human nature.