'Ramayana' Movie Public Response: Ram Gopal Varma Praises for Scale and Yash’s Ravana

Poster of Ramayana Part 1 featuring Yash as Ravana and Ranbir Kapoor as Ram

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has strongly praised the Hindi film “Ramayana: Part 1” after watching it for the second time. In a long post on X on November 11, 2026, Varma said the film’s scale and ambition carry its soul, and he highlighted Yash’s performance as Ravana as one of the strongest he has seen in years.

“Ramayana: Part 1” was released worldwide on November 5, 2026. Directed by Nitesh Tiwari and produced by Namit Malhotra, the film stars Ranbir Kapoor as Ram, Yash as Ravana, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Sunny Deol as Hanuman.

It runs for about 195 minutes and was made with heavy use of visual effects by DNEG. Music is by Hans Zimmer and A.R. Rahman. The second part is planned for Diwali 2027.

Varma wrote that he watched the film as a regular viewer, not as a devotee. He pointed out several things that stood out to him:

The opening cosmic battle and the way Ravana’s ten heads appear.
The forests that feel alive and the climactic Jatayu sequence.
Yash’s portrayal of Ravana as a powerful man shaped by penance, intelligence, and ambition rather than a simple villain.
Ranbir Kapoor’s quiet and controlled performance as Ram, which acts as the counterweight to Ravana.
The music by Hans Zimmer and A.R. Rahman supports the story instead of overpowering it.

He said the film’s length is needed to properly build Ravana’s power and Ram’s exile. He also felt that some negative reviews missed the point by focusing on length or constant emotion when the film’s strength lies in its scale and restraint.

Watched #Ramayana for the 2nd time and incidentally I am an atheist and so this analysis is from a film watcher and not as a ram bhakt
While other reviews grudgingly note its scale and then hedge with “but the soul is missing” or “music could be better ,” etc , what they are missing is that the soul is in the scale and the emotion is in the humongous ambition of all the wonderfully talented people behind the making of this film
@NiteshTiwari22 and @NamitMalhotra have achieved what no one in Indian cinema never even dreamt of.. They have taken the devotional Juice from a well known epic and placed it on a canvas that made me as a viewer feel , the greatest Hollywood films as stage plays.
The opening cosmic battle, Ravana’s ten heads materialising not as a gimmick but as a living expression of knowledge and internal conflicts, the forests that feel more creature like themselves than the creatures they host , and standing high above all the breath stopping climactic Jatayu sequence … these are not mere Vfx effects. They are actually galactic events of the future brightness of Indian cinematic cosmos
This is Namit Malhotra’s slap on the faces and a kick in the crotches of Bollywoodians to wake them up from their lazy slumberness to show them what all is possible it there’s a will
@TheNameisYash ‘s Ravana is not a performance of the year, but it is of many decades .. I say that because I simply can’t remember anything I ever saw with his kind of a electrifying effect ever since I started watching cinema
He does not play a villain. He plays a man who has earned his power through penance, intelligence, and a refusal to bow .. The backstory the trauma, the devotion to Shiva, the ambition that becomes a prison , brilliantly written by #SridharRaghavan has been enacted with a combination of both a crystal clear clarity along with a monstrous force of reaching far beyond an objective destination so colourfully displayed with magnetic precision when he intrinsically ponders with his ten heads before taking the decision of kidnapping Sita ..
Every review that calls him the show stealer is correct, but what they missed is the larger picture that his portrayal made Ravana look like the gravitational centre of Rama
In short there’s no Rama without Ravana
Ranbir Kapoor’s Ram is the necessary counterweight against the worldly evils which anyway was the whole point of his godly status
Critics who wanted constant emoting from Ranbir saying he’s got same expression throughout are flmissing the point that Ram is defined by what he withholds and not by what he expresses
His quiet acceptance of the exile, his controlled violence in the forest sequences, his stillness that so wonderfully contained an absolute certainty is the hardest thing to play for an actor because when he finally acts , it’s not his arrows alone which find their mark , but more than that its his principles which pierce
What I loved about @HansZimmer and @arrahman is that they did not compete with the imagery but they rather flowed with it. The score does not try to reinvent devotion. It just amplifies the existing mass of the specific emotion and more importantly pin points the choices of its characters .. Songs that feel “functional” to some critics are doing the correct job because they do not interrupt the momentum of a three hour epic that is slowly building towards a confrontation
The Tandav energy and the aerial combat cues strike hard with a never before seen or experienced force.
In a film this large, restraint in the music is not a lay back , but It is a volatile high energy concoction of discipline and strategy
In my not so humble opinion what the negative reviews state as problems are actually the film’s real strengths.
The so called length is very necessary because one cannot establish Ravana’s scale and then compress Ram’s exile into just a highlight reel without losing the predicament of an impending inevitability .
I love Tiwari because he refuses to cheapen the moral stakes and turn the story into a masala action drama and the result of that conviction of his is a film that can be watched by families , youngsters , Gen Z etc etc and still hit the front benchers of the small and tiny towns .
This is the first ever Indian film that can stand above each and every large scale international production with its head held high and with an immense pride .
That’s because it does not borrow the language of the Lord of the Rings or Avatar . Instead it takes inspirations to dig into its own rich Indian backyard with the greatest ever stories which have been waiting to be excavated
Reviews might have given 2,3,5 whatever starts but I feel It’s an insult to india and it’s cinema to review this film
The negative reviewers are looking at a mountain and complaining that the path is steep and uneven but that’s because they are too small in comparison to the garangutan architects who built this mountainous Taj Mahal of cinema
Ramayana: Part 1 is the opening statement of a new standard for Indian cinema and whatever film will be made after November 5 th will now be measured against it , and the only thing which will destroy Ramayana part 1 will be Ramayana part 2 🙏🙏🙏
— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 11, 2026

The film has received mixed reviews from critics. Many have praised its scale, visual effects and Yash’s performance, while some have said the storytelling feels more like a big visual spectacle than a deep emotional drama.

At the box office, the film has done strong business. After six days it has collected around ₹440 crore net in India and about ₹823 crore worldwide, according to trade reports.

UNSTOPPABLE – UNSHAKEABLE – HIGHEST-EVER *SINGLE DAY* DIWALI BUSINESS… #Ramayana [#Hindi version] has registered a PHENOMENAL total on Monday [Day 5], gaining momentum right from the morning shows and emerging as the BIGGEST DAY of its run so far.
THIS IS AN EYE-OPENER…
⭐️ *Monday alone* has contributed a fabulous 35.15% to the *5-day* total.
⭐️ Monday [Day 5] has registered a massive growth of 102.13% [vis-à-vis Thursday; Day 1] and 156.76% [vis-à-vis Sunday; Day 4].
Now, all eyes are on Tuesday [today; Day 6]… The Gujarati New Year celebration is expected to drive strong numbers in #Gujarat, a significant market for theatrical business… Going by the fantastic advance bookings for Tuesday, another BIG DAY is certainly on the cards.
⭐️ #Ramayana [Week 1] Thu 47 cr, Fri 38.25 cr, Sat 53 cr, Sun 37 cr, Mon 95 cr. Total: ₹ 270.25 cr.
NOTE: #Hindi version.
#India biz | Official Nett BOC | #Boxoffice
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) November 10, 2026

In Varma’s view, “Ramayana: Part 1” sets a new standard for large-scale Indian cinema, and future films will be compared with it. He noted that the only film that can surpass this one is its own second part.

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