Kimi Katkar made her acting debut in the 1985 film, Patthar Dil as a supporting actress. Later that year, she starred in Tarzan (the English title of the movie being, "Adventures of Tarzan), where she played the lead actress opposite Hemant Birje. Film did well at the box office, it was one of Katkar's most famous role. After the film, she continued to work throughout the late 1980s. Followed by hits like vardi, mard ki zubaan, mera lahoo,dariya dil, gair kanooni, jaisi karni vaisi bharni, sherdil, zulm ki hukumat & hum.

Her claim-to-fame came in the movie, Hum (1991), where she played the lead actress opposite the phenomenal legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan. In the film, she was cast as Jumma. The song "Jumma Chumma De" from this movie, sung by playback singers Sudesh Bhosale and Kavita Krishnamurthy—Subramaniam, became an instant hit and brought her stardom. Thereafter, she started restricting herself to limited number of movies. A few more films later, she confined herself to being the conventional dancer, doing purely the song-and-dance routines in films that starred Govinda.

Her last film was Humlaa (1992).During the same time she also refused film offers of Yash Chopra's Parampara and Rakesh Roshan's King Uncle,its believed that Roshan wanted to cast her oppocite Amitabh Bachan in King Uncle,later Jacie replaced Amitabh and Anu was signed for the role which was offered to Kimi. In Parampara Ramya replaced her. After filming Humlaa, Katkar quit the Hindi film industry after her marriage to ace photographer and ad-filmmaker Shantanu Shorey. She is settled down in Melbourne, Australia. Before leaving, she went onto make allegations that she would never return to the studios again because of the sheer ennui, alienation, exhaustion and 'exploitation' and justifiably, she mentioned that the thought of being lesser valued than male actors in a patriarchal country always rankled within her. She is also associated with the book, "Shantaram" and is likely to appear playing herself as the colourful Bollywood actress in the Johnny Depp—Amitabh Bachchan starrer, "Shantaram" to be directed by Mira Nair.

Katkar married a commercial photographer and advertising film producer, Shantanu Sheorey. She was popularly noted to be the ex-girlfriend of Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt.