Indian cinema’s appetite for longer theatrical experiences shows no signs of slowing down. Dhurandhar: The Revenge, the Ranveer Singh spy thriller directed by Aditya Dhar, is heading toward a runtime of nearly four hours, with reports putting it between 3 hours 40 minutes and 3 hours 55 minutes. Meanwhile, Toxic, Peddi, and The Paradise are all understood to be running past the three-hour mark, cementing what many in the industry are now calling the new normal for big-ticket Indian releases.
How Long Is Dhurandhar: The Revenge?
Dhurandhar: The Revenge is one of the longest mainstream Indian films of the 21st century, with its runtime tipped at anywhere between 3 hours 40 minutes and 3 hours 55 minutes. If confirmed at the upper end, it would approach the territory of J.P. Dutta’s LOC: Kargil (2003), which ran to 4 hours and 7 minutes and remains the longest mainstream Hindi theatrical release on record. Also Read: Dhurandhar 2 vs Toxic USA Premiere Sales
Director Aditya Dhar is known for his meticulous, layered approach to storytelling, as seen in the original Dhurandhar, and the sequel is reportedly bigger in every dimension: scale, action, and narrative ambition. The nearly four-hour cut signals that the makers are not trimming the film for the sake of multiplex convenience, a bold stance ahead of its March 19, 2026 release.
What Are the Runtimes of Toxic, Peddi, and The Paradise?
Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, Yash‘s drug cartel epic directed by Geetu Mohandas, has confirmed a runtime of 3 hours 15 minutes. The Goa-set gangster saga, which releases on the same date as Dhurandhar: The Revenge on March 19, is also playing in IMAX and Dolby formats, where the extended immersive runtime becomes part of the theatrical selling point.
Peddi, the Ram Charan sports action drama directed by Buchi Babu Sana, and The Paradise, featuring Nani under director Srikanth Odela, are both being shaped around similar three-hour-plus cuts as per early reports. Peddi is set for an April 30, 2026 release, while The Paradise has been pushed to August 21, 2026.
Why Are Indian Films Getting Longer?
The shift toward extended runtimes is tied to a fundamental change in what justifies a cinema ticket in the streaming era. With audiences having easy access to content at home, filmmakers and producers are increasingly betting on scale, spectacle, and emotional density as reasons to leave the house. A three-hour film that fully delivers on its promise feels like an event. A two-hour film that underwhelms is simply a missed evening.
Franchise films, in particular, benefit from the longer format. Dhurandhar: The Revenge carries the weight of plot threads from the first film and needs screen time to resolve them while building new ones. Similarly, films with ensemble casts, sprawling action geography, or multi-track narratives like Toxic and The Paradise find that trimming to a conventional runtime risks losing the very ambition that justifies their production scale.
Is the Three-Hour Film Here to Stay?
The box office data increasingly supports the format. Films like Animal, Kalki 2898 AD, and the original Dhurandhar all ran beyond conventional runtimes and performed strongly, demonstrating that audiences will stay seated when the content earns their time. The risk, as always, is that a long film which does not deliver loses those additional screenings per day that shorter films enjoy, a multiplier effect that can turn a promising opening into a painful second-week drop.
For now, the March and April 2026 slate suggests that the three-hour film is no longer an outlier. It is the baseline for Indian cinema’s most ambitious theatrical releases, with Dhurandhar: The Revenge simply taking that ambition to its logical extreme.