Anurag Kashyap is Back in the Heartland with a Hard-boiled Crime Two-part about an Impudent Novice. Based on a script by Ranjan Chandel and Omjit Sahu, and co-written by Anurag Kashyap, Nishaanchi is a 2025 Indian Hindi-language crime drama film directed by Anurag Kashyap, produced by Ajay Rai and Ranjan Singh under JAR Pictures, and in association with Flip Films. It is the part one of a two-part duology that is supported by Amazon MGM Studios.
The film is Kashyap’s most personal and ambitious effort in many years, standing in sharp contrast to the unpolished, disordered streets of Kanpur: the film is an ode to the masala tradition of storytelling, which he was raised idolizing, forever reinterpreted to suit a modern day viewer.
Nishaanchi Plot Summary
The story opens in 2006 Kanpur. Babloo, or Tony Montana, his twin brother Dabloo, and the girlfriend of Babloo go to rob a bank all together. Tony gets caught as Dabloo and Rinku escape. Tony is later sentenced to seven years in prison where he declines relentlessly to give away the name of his brother despite the incessant demands of the law. The probing officer, Kamal Ajeeb, is using all the possibilities in order to get the name of the accomplice out of Tony but Tony remains quiet to save Dabloo.
At home, their mother Manjari is crushed when Tony gets arrested. Dabloo, who actually is in love with Rinku, starts courting her when Tony is away. Meanwhile, there exists a strong and revengeful character called Ambika Prasad who is bent on annihilating the lives of Tony, Dabloo, Rinku and Manjari with an extremely personal past enmity. It ends up being a story of two brother twins between crime and conscience, love, betrayal and fate to determine the power of an unbending bond.
| Director | Anurag Kashyap |
| Written By | Anurag Kashyap, Ranjan Chandel, Omjit Sahu |
| Lead Cast | Aaishvary Thackeray (Double Role), Vedika Pinto, Monika Panwar |
| Genre | Crime Drama / Masala Action |
| Release Date | September 19, 2025 |
| Runtime | 177 minutes (2h 57m) |
| Production | Amazon MGM Studios, JAR Pictures, Flip Films |
| Cinematography | Sylvester Fonseca |
| Music | Anurag Saikia, Manan Bhardwaj, Dhruv Ghanekar, Aaishvary Thackeray |
| Sequel | Nishaanchi Part 2 (Released November 14, 2025) |
Nishaanchi Cast
| Actor | Role | Category |
| Aaishvary Thackeray | Babloo (Nishaanchi) / Dabloo Singh | Main Cast (Lead) |
| Vedika Pinto | Rangeeli Rinku | Main Cast |
| Monika Panwar | Manjari (Babloo & Dabloo’s Mother) | Main Cast |
| Kumud Mishra | Ambika Prasad | Main Cast (Antagonist) |
| Vineet Kumar Singh | Zabardast Pehelwaan | Main Cast |
| Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub | Inspector Kamal Ajeeb | Supporting Cast |
| Rajesh Kumar | Bhola Pehalwan | Supporting Cast |
| Durgesh Kumar | Bank Security Guard | Supporting Cast |
| Jameel Khan | Brilliance Band Member | Supporting Cast |
| Erika Jason | Anjana | Supporting Cast |
| Nitpreet Gorkhyal | Young Babloo | Supporting Cast |
| Supreet Gorkhyal | Young Dabloo | Supporting Cast |
| Girish Sharma | Young Ambika Prasad | Supporting Cast |
| Shubham Tiwari | Hawa Hawai | Supporting Cast |
| Raghav Juyal | — | Supporting Cast |
Aaishvary Thackeray is a dual lead actor in his first movie as Babloo Nishaanchi and Dabloo Wafadaar Singh. Vedika Pinto plays the role of Rangeeli Rinku who is the love interest of Babloo. Manjari is the mother of the twins, played by Monika Panwar in the role, which is written to be in her twenties, her fifties, throughout the course of the film. Kumud Mishra stars as the main antagonist, the role of Ambika Prasad, and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub stars as the morally questionable cop Kamal Ajeeb.
