Sightlines · reception

How Dhurandhar was received

2025 · Aditya Dhar · Dhurandhar on Sightlines

The arc

It arrived in December 2025 under a cloud of 'can Ranveer Singh still open a film?' skepticism after his flop run — and answered by becoming the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2025, crossing the ₹1,000-crore mark worldwide. Barely a year old, it's already treated less as a movie than as the moment Bollywood's event-film mojo came back.

What’s debated

The fight is whether it's a bracing new-school spy epic or slick jingoism — YouTuber Dhruv Rathee called it 'dangerous propaganda' and director Aditya Dhar publicly fired back — with the 3.5-hour runtime and its violence as secondary fronts in the same war.

Its footprint

Akshaye Khanna's deadpan swagger-dance to the Bahraini track 'FA9LA' escaped the film entirely — memed, reeled, and re-enacted until a middle-aged character actor became 2025's unlikeliest viral star.

Where it stands

Too young for the canon but already a mass-cinema touchstone — the Hindi blockbuster every Letterboxd hot-take on 'new Bollywood maximalism' has to reckon with.

Did you know? Ranveer Singh's undercover-operative look sparked so much speculation that the film secretly told Major Mohit Sharma's story that the late officer's brother publicly sought answers — forcing Aditya Dhar to issue an official statement that Dhurandhar is not based on him.