In the fictional Gujarati village Ranjaar, infamous for its uninhibited manufacture and sale of arms and ammunition, two clans—Rajadi and Sanera—have been at odds with each other for the past 500 years. A violent altercation between the two occur after Bhavani, a Sanera, fires at the son of Meghjibai, a Rajadi chieftain. Bhavani is almost killed by Meghjibai but Ram, Meghjibai's younger brother, intervenes and saves Bhavani. All the Rajadi elders are irked by Ram being a vagabond who deals in porn films and stolen cars, with his mindset of making truce with the other clan.

During the festival of Holi, Ram boldly enters the house of the Sanera heads and flirts with Leela while her mother, Dhankor Baa, the chieftain of the Saneras, is busy arranging a match for her daughter with a simple-minded NRI. Leela's elder brother, Kanji, is angered by Ram's entry in the house and bribes the local police to raid Ram's house. Ram, however, manages to convince the policemen to leave in exchange for a set of his blue films. Ram and Leela develop a romance and plan to elope but a grim turn of events follows when Kanji accidentally kills Meghji, Ram's brother, and is in turn killed by Ram.

To escape the suffering, Ram and Leela elope and marry but just as they are about to consummate their marriage, Ram's friends trace them and betray him by inebriating him and informing Leela's family of their location. The next morning, Leela is forcibly taken back home by Bhavani, her cousin, while Ram is hailed as a hero by the Rajadis for soiling Leela's reputation. He is rewarded by being made the new chieftain of the Rajadis.

Meanwhile, Dhankor Baa arranges the engagement of Leela and the NRI, much to the chagrin of the pair. Leela refuses, citing that her finger is already occupied by the ring from her marriage to Ram. In her anger, Dhankor Baa chops off Leela's finger. Upon learning of this, Ram does the same to his own finger and visits Leela while she is asleep. Leela still retains faith in Ram and sends Rasila, the widow of Kanji, to give Ram an ultimatum to take her away. Rasila is assaulted by Ram's friends and when Dhankor Baa learns of this, she sends Bhavani and other men to assault Kesar, Meghji's widow, who manages to evade them.

In response to the attempt on Kesar, Ram storms into Leela's house and incapacitates the guards single-handedly. He then requests Dhankor Baa to consider negotiation for peace, and she invites him to celebrate Navratri with the Saneras, with the intention of having him killed. However, at the event, Bhavani secretly shoots and seriously injures Dhankor Baa to place the blame on the Rajadi. Leela is made the chieftain of the Saneras and gets busy tending to her mother. She bitterly carries out a negotiation with Ram, equally dividing the travel routes and trades, with the condition that the Saneras and Rajadis will not interact with each other ever again.

Bhavani, who does not tolerate this development, deceives Leela into blindly signing a document that orders unrestrained killings of the Rajadis. During Dusshera, as the Ramlila parade is ending, many of the Rajadis are killed and the village is on the brink of war, which Ram senses. Ram and Leela decide that they are each the other's soulmate and shoot one another dead, all the while oblivious to the fact that Dhankor Baa has undergone a change of heart and has killed Bhavani, ordering that peace be made with the other clan. The two clans come together to cremate the bodies of the lovers.

• Ranveer Singh as Ram
• Deepika Padukone as Leela
• Supriya Pathak Kapur as Dhankor Baa
• Homi Wadia as Radhu Bhai
• Abhimanyu Singh as Meghji Bhai
• Richa Chadda as Rasila
• Gulshan Devaiah as Bhavani
• Jameel Khan as Vanda
• Sharad Kelkar as Kanji Bhai
• Barkha Sengupta as Kesar
• Tarun Anand as Ujjwal
• Masood Akhtar as Pujalal
• Master Mohammad Faizan as Goli
• Priyanka Chopra in a cameo appearance

Development

Bhansali conceived Ram-Leela while directing Khamoshi: The Musical. The latter was critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful, leaving Bhansali with no money to fund Ram-Leela. He next directed Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam instead, which was also set in Gujarat like Ram-Leela. Feeling that directing two films set in the same place would be repetitive, Bhansali waited. He intended the film to be a tribute to Gujarat, saying, "I am Gujarati at heart. I love Gujarat's music, culture and food and I want to take all this back to the people." The film was dedicated to Bhansali's mother Leela. According to him, Ram-Leela was his "most violent film" at that point, while the filmmaking style was similar to his previous directional ventures Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas.

