Badshah Lear is a film about the making of a King Lear performance by the folk theatre artists of the Kashmir Valley, under the direction of theatre director, actor and activist MK Raina. The story revolves around the idea of home, the destruction and resurrection of culture, and the resilience of art.

Raina's family fled the Kashmir Valley, along with many other Kashmiri Pundits, during the violence of the 1990s. He returned to the region to try to heal some of the wounds from that period. At that time, the Bhands had been banned from performing for over a decade, as their art was considered un-Islamic by the local militants. Gradually working with the Bhands, Raina decides to challenge them and himself by discussing one of the world's greatest theatrical texts, Shakespeare's King Lear.