BH Harsh of Cinema Express rated it 3/5 stars out of 5 and calls it "While the central premise itself is shaky, Anurag Kashyap puts his best foot forward to paint the picture of a broken man who gets further destroyed by the system".Read at source
Bandar 2025 
Synopsis
Bandar
Bandar (transl. Monkey), released internationally as Monkey in a Cage is a 2025 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film directed by Anurag Kashyap and produced by Nikhil Dwivedi under his banner Saffron Magicworks. The film written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee is inspired by a real-life event. The film stars Bobby Deol in the title role, alongside Sanya Malhotra, Sapna Pabbi, Saba Azad, Indrajith Sukumuran, Raj B. Shetty and Jitendra Joshi. It revolves around an aging television star who gets accused of rape by his ex-girlfriend.
- Director
- Anurag Kashyap
- Release
- 6 Sept 2025
- Studio
- Saffron Magicworks
- Run time
- 136 min
- Language
- Hindi, Marathi, English
Reviews
9 Indian-media reviews, grouped by reception.
Critics' consensus
Mixed
Critics' aggregate for Bandar is 63/100 from 9 scored critic/publication reviews.
Synthesized by AI (gpt-5-codex-omdb-enricher) from 9 source-backed reviews — verify against the linked sources.Common praise
- writing
Positive 9
Devesh Sharma of Filmfare gave 4 stars out of 5 and praise the film writing that "Bandar is messy, overstuffed and occasionally frustrating.Read at source
Mayur Sanap of Rediff.com gave 3 stars out of and noted that "The greatest pleasure of Bandar is watching Bobby Deol let go of his vanity and submit himself to Anurag Kashyap's unflinching filmmaking."Read at source
Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and writes that "This is not an easy film to watch.Read at source
Rishabh Suri of Hindustan Times gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and writes that "Overall, despite losing some momentum in the latter half, Bandar remains an engaging watch.Read at source
Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV rated it 2.5/5 stars and said that "The Bobby Deol film is a bit of a tangle that is hard to wrap one's head and heart around."Read at source
Sana Farzeen of India Today gave 2.5 stars out of 5 and writes that "Bandar lingers...Read at source
Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express awarded 3 stars out 5 and writes that "This is Anurag Kashyap’s strongest film in a while, its spare, scrappy style working in tandem with the story which chooses to show us a man who may not be as black as he’s painted out to be, but is not all white either."Read at source
Vinamra Mathur of Firstpost also gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and said that "once Bandar ends, one gets a sense this is a film that refuses to give easy answers.Read at source
Media & trailers
Verified video records attached to this title.
Details
Technical specs
- Release date
- 6 Sept 2025
- Run time
- 136 min
- Language
- Hindi, Marathi, English
- Country
- IN
- Director
- Anurag Kashyap
- Studio
- Saffron Magicworks
- Distributor
- Zee Studios
Trivia
- The film stars Bobby Deol in the title role alongside Sanya Malhotra, Sapna Pabbi, Saba Azad, Indrajith Sukumuran, Raj B. Shetty, and Jitendra Joshi.
- Principal photography of the film began on 14 May 2024 in Mumbai.
- The film premiered at the Special Presentations Program of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2025.
- The film was theatrically released on 5 June 2026 to positive reviews from critics.
- The film is inspired by a real-life event and is an adaptation of Anurag Kashyap’s unpublished story written with two other authors.
Tags
Hindi Cinema2026Hindi FilmReleasedHindi
