Alpha
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Shiv Rawail
Screenplay by	Soumil Shukla Shridhar Raghavan
Dialogues by	Ishita Moitra
Story by	Uday Chopra
Produced by	Aditya Chopra
Starring	Alia Bhatt Sharvari Anil Kapoor Bobby Deol
Cinematography	Rubais
Edited by	Aarif Sheikh
Music by	Songs: Rohansh and Abeer Pandit Score: Sanchit and Ankit Balhara
Production company	Yash Raj Films
Distributed by	Yash Raj Films
Release date	3 July 2026 (2026-07-03)
Running time	140 minutes[1]
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹100 crore[2]
Box office	₹57.20 crore[3]

Alpha is a 2026 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Shiv Rawail in his feature film debut, and produced by Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films. Based on a script written by Soumil Shukla, Shridhar Raghavan and Ishita Moitra and Uday Chopra. It is the seventh installment in the YRF Spy Universe. It stars Alia Bhatt, Sharvari, Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol in the lead roles.^[4]

The film follows a highly trained assassin raised in isolation as a super-soldier by a rogue commander. When she discovers the dark truth about her family and her stolen childhood, she teams up with her long lost sister to take down her creator and his illicit military program. Following a title announcement in July 2024, principal photography began in the same month, taking place in Mumbai, Kashmir, and Valladolid.^[5]

Alpha released theatrically on 3 July 2026, opening to mixed-to-negative reviews from both critics and audiences.^[6][7]

In 1999, in the aftermath of the Kargil War, Colonel Fateh Singh Lakhawat, with the support of Lieutenant Colonel Vikrant Kaul, spearheads a covert super-soldier program titled "Alpha". Three years later, after a series of successful tests, the program is approved by the army. Meanwhile, Vikrant's pregnant wife Janaki has been diagnosed with congenital heart disease. Desperate to save her, he secretly steals a vial of the Alpha serum, which contains a regenerative factor, and administers it, causing her health to improve by her third trimester. Learning that the long-term effects of the serum have proven to be fatal, Vikrant rushes to the hospital to check on Janaki, who died giving birth to their daughter. Fateh is demoted and stationed in Cherrapunji, while the Alpha program is ordered to be shut down. Determined to make the program a success, with the help of Dr. John Verghese, Fateh abducts Vikrant's infant daughter, who has the serum in her bloodstream, while tricking Vikrant into believing that she had died. He names her "Sita" in honour of her late mother and raises her as a test subject for the new Alpha program at a facility in Rajasthan.

24 years later, in 2026, Sita tracks down and kills every scientist and official behind the Alpha program and destroys Fateh's facility. This attracts the attention of R&AW, specifically Vikrant, who is now the chief of the agency following the death of his friend and predecessor, Colonel Sunil Luthra.^[a] He confronts Fateh and learns that his daughter is alive, and travels to Valladolid in Spain to meet his other daughter Durga, Sita's estranged fraternal twin sister, who is living a normal life. Sita tracks down Vikrant and comes across his safe house in Srinagar, where she has a brief altercation with Durga. After subduing Durga and Vikrant, Sita explains that she intended to seek him out--having learned the truth about Alpha from Verghese.

Vikrant's safe house is ambushed by Fateh's soldiers, and Sita and Durga escape into the woods and head to another safe house in Ladakh. Vikrant defends his home and manages to track down Fateh, but is captured. Fateh locates Sita and sends his forces to Ladakh, but they are quickly dispatched with the help of Kabir Dhaliwal. Durga is injured in the ensuing shootout, and Sita escapes with her while Kabir buys them time. Sita travels to Fateh's location alone and comes across Vikrant with a time-bomb strapped to his body. Fateh confronts the father-daughter duo and reveals a shocking truth: that he is actually Major Zarrar Khan, a Pakistani soldier sent by ISI in 1989 to infiltrate the Indian Army's ranks, develop the Alpha program, and bring the serum back to Pakistan. Zarrar leaves for Cherrapunji to develop the next iteration of the Alpha serum using Durga's DNA, whom he had captured before Sita arrived at his compound.

Sita and Vikrant escape and track down Zarrar to the Cherrapunji base, where she has a final confrontation with her former mentor. Durga escapes and fights off Zarrar's men with the help of Vikrant and the other soldiers stationed at the base, and Zarrar is eventually defeated, and Sita executes him by shooting him in the head. In the aftermath, Vikrant, having finally reunited with both of his daughters, offers them the choice to either live normal lives, or use their abilities to serve India by joining R&AW.

Yash Raj Films officially announced the project on 5 July 2024, positioning it as a flagship entry in their YRF Spy Universe.^[8] Shiv Rawail, known for the Netflix series The Railway Men, was recruited by producer Aditya Chopra to helm the film as director, marking Rawail's second collaboration with YRF.^[9] Chopra emphasized the film's role in expanding the universe with "homegrown talent and fresh narratives."^[10]

Alia Bhatt and Sharvari were cast as the lead in July 2023.^[11] Bobby Deol joined the film in March 2024 as the antagonist.^[12] Anil Kapoor was cast in July 2024 and will reprise his role from 2025 film War 2.^[13] Hrithik Roshan was confirmed to make an extended cameo appearance in August 2024, reprising his role as Kabir Dhaliwal.^[14] Dibyendu Bhattacharya joined the cast in March 2025.^[15] Dia Mirza made a crucial guest appearance.^[16]

