Bollywood

Drishyam: The Conclusion: Box Office, Story, Reviews and When It Streams

By Siya Mehra, Entertainment Writer·October 5, 2026·7 min read

The Drishyam films have always been about one question: can Vijay Salgaonkar keep his family's secret one more time? Drishyam: The Conclusion promises the last answer, and audiences turned up for it. The film opened on 2 October, Gandhi Jayanti, and took Rs 272.8 crore worldwide in three days, the biggest opening weekend of Ajay Devgn's career.

It also breaks the franchise's habit. Both earlier Hindi films were remakes of Mohanlal's Malayalam originals, but this one was written from scratch, five months after the Malayalam Drishyam 3 came out with a completely different story.

Drishyam: The Conclusion cast

Ishita Dutta and Mrunal Jadhav return as the Salgaonkar daughters, Anju and Anu, and Rajat Kapoor is back as Meera's husband, Mahesh. The big new addition alongside Ahlawat is Prakash Raj as public prosecutor Indrajith Shetty.

The story so far: Drishyam and Drishyam 2

Spoilers for the first two films. In Drishyam (2015), Vijay, a cable operator in Goa who learned everything he knows from watching movies, covers up the death of Sameer, the son of Inspector General Meera Deshmukh, after his family is involved in the boy's death. He builds an alibi so complete that the police can never break it, and buries Sameer's body where no one would think to look.

Drishyam 2 (2022) picks the case up years later, when new evidence brings the police back to the Salgaonkars. Vijay stays a step ahead again, and the film ends with the suggestion that the remains the police finally recovered weren't Sameer's at all. That's exactly where The Conclusion picks up. The soundtrack even includes a recap song, "Daastaan – The Drishyam Recap", sung by Sunidhi Chauhan, for anyone who needs reminding.

What happens in The Conclusion (no spoilers)

Six months on, the case against the Salgaonkar family has been closed for lack of evidence. Meera refuses to let it go. She pushes the case back open, and the family find themselves under surveillance again, this time by SP Rajveer Singh Tomar of the Crime Branch, played by Jaideep Ahlawat. The question at the centre is the one Drishyam 2 left hanging: did Vijay swap Sameer's remains? The battle of wits between Vijay and Tomar is the heart of the film, and most reviews single out their first-half face-off as its best stretch.

Drishyam: The Conclusion | Official Trailer | Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Jaideep Ahlawat

Is it a remake of the Malayalam Drishyam 3?

No, and that's the biggest change in the franchise. Drishyam (2015) and Drishyam 2 (2022) were Hindi remakes of Jeethu Joseph's Malayalam films starring Mohanlal. For the third film, the two versions split. Jeethu Joseph's Malayalam Drishyam 3 came out first, in May 2026, and the Hindi team confirmed theirs would tell a different story. The Conclusion is credited as an original story by director Abhishek Pathak and is not connected to the Malayalam plot.

So if you've already seen Mohanlal's Drishyam 3, you won't know what happens here. Some critics compared the two directly, and not always in the Hindi film's favour: Rediff's Sukanya Verma felt the Hindi version lacks the character evolution of the Malayalam one.

Drishyam: The Conclusion box office collection

Worldwide, it took about Rs 95 crore on its first day alone, including Rs 15 crore overseas, the biggest global opening day of Devgn's career. Its opening weekend beat his previous best, set by Singham Again, and Sunday's jump back up after a smaller Saturday is a good sign: it points to word of mouth rather than a fan rush. By 5 October it had reached about Rs 282 crore worldwide, already the fifth-highest-grossing Hindi film of 2026.

Monday brought the expected drop, to about Rs 13.8 crore, once the long Gandhi Jayanti weekend was over. The second weekend will show how strong word of mouth really is. The makers haven't disclosed the budget; unconfirmed trade estimates put it at around Rs 100 to 110 crore, which the film had already more than doubled worldwide in four days. Whatever the final figure, it's a clear hit.

Drishyam: The Conclusion reviews

The reviews are positive but more measured than the box office. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh called it "the best film in the Drishyam franchise" (4.5/5), and The Week's Sajin Shrijith praised it for choosing "a unique narrative rather than mimicking its predecessors" (4/5). Most mainstream critics landed around 3 out of 5. The Times of India (3.5/5) found it immersive but felt it drags towards the end, and NDTV's Saibal Chatterjee (3/5) called the ending "flummoxing".

Two complaints come up again and again: the 150-minute runtime, eight minutes longer than Drishyam 2, and a sense that the cat-and-mouse game has lost some of its novelty. Variety India's Bryan Durham put it plainly: it "is not as entertaining as it once was". What almost everyone agrees on is Ahlawat. He gives Vijay the sharpest opponent the series has had, and their scenes together are the reason to see it.

Songs

Songs are by Ravi Basrur, Rochak Kohli and Karma, with the background score by Amar Mohile. The recap track is the unusual one: a song that summarises the first two films, so audiences who skipped them can catch up before the story starts.

Drishyam: The Conclusion ending explained

Our verdict

Choosing an original story was the smartest decision behind this film. A third remake would have meant asking audiences to pay to see a plot many of them had already watched in Malayalam in May. Instead, the Hindi franchise finally had a story of its own to tell, and the box office suggests audiences noticed.

What the reviews describe is a film that's strongest when it's simplest: two clever men circling each other. Ahlawat's Tomar gives the series the opponent it needed, and Tabu still carries the franchise's emotional weight. The longer it runs, the more it leans on contrivance, and by the final reveal the trick matters more than the people. As a send-off it does its job, if not as cleanly as the first film.

Where to watch Drishyam: The Conclusion

The film is in cinemas now in India and in international markets, with Panorama Studios and Zee Studios handling the overseas release. The digital rights have been bought by Netflix, but no streaming date has been announced, and Netflix hasn't said yet which countries it will stream in. One regional note: Indian films haven't had cinema releases in Pakistan since 2019, so viewers there will have to wait for the Netflix release. We'll update this page when a date is confirmed. Avoid sites offering it early; they're pirated copies and a common source of malware.

Quick answers

Spotted something out of date? Send a correction.