Bhansali called it a "desi adaptation" of William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet. He clarified that Ram-Leela is not related to Rama or Krishna and that the character Ram does not depict the Hindu god. Speaking about the influence of his childhood environment on the film, Bhansali said that his family members used to speak "the most outrageously uninhibited things as though they were the most natural". He felt that the language heard by him were idioms for the current generation, who speak directly. Bhansali found it "very liberating to explore the union of body and mind in a love-relationship" and felt that it wasn't enough "to show a boy and a girl looking at one another when they fall in love". The lovers don't have sex together in the film as Bhansali felt the importance of showing the lovers "united completely in death".

Terming Romeo and Juliet as "the mother of all love stories", Bhansali wanted to make a different story with it, one that was not yet explored in cinematic adaptations. While changing many aspects of the film, Bhansali kept the theme of "misunderstanding between star-crossed lovers", while transposing them to another level. The idea of a feud between two families that destroys everything really appealed to him. Acocording to Bhansali, "the whole execution of Shakespeare is more flirtatious and voluptuous" and he felt his film was the best interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. When asked about the extensive violence and guns in the film, he said that violence is "an integral part" of Romeo and Juliet, also stating how important it was for a filmmaker "to get out of his comfort zone".

The screenplay was written by writing duo Siddharth-Garima. Producer Sandeep Singh offered the duo three films; they chose Ram-Leela over the other two. They were impressed by its outline and felt that it was similar to Australian writer Baz Luhrmann's films. In addition to writing, they collaborated with Bhansali for the costumes, recces, shoot days, editing, subtitling, and post production. After writing the initial screenplay draft, Siddarth-Garima were sent to Gujarat for researching dialect, slang and accent.

Rhyming couplets from Romeo and Juliet were translated into Hindi and used in the film, with more emphasis on innuendo and humor as they felt that the elements were "overshadowed" by tragedy in the original play.

Cast and characters

Pakistani actor Imran Abbas was the first choice for Ram, he rejected the role due to "contractual obligations". Kareena Kapoor and Ranveer Singh were cast in the lead roles in the film. Singh later confirmed the news and conveyed his excitement on working with Kapoor. Bhansali was impressed with Singh's performance in Band Baaja Baaraat and cast him for the film. However, Kapoor walked out of the film 10 days before the shoot began and instead did Dharma Productions's romantic comedy Gori Tere Pyaar Mein. With already complete sets and an approaching filming schedule, Bhansali approached Priyanka Chopra who agreed to do the film. Chopra was officially cast for Leela in July 2012 and was to start filming in August. However, before the filming started Bhansali brought Deepika Padukone in the film. After this unpleasant experience with Bhansali, Chopra stopped talking to Bhansali, as confirmed by the CEO of Bhansali Productions. It should be noted that in August 2012, Padukone had publicly expressed her desire to be a part of the film. After wrapping the filming of his previous film Lootera, Singh confirmed that she was signed on for the film in August 2012.

In an interview Bhansali revealed that he met Padukone with the script while she was ill; impressed with her beauty and watery eyes, he cast her. Richa Chadda was reportedly signed on to play a significant role, cast by Shruti Mahajan. Although she initially denied the claim, Chadda later agreed to play the role; she was not given the entire script until a month of filming. For Chadda's role, Bhansali wanted someone "with a dusky complexion and Indian features", hence she was selected. Bhansali ordere