Principal photography began on 5 July 2024,^[17] with filming taking place in Mumbai and Kashmir. The Kashmir schedule, filmed in Sonamarg and Pahalgam, concluded in September 2024 after delays due to adverse weather.^[18] A high-octane fight sequence between Sharvari and Bobby Deol was filmed in this schedule, described by Sharvari as "physically demanding but exhilarating".^[19] Hrithik Roshan joined the production in November 2024 for his cameo shoot in Mumbai.^[20] In August 2025, Alia Bhatt and Sharvari wrapped shooting.^[21] On 11 November 2025, filming was completed.^[22] Action director Craig Macrae and trainer Jessen Noviello prepared Alia Bhatt and Sharvari for their action sequences.^[23][24]

Alpha
Soundtrack album by Rohansh Pandit, Abeer Pandit, Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara
Released	3 July 2026
Recorded	2025–2026
Studio	YRF Studios, Mumbai
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	32:12
Language	Hindi
Label	YRF Music
Producer	Rohansh Pandit Abeer Pandit Aaishvary Thackeray Saurabh Lokhande Karan Kanchan Vaibhav Pani
External audio Official Audio Jukebox on YouTube

The soundtrack has been composed by Rohansh Pandit and Abeer Pandit, with lyrics written by Kumaar, Anvita Dutt, Kausar Munir, Rohansh and Abeer Pandit. The film score was composed by Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara.

The track “Jamaican (Bam Bam)” by Hugel and SOLTO was featured during action scenes.^[25][26]

Alia Bhatt and Sharvari teamed up to cheer for the Indian women's cricket team for the 2026 Women's T20 World Cup.^[27] They sent a viral message directly to the squad, calling them "Team India’s 15 Alphas".^[28] The film's teaser was released on 10 June 2026.^[29][30] The official trailer was released on 17 June 2026.^[31][32]

Alpha was theatrically released on 3 July 2026.^[33][34] It was initially slated to release on 25 December 2025, coinciding with Christmas.^[8] It was later postponed to 17 April 2026, due to extensive post-production work and ongoing reshoots.^[35] The release date again got deferred to its current release date, though 10 July was also considered, due to the Salman Khan-starrer Maatrubhumi: May War Rest in Peace taking its second release date and also to avoid a clash with Akshay Kumar-starrer Bhooth Bangla, though the former also in turn got postponed due to production delays.^[36]

The film received a UA 16+ certificate on 29 June 2026 by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC)^[37] with a total duration of 140 minutes.^[38][39]

On its opening day, the film earned ₹9.12 crore at the domestic box office.^[3]

Alpha grossed ₹57.55 crore (US$6.0 million) worldwide. It grossed ₹41.79 crore (US$4.4 million) in India and ₹15.76 crore (US$1.7 million) in overseas market.^[3]

Titas Chowdhury of News18 gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars, praising Alpha for shattering the glass ceiling in mainstream Bollywood's spy-action genre. She wrote, "There are high-budget combat sequences, elaborate choreography and gravity-defying stunts heavily laced with CGI. And yet, Alpha wins because it’s still rare to see women command action on this scale on the big screen".^[40] Vineeta Kumar of India Today gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, criticizing its emphasis on glamour and writing, "There are bikini shots, shorts and bralettes in freezing Kashmir, backless bodysuits during combat sequences - all presented as glamour rather than necessity. None of it adds anything to the story. The entire point of Alpha is to establish women as capable weapons within this spy universe, fighting for survival, family and country - not to impress the audience with perfectly curated glamour shots".^[41]

Rishabh Suri of Hindustan Times gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, concluding, "Alpha is neither the disaster naysayers had predicted nor the reinvention the spyverse needed after the disappointing War 2. It is a competently mounted but emotionally underwhelming film that delivers very few highs, largely courtesy of Hrithik Roshan, but never finds a compelling pulse of its own. Sometimes, that's more disappointing than watching an outright bad film".^[42] A critic from Bollywood Hungama also gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, stating, "On the whole, Alpha is mounted on a grand scale and boasts spectacular action sequences and fine performances by its lead actors. However, the film suffers considerably due to a weak script and lacklustre direction. After War 2, it is yet another underwhelming offering from the YRF Spy Universe. At the box office, the film will register a respectable opening, but its long-term prospects appear dim".^[43]

Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in criticized the film, writing, "Alpha is more product than experience, with sketchily drawn characters, a derivative plot and predictable beats. Sita's arc is the most important, and the most dubious".^[44] Rahul Desai of The Hollywood Reporter India observed, "You see the precise moment Alpha remembers it's in a post-Dhurandhar world. It suddenly goes against everything the Tiger films, Pathaan, and War stood for; the very DNA of the franchise is altered in real time. You see the fear of being trolled in its abrupt shift in tone. That sound you hear is of the final frontier being breached. Alpha becomes its own biggest traitor. The weird thing is that there's no conviction here; it's pretending to be someone else in a landscape that rewards inflated chests and cross-border bashing. It's a far cry from Raazi, which starred Bhatt as an undercover spy who became a cautionary tale of modern warfare".^[45]

Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 1.5 out of 5 stars, writing, "What prevents Alpha from being a slick, smart spy thriller — which is clearly the intention — is that old YRF weakness: the writing is borrowed and stale, reminding us of numerous films we have seen before. Amongst the few nice touches is a brief appearance by Dia Mirza, as the mother of the brave Alpha, who manages to leave a mark. There are also some well-executed action sequences, in which Alia and Sharvari go bang-bang".^[46]

• Alpha at IMDb
• Alpha at Bollywood Hungama