Lallu (Akshay Kumar) is an orphan who was separated from his parents and brother in his childhood and has been brought up by foster parents. He travels to Bombay to look for a job and starts working as a loyal servant for rich businessman Jamna Das (Avtar Gill). One day he discovers Jamna Das's daughter Sunita (Mamta Kulkarni) drunk in a nightclub and takes her home. Jamna Das realises how loyal Lallu is and how he never took advantage of Sunita in her drunken state decides to get them married. Sunita immediately refuses as she is in love with Amit (Mohnish Behl). When Jamna Das suddenly dies of a heart attack, his will and testament reveals that Sunita must get married to Lallu or she will not be entitled to any of his wealth and estate. Seeing no other option she marries Lallu but decides to have him killed with the help of Amit so that she can inherit all of her father's wealth. Sunita and Amit succeed in their plan to kill Lallu by poisoning him, putting him into a car, and crashing it to make it look like an accident. His death is considered suspicious, and the case is assigned to Inspector Vijay Kumar (also Akshay Kumar), who is a lookalike of the supposedly deceased Lallu.

Vijay also has a twin brother whom he lost during childhood. His brother was apparently murdered by Amit's father, Amar Singh (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), and the latter had raped a close friend's wife, who was Jamna Das's wife Gomti (Anjana Mumtaz). Later Gomti dies of a heart attack when in court Amar Singh (as a lawyer) falsely proves his 'innocence' and renders her guilty. This fact is not known by Sunita. But Vijay swears revenge against Amar Singh for what he did.

The twist in the story comes when Lallu appears before Sunita and Amit, who have presumed him to be dead. He then terrorizes them at their house and, when Amit finally owns up to the crime, out come the police to arrest Amit and Sunita. Lallu says he is none other than Inspector Vijay Kumar. Vijay reveals that it was his plan to frame Amit and his father. It was he who had come as Lallu in the first place, told Jamna Das to enact the heart attack, took Sunita into confidence, done all the pretense, and finally they had gotten Amit into trouble. Because now Amit is guilty of 'murdering Lallu', Inspector K. Kada (Gulshan Grover), a cunning inspector who had helped cover the crime, is also arrested.

Amit is taken into custody. Amar and K. Kada hatch a plan to release Amit and send him out of the country. They go to Vijay's police station on the pretext of meeting Amit and, as part of a plan hatched by Amar, a fight breaks out near the station, to which Vijay responds. At that moment, they release Amit, knock K. Kada out, and immolate him after Amit exchanges clothes with him. By the time Vijay realizes whats happening, it is too late. Amit escapes to the airport; Amar goes to court and accuses Vijay of burning his son. But Vijay manages to save K. Kada. He then says that Vijay is the biggest player ('Sabse Bada Khiladi') and helps Vijay nab Amit.

The film reaches a climax when Vijay chases Amit all the way to the abandoned airport with K. Kada following in a helicopter. Eventually they burst many stationary aircraft to shreds and destroy the hangar, with both chasing and trying to kill the even through the raging fires. Amit shoots K. Kada in the chopper from his car. But Vijay manages to nab him.

Finally they reach court, where Vijay produces Amit, the dead K. Kada, and everything is out in the open. Amar is now forced to say that he was the one who killed Lallu and raped Gomti, to save his son now. Unfortunately he is not able to prove it and save his son because he has destroyed all the evidence. A frustrated Amar tries to shoot Vijay but is foiled. They are then arrested.

• Akshay Kumar - Inspector Vijay Kumar / Lallu
• Mamta Kulkarni - Sunita Das
• Mohnish Behl - Amit Singh Choudhury
• Avtar Gill - Jamna Das
• Anjana Mumtaz - Gomti Das
• Gulshan Grover - Inspector Ke-Kada
• Sadashiv Amrapurkar- Amar Singh Choudhary
• Anil Nagrath - Judge
• Arun Bali
• Kishore Bhanushali - Hawaldar
• Sudhir Dalvi - Doctor
• Dina Pathak - Jamna's Mom
• Vishwajeet Pradhan - Chika
• S. Rawat
• Suresh Bhagwat - Jailed Drunk
• Ram Mohan - Defense Lawyer
• Subbiraj - Police Commissioner Sinha

Sabse Bada Khiladi became one of the biggest commercial successes of 1995, collecting 20 crore in 2 days and Akshay Kumar being appreciated for his action sequences.