The film follows an unnamed, almost penniless and unemployed youth (Kamal Haasan) who aspires to lead a reasonably affluent livelihood free of insecurities and humiliations he has to put up with because of his day-to-day poverty. Suddenly a lady (Amala) luck smiles upon him, when he impromtpuly takes up the identity of a rich man, stoking the desire of becoming rich in him even more. His fortunes apparently change when he stumbles upon a millionaire drunk by the roadside. He abducts and takes the millionaire in his room alongside a roof terrace in a dilapidated old building. He assumes his identity to taste the opulence and starts staying at the plush five star hotel suite rented by the wealthy millionaire. A professional killer (Tinu Anand) hired by the closet lover of the wife of the alcoholic millionaire to hit on him with an intention of usurping his belongings, has set his eyes on the young man, having mistaken the young man for the rich man, too. The wife herself (Ramya) who is having an affair outside the wedlock is not in the loop about the murder plan.

Posing as the rich man, the youth meets the girl, who is the daughter and assistant of a magician (K S Ramesh), who is residing in the same hotel with his daughter and wife (Farida Jalal). The girl in the beginning is not interested in the young man and on one occasion even slaps him because of a misunderstanding where he appeared to her as being lousy. But later, after the hotel owner (LokNath) suddenly dies of old age, the two meet while paying tribute at his funeral and mend ways. They get into a romantic relationship gradually.

The killer in the mean time, comes up with an ingenious way of stabbing with a knife entirely made of water frozen into ice, to kill the young man, but falls in his own trap everytime he desperately makes an attempt. All this time, the young man remains unaware about the dangers in his life. One day, however, the young man figures out that the killer is in the hotel to kill someone, but is unable to find the identity of his target. Later the creepy killer intrudes into his suite and gets electrocuted while trying to stab the young man from behind. Finally he comes to know about the murder plan hatched by the lover of the rich man's wife when he follows the killer to their bungalow and eavesdrops the killer informing the lover about his failure. The two conspirators also realise that they were targeting the wrong man all the time. At this time, the rich mans wife learns of her lover's treachery, and has a change of heart. She decides to get out of the affair with him.

In a montage shown about the owner, the young man realises that the owner was a poor man, just like him. Seeing what the owner achieved by fair means, the young man begins to question his actions.

Some days later, the roadside beggar dies and municipality people come to take his dead body. However, seeing the beggar's stash, they nearly throw his body on the pavement and start stealing the money. The young man decides to make things right.

The young man sets the rich man free. He explains the situation to the rich man in a letter. The rich man and his wife reunite. After that, the young man decides to come clean to the magician's daughter as well. He learns that the magician's daughter's family is about to leave the hotel.

The young man confesses the truth to the magician's daughter, but to his surprise she forgives him. While leaving the hotel, she drops a rose wrapped in a paper from her car, meaning that she has given him her address. However, before the young man can get the paper a gust of wind takes it away and it rolls all the way down the gutter implying the lovers never unite. The young man is not able to get the magician's daughter, but some days later, he is shown in a line for a job vacancy, although this time he has a rose in his hands and hope in his eyes. While it is not clear that the young man got the job or not, it is certain that his perception towards life has changed.

• Kamal Haasan as Unemployed graduate
• Amala as Magician's daughter
• Tinu Anand as Killer
• P L Narayana as Beggar
• Farida Jalal as Magician's wife
• Sameer Khakhar as The millionaire
• Ramya as Millionaire's wife
• Loknath as Hotel owner
• K S Ramesh as Magician
• Prathap K Pothan as The lover of the wife of the millionaire

Development

Although Pushpaka Vimanam has often been referred to as the first full-length silent film in India after the "silent era" of cinema, director Singeetam Srinivasa Rao and lead actor Kamal Haasan have disagreed, instead calling it a film without dialogue. The film was produced by Kannada actor Shringar Nagaraj and remains his only film he had produced in his whole career. He agreed to produce the film after he heard the script and also Singeetam couldn't find the right person. Singeetam revealed that the idea of the film came during the shoot of a film while assisting K. V. Reddy in which there was a scene where comedian had to emote fear without dialogues. Kamal agreed to work on the film after being impressed by the script.

Casting

Since the film had no dialogue, Singeetham was able to cast actors from outside Tamil cinema. P. L. Narayana was cast as a beggar and Samer Kakkar who became popular with Television series Nukkad portrayed a rich drunkard. Amala was selected as lead actress after attempts to sign Neelam have failed.

Filming

Thotta Tharani constructed a street set for the film, beside the Hyland Hotel in Bengaluru. The little ramshackle room where Kamal lived, and the building itself, was constructed above the hotel. Most of the shooting was done in Windsor Manor Hotel in Bengaluru.

National Film Awards

• National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment (1988) – Singeetam Srinivasa Rao and Shringar Nagaraj

Filmfare Awards South

• Filmfare Award South for Best Film – Shringar Nagaraj
• Filmfare Award for Best Director – Kannada – Singeetham Srinivasa Rao
• Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Kannada – Kamal Hassan

The film was premiered at the International Film Festival of India, 1988 Cannes Film Festival in the International Critics' Week,^[12][13][14] and retrospective at the Shanghai Film Festival, and Whistling Woods International Institute.^[15][16]

The film was released in Kannada(kannada: ?????? ?????) and Telugu (Telugu: ?????? ???????) under the same name. The film was also released in Tamil, Hindi and Urdu as Pesum Padam (Tamil: ?????? ????) and Pushpak (Hindi: ?????? ) (Urdu: ??????) respectively. Telugu version was distributed by Sravanthi Ravikishore and Hindi version was distributed by Rajendra Kumar.^[8] The film was also dubbed in Malayalam as Pushpaka Vimanam (Malayalam: ?????? ??????).

Reviewing Pesum Padam, the Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan rated it 50 out of 100.^[17]

Amala listed Pushpaka Vimanam among Vedham Pudhithu (1987), Agni Natchathiram (1988), Siva (1989) and Karpoora Mullai (1991) as her most memorable films.^[18] The film is listed among CNN-IBN's "hundred greatest Indian films of all time".^[19] The film was listed by Rediff in its list "Singeetham's gems before christ".^[20] On Kamal's birthday, 7 November 2015, Latha Srinivasan of Daily News and Analysis considered Pushpaka Vimanam to be one of the "films you must watch to grasp the breadth of Kamal Haasan's repertoire".^[21]