As Dhurandhar enters ₹1000 crore club, RGV lists how Aditya Dhar film is a ‘must learn lesson’ for pan-India filmmakers

Ram Gopal Varma had earlier praised the Ranveer Singh-starrer as a quantum leap for Indian cinema. The film has emerged as a blockbuster.

Dhurandhar has emerged as the #1 film of 2025. The spy action thriller surpassed expectations after its release on December 5 with understated promotions. It went on to enter the ₹1000 crore club within 21 days of its release. Now Ram Gopal Varma has penned a long note on what he has learnt from the Aditya Dhar film as a filmmaker.

‘Dhurandhar invents a never before seen elevation…’

Dhurandhar stars Ranveer Singh in the lead role, playing a spy named Hamza in the film.

Taking to his X account, Ram Gopal Varma wrote, “A directors growth not only from what he learnt from previous directors who came before him , but also from directors who came after him ..In that context here are my new learnings from Aditya Dhar’s DURANDHAR. From Coppola I learnt intense closeted drama , which I tried to emulate in Satya, Company, Sarkar etc. But now Dhurandhar shows that approach can work far more effectively with scale.”

He went on to add, "I was one of the first mainstream Indian directors to refuse elevation of heroes . Bhiku Mhatre was terrific inspite of not being celebrated and Amitabh Bachchan worked in Sarkar without a single slow motion shot. But Dhurandhar invents a never before seen or experienced new kind of elevation in creating flawed but consequence driven heroes."

Lesson for pan-India filmmakers

He went on to add more on the film, and then concluded by saying, "I always believed that scale should be shown internally and not as a bloated display , but Dhurandhar proves that scale can coexist with restraint in order to create a symphony of previously unfelt emotions. My final learning is that i don’t need to grow by myself , but i need to catch up with what others have become."

Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar tells the story of an Indian spy sent to Pakistan’s Lyari to infiltrate a Baloch gang. Ranveer Singh plays the spy, Hamza Ali Mazari, alias Jaskirat Singh Rangi, in the film, while Akshaye Khanna plays Rehman Dakait, leader of the gang. Sanjay Dutt, R Madhavan, Arjun Rampal, Sara Arjun and Rakesh Bedi also star in it. The film’s sequel, Dhurandhar 2, is slated for release on March 19, 2026.