Film

Raman Raghav 2.0

A corrupt cop and a serial killer locked in a deadly game, each convinced he's the real predator. Anurag Kashyap's crime thriller moves with electrifying brutality, powered by Siddiqui and Kaushal's volatile chemistry. It's visceral and morally compromised—for viewers ready for a film that despises its characters but makes that despising absolutely mesmerizing.

TMDb rating3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy a dark cat-and-mouse thriller where the menace comes from a cold, unpredictable killer and a compromised cop, and where the tension builds through psychological sparring rather than explosions.

Skip it if you want a clear moral centre to root for; nearly everyone here is ugly in some way, and the bleakness can feel relentless across its two-hour runtime.

What it asks of you: It runs about two hours and fourteen minutes and rewards steady attention, moving through long stretches of unease before its violence arrives in sharp, sudden bursts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 12012

Anurag Kashyap's epic of criminal dynasties and generational vendetta. Same director, same mastery of violence as language, but with a sprawling cast and structure that explodes across decades.

But Nearly six hours across two films; the scope can feel unwieldy, and the gender politics are genuinely troubling.

Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 1 poster

Article 152019

Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a police procedural examining caste violence and systemic corruption. Tighter and more focused than Raman Raghav but with the same unflinching gaze at the machinery of Indian justice.

But The subject matter—crimes against Dalit women—is unbearably heavy. There are no light moments to catch your breath.

Article 15 poster

Ugly2013

Anurag Kashyap again, this time exploring how ordinary people become monstrous through jealousy and class resentment. Contaminated moral landscapes, unreliable narrators, visceral interrogation scenes.

But Deliberately ugly in every sense—of image, character, intention. If you came for entertainment, you won't find it; if you came for truth, it's relentlessly bleak.

Ugly poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Raman Raghav 2.0

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Eega2012

Both films are obsessed with predator and prey, power and powerlessness. Both use the medium itself to make violence feel alive in the body—but Eega does it with surrealism where Raman Raghav uses realism.

An Indian-language revenge thriller where the protagonist is reincarnated as a fly. A visceral, kinetic masterpiece of sound design and editing—Raman Raghav's operatic violence expressed through a completely different lens and register.

But The premise sounds absurd on paper, and the tone ping-pongs between tragedy and dark comedy. You either surrender to it or resent it.

Eega poster
More like this (7)

Sacred Games2018

Netflix's hymn to Mumbai corruption, starring Nawazuddin again as a kingpin who names a cop as his only possible saviour. Confidently paced across two seasons, gorgeously shot, genuinely epic in reach.

But The final season crashes hard; even the first two sag occasionally under their own ambition and sometimes lean on mysticism instead of logic.

Sacred Games poster

A Prophet2009

A French-language masterpiece about a teenager's rise through prison hierarchy. The moral education of a protagonist we'd normally dismiss—how he learns to manipulate, survive, and become dangerous.

But Subtitled, and confined almost entirely to a prison setting. The claustrophobia is the point, which some will find tedious.

A Prophet poster

Khosla Ka Ghosla!2006

A darker comedy about middle-class fraud and con games. Indian, fun, but with a real bite about how people rationalize dishonesty when they feel cheated by the system.

But Tonal shifts can feel jarring; the film wants to be both comedy and revenge drama, and doesn't always balance it.

Khosla Ka Ghosla! poster

KILL2024

A recent Indian action thriller that finds genuine suspense in a train setting. Lean, brutal, handsomely shot, with zero mercy toward any character.

But Minimal plot, minimal character development. If you're watching for story architecture rather than pure kinetic momentum, it won't deliver.

KILL poster

Bobby Jasoos2014

Vidya Balan as a Muslim woman determined to become a detective, charming and clever. A palate cleanser if you need one, but with real observations about class, gender, and aspiration.

But Tonal whiplash after Raman Raghav—it's fundamentally optimistic, and some will find that jarring rather than refreshing.

Bobby Jasoos poster

Memories of Murder2003

Both films ask whether hunting a monster makes you a monster. Both use the investigation as a descent into moral quicksand, with the cop discovering he's not the moral authority he assumed.

Bong Joon-ho's Korean masterpiece: a serial killer hunt across the 1980s that corrodes the investigators themselves. The same cat-and-mouse obsession, the same revelation that the hunter and hunted aren't as different as they think.

But In Korean with subtitles; the pacing is deliberate, sometimes maddening. The ending will frustrate those wanting closure.

Memories of Murder poster

Four Rooms1995

Both films compress morality into a small space—a hotel room, a cat-and-mouse game—and use that compression to show how easily character dissolves. Where Raman Raghav is operatic fury, this is cartoon cruelty, but the observation is the same.

A Tarantino-co-directed chamber piece where four separate crimes unfold in a hotel room on New Year's Eve. A wildly different era and tone—comedic, theatrical, formally experimental—but the same obsession with how ordinary men become criminals for money and pride.

But Tarantino-lite irks some viewers; it's stylish and clever without much substance. Also very '90s in a way that reads as dated.

Four Rooms poster

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Recommended by

NH10, Badlapur, Neram, Bareilly Ki Barfi, Dil Se.., Mirchi, Vada Chennai, Thegidi, Anjathe, Bhaiyya Ji, Billa II, Kill Dil, Munnariyippu, Pithamagan