Gaurav Singh plays the lead role of Pankaj, and the key supporting roles are played by Vineet Kumar Singh, Rajesh Kumar and Girish Sharma. The supporting cast is long with Ghanshyam Garg playing the role of Bank Manager, Abhishek Sharma as Banarasi Poori Wala, Durgesh Kumar as Bank Security Guard, Devendra Charankar as Swadesh Babu, and Mukesh Bhatt as Brilliance Band Emcee. Lijo Jose Pellissery, a Malayalam filmmaker also plays a special role in the film.
The crew members are Sylvester Fonseca as cinematographer, Aarti Bajaj as editor, screenplay writers Prasoon Mishra and Ranjan Chandel and executive producer Samir Khurana.
Nishaanchi Release Date
Theatrically released on 19 September 2025, with the U/A certification and the running time of 179 minutes, Nishaanchi was theatrically released. It was teased on 8 August 2025, and its official trailer on 3 September 2025. After casting and pre-production delays, shooting started in early 2024 and went on until that July, shot in Lucknow and Kanpur. The production took a total of 69 days and Kashyap reckoned it to be his most elaborate shoot till then. The movie has since been released on the Amazon Prime video streaming service on 14 November 2025, with both parts of the duology debuting as one streaming double feature.
Music Album
The Nishaanchi soundtrack contains 15 songs with the composition of Manan Bhardwaj, Anurag Saikia, and Dhruv Ghanekar and the overall time of the album is 50 minutes. Shashwat Dwivedi, Varun Grover, Dr. Sagar, Pyarelal Yadav, Renu Chhibber and Manan Bhardwaj contributed the lyrics. It was also the maiden composition and songwriting of Aaishvary Thackeray in the album in a significant creative first. It came out on the label of Zee Music Company on 5 September 2025. Among the highlights of the movie are Pigeon Kabootar and Neend Bhi Teri, both of which received highly favorable reviews because of their contribution to major dramatic scenes in the movie.
Nishaanchi Budget
Included in the marketing and other expenses, the estimated budget of Nishaanchi was around Rs25 crore. The release of the film was in 500 plus screens in India. The Amazon MGM Studios OTT acquisition deal also helped to offset a part of financial exposure as it was arranged before the theatrical release.
Nishaanchi Box Office Collection
Nishaanchi did not succeed miserably in the box office, even though the amount of ambition behind it was very big. The movie on its release day opened with only Rs 0.25 crore net which is the 40 th highest Hindi net opening film of 2025. it had received in two days Rs0.8 crore in 1,520 shows, and 35,304 footfalls. The last theatrical bunch ended at about Rs1.31 crore – a terrible outcome compared to its Rs25 crore money. Nishaanchi itself is considered a box-office bomb and the failure of performance prompted Amazon MGM Studios to release Part 2 on streaming instead of theatrically.
Nishaanchi Reviews And Ratings
The movie was met with mixed-positive criticism, with the individual performances getting unanimous applause in areas where the screenplay was criticized. It was rated 3 out of 5 by Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV who liked its crude action, rustic humour, and twisted feelings. Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express rated the film 2.5 out of 5, as she could not discover the best moments in the film. Hindusthan Times, in a review by Rishabh Suri, gave it 3 out of 5, saying that it is Kashyap going back to his old stomping ground in a new cast and his trademark grit.
The more liberal Devesh Sharma of Filmfare rated it at 3.5/5 as pure Salim-Javed drama and singled out the commendable performance of Aaishvary Thackeray, who played two roles in this film. Subhash K. Jha of News24 awarded 4 out of 5 saying that the movie was a jubilant blend of viciousness and delicacy. News18 reporter Titas Chowdhury also rated it 4/5 describing it as being wildly chaotic yet purposeful.
Bollywood Hungama had rated it 3/5 and said that it was a gritty engaging ride that reinstated the ability of Kashyap in blending crime, drama, and dark humour. On the film review site, IMDb, the movie has received a user rating of 6.7/10, with one side of the camp being so passionate about it and the other praising the almost 3-hour duration of the film as its greatest weakness.
