Bawaal

Ajay Dixit is a high school history teacher in Lucknow who has built a false reputation for himself around town, and he enjoys the small measure of celebrity it brings him. His marriage to Nisha is tense from early on, and when circumstances lead the couple to travel together across Europe to places connected to the Second World War, their relationship is tested as much as his carefully constructed image. Along the way the trip forces Ajay to confront both the historical lessons he teaches and the personal conflict he has been avoiding.

Nitesh Tiwari directed and co-wrote the film, which arrived in 2023 as his fourth feature, after Chillar Party, Dangal and Chhichhore. Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor play Ajay and Nisha, with Manoj Pahwa, Anjuman Saxena, Prateek Pachori and Varun Tamta among the supporting cast. Made on a budget of about 6 million dollars, it runs close to two and a half hours.

Reception was moderate on the whole. On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.6 from roughly 18,000 votes, and on TMDB it also sits at 6.6, though from a much smaller base of around 39 ratings. The two audience scores are nearly identical, pointing to a film that drew a mild, fairly consistent response rather than sharply divided opinion.