There is a particular kind of electricity that only a packed cinema hall in India can generate - the whistles that greet a hero's slow-motion entry, the applause that rolls like thunder followed by the collective hush before a twist lands.
For a while, that electricity seemed to be fading. Streaming thinned crowds and big budget films faltered. Even big releases opened to less than passionate responses.
And then, in December, came Dhurandhar.
By the end of 2025, the spy thriller hadn't just topped the box office - it had blown it open, grossing about $155m (£116.34m) worldwide and ranking among Hindi-language cinema's biggest hits.
The surge spilled into theatres: in February, India's largest multiplex operator PVR Inox reported footfalls rose nearly 9% year-on-year in the quarter to December, powered by Dhurandhar, whose record run helped lift the chain's overall box-office collections 13% last year.
That mood has only intensified with the release of its sequel, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, which opened last week to blistering demand.
More than 1.5 million tickets were snapped up in advance across five languages - early proof of a frenzy few films command.
At nearly four hours, the sequel is bigger, louder and more indulgent than the original. Audiences are crowding the theatres. Cineplexes across India are packing in up to three dozen near round-the-clock shows daily, running from early mornings to late nights.
The sequel is creating history. It is shattering all previous records and redefining the box office. A true game changer, says Taran Adarsh, a film trade analyst.
The original three-hour-34-minute Dhurandhar delivered a high-octane mix of espionage, gang wars and patriotic fervour. Anchored by actor Ranveer Singh's swaggering spy on a perilous Karachi mission, director Aditya Dhar's film paired slick action with India-Pakistan tensions - earning praise for its pace while fuelling a debate over its politics.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge picks up from that cliffhanger, deepening a long-running Indian intelligence operation inside Karachi's criminal and political underworld.
Shot back-to-back with the first film and released just three months later, the near four-hour-long sequel sees Singh joined by R Madhavan, Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt and Sara Arjun.
A slickly engineered spectacle, the sequel - much like the first film - marries propulsive action and raw violence with a thundering, mood-shifting score. It draws admiration for the scale, craft and ambition, even as the film's politics and ideological tone unsettle some viewers.
The film also loosely draws on real South Asian flashpoints - from Pakistan's 'Operation Lyari' to India's demonetisation - blending geopolitics into its storyline.
Early reactions have been exuberant.
Viewers emerging from theatres call it paisa vasool - a punchy Hindi phrase for you got your money's worth. The runtime, far from deterring audiences, appears to have become part of the experience.
Prominent actors have only fuelled the hype. Allu Arjun hailed its patriotism with swag, Preity Zinta called it mind-blowing, and veteran Anupam Kher described it as outstanding - a film that makes you feel deeply proud of your country.
Critics have taken a more layered view of the film, acknowledging its craft while questioning its intent. One reviewer argues the film leans harder into volume and venom, sacrificing narrative depth for chest-thumping spectacle. He adds that its fixation on muscular nationalism and enemy-making ends up simplifying complex geopolitics into black-and-white jingoism.
Another reviewer says the film brims with more rage than it knows what to do with. Yet another says that while the first film had its propaganda intent wrapped in pacy racy storytelling with terrific musical flourishes, the sequel is simply not as enjoyable.
On Reddit, the mood around the sequel is similarly mixed - part admiration, part scepticism, and a fair amount of fatigue with the hype around the film. Users urge each other to moderate expectations, warning that packed theatres and viral buzz may be inflating the experience.
Where the conversation turns sharper is on politics. Several users argue the sequel is far less subtle than its predecessor, with one bluntly calling the messaging blatant propaganda. Another says the film is so brazenly political that leaves no middle ground - you'll either love it or feel disgust.
A sequence invoking India's 2016 demonetisation - a controversial withdrawal of high value banknotes - has drawn criticism.
Some viewers see it as a thinly veiled endorsement of the policy - hailed in the film as a crippling masterstroke to weed out fake currency from Pakistan. (The government's own Economic Survey later acknowledging the move had an adverse impact and slowed growth.)
Yet, even some sceptics tip their hat to the spectacle: Singh draws widespread praise, while Shashwat Sachdev's score is admired - one critic likening his fragment-driven style to a hip-hop producer rather than a traditional Bollywood composer.
Taken together, the frenzy around Dhurandhar - from street chatter to social media - shows the film is spilling beyond blockbuster status into a cultural flashpoint where entertainment, politics and public mood collide.
That reach extends into more rarefied spaces too. Writing in The Times of India newspaper in January, former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao offered a note of caution about the first film's broader impact.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Dhurandhar is not what it says about Pakistan, but what it suggests about India's own democratic reflexes. The hostility directed at critics - accusations of disloyalty, campaigns of harassment - indicates a shrinking tolerance for dissent in matters framed as national security, wrote Rao.
Wars are not started by films. But wars are easier to justify when societies have already learned to cheer them in the dark.
Yet the film's reach has stretched well beyond op-ed pages - and into some unexpected places.
It made an unlikely cameo on a London morning jog. Finland's President Alexander Stubb sparked chatter online after casually name-checking Dhurandhar while running through Hyde Park with Canadian PM Mark Carney.
In a video shared on X last week, mid-run with their wives, Carney asked about Stubb's sudden popularity in India. There was huge chatter when I said I had watched Dhurandhar, Stubb said.
In February French President Emmanuel Macron capped his India visit with a video on X set to the title track of Dhurandhar.
Adarsh says the frenzy over the film reminds him of the 1975 Bollywood hit Sholay. The iconic star-studded film ran for five uninterrupted years at a single theatre in Mumbai, broke all box office records and became a cultural phenomenon - and still echoes across India, its lines quoted at weddings, in political speeches and even in adverts.
In many ways, says Taran Adarsh, the Dhurandhar films signal the return of the big-screen Bollywood blockbuster - a form that had receded in the age of streaming.
Dhurandhar signals audiences returning to cinemas after a slump. People are buying tickets again, housefull boards are back, he says.
It is the resurrection of the big Bollywood hit. It's reshaping the business.
