Why Dhurandhar Was Not Chosen as India’s Oscar Entry: Jury Member Viveck Vaswani Explains

Mumbai: The Film Federation of India has selected Santosh Davakhar’s Marathi film Gondhal as India’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards, leaving major Hindi titles including Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge outside the final selection.

The decision came after a field of 33 submitted films was considered by the FFI’s jury. The panel included filmmaker P. Sheshadri, actor Vijay Patkar, filmmaker Hutu Kanodia, Shanti Kumar, Sandeep Parashar, Sanjay Patil, Sabu Joseph, Anil Thomas, Viveck Vaswani, Bijon Dasgupta, Haasan Vasan and Tannishtha Chatterjee.

The selection has naturally drawn attention because Dhurandhar, starring Ranveer Singh and directed by Aditya Dhar, was among the films submitted for consideration. However, the jury’s decision should not be interpreted as a verdict on the film’s commercial success or popularity. The Oscar selection process evaluates films for a specific international competition, and the FFI jury ultimately chose Gondhal.

What happened in the Oscar selection process?

The FFI opened submissions in August for films seeking consideration for the 99th Academy Awards. The eligibility process required submitted films to meet the applicable rules, including requirements concerning Indian production participation, language, theatrical release and documentation.

A total of 33 films eventually entered the selection process. They represented several Indian languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam and Nagamese.

After the jury's deliberations, Gondhal emerged as the selected film.

The announcement was made in Mumbai on September 18, 2026.

Why was Dhurandhar not selected?

The available reporting establishes that Dhurandhar was among the films considered and that Gondhal was ultimately selected. However, it is important not to turn the result into a claim that the jury rejected Dhurandhar for one particular flaw unless the jury member's explanation specifically establishes that.

Viveck Vaswani was part of the 13-member jury, meaning his comments are relevant to understanding the deliberations. But the selection itself was a collective jury decision, not Vaswani’s individual choice.

The distinction matters. Being one of the films in contention does not mean that Dhurandhar was expected to be selected, nor does the selection of Gondhal establish that Dhurandhar was considered unsuitable for international audiences.

The jury was choosing one Indian film from a diverse field, rather than determining which film was the country's biggest commercial success.

Gondhal gets the Oscar ticket

Directed by Santosh Davakhar, Gondhal is a Marathi thriller rooted in Maharashtra's traditional Gondhal ritual and folk-performance culture.

The film follows Suman, a married woman whose personal relationships become increasingly complicated by desire, deception and difficult circumstances. What begins as a relationship-driven story develops into a thriller.

The film had already received recognition before the Oscar selection. Davakhar won the Silver Peacock Award for Best Director at the 56th International Film Festival of India in 2025. Gondhal was also reported to have received recognition at the Bengaluru International Film Festival and Pune International Film Festival.

Those festival credentials provide relevant context for the jury's choice.

Dhurandhar was competing against 32 other films

The Oscar conversation around Dhurandhar can easily become focused on its scale and commercial performance, but the selection process was considerably broader.

The 33-film field included titles such as Border 2, 120 Bahadur, Haq, Peddi, Irumudi, Dorothy, Main Vaapas Aaunga, Bison: Kaalamadan, Gandhi Talks, Ikkis, Hanuman Ansh, Angh and several regional-language films.

That makes the decision less about a direct one-on-one contest between Dhurandhar and Gondhal and more about how the jury assessed a broad cross-section of Indian cinema.

Commercial success and Oscar selection are different questions

One of the most important points for audiences is that box-office performance is not the same thing as Oscar selection criteria.

Dhurandhar and its sequel became major commercial performers, and the franchise was among the most prominent Hindi film properties in the submission field. Contemporary reporting has highlighted the franchise's large domestic and international commercial footprint.

But India's Oscar entry is selected through the FFI's jury process. Once a film becomes India's submission, it still has to go through the Academy's own International Feature Film process.

In other words, being a commercial hit does not automatically make a film India's Oscar entry.

What happens to Dhurandhar now?

The film's absence from India's official Oscar submission does not prevent it from having an international audience or recognition through other routes.

However, India's official entry for the International Feature Film category is now Gondhal. The film will represent India in the Oscar race, subject to the Academy's subsequent selection stages.

The 99th Academy Awards are scheduled for March 14, 2027, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

The Academy, rather than the FFI jury, will ultimately determine which films advance through the International Feature Film selection process.

The Celebrity Hour Take

The key takeaway from the Dhurandhar Oscar discussion is that commercial scale and Oscar suitability are separate conversations.

Dhurandhar entered the FFI process as one of 33 eligible submissions. Its large audience and commercial footprint made its omission notable, but the selection of Gondhal cannot automatically be described as a judgment that one film is universally better than another.

The jury's task was to select one film to represent India in a particular Academy category. Gondhal arrived with its own festival recognition, regional cultural setting and thriller narrative, and the jury ultimately chose it.

For Dhurandhar, the decision closes the route of representing India through the official International Feature Film submission for the 99th Oscars. It does not, by itself, change the film's existing commercial record or broader cultural footprint.

For Gondhal, the selection marks the beginning of a different challenge: competing in the Academy's international field after becoming India's official submission.

The bigger significance for Indian cinema

The selection also puts another Marathi-language film on the international awards map.

Gondhal becomes the fourth Marathi film to represent India at the Oscars, according to contemporary reporting. Its selection follows earlier Marathi-language entries and reinforces the presence of regional Indian cinema in India's Oscar submissions.

That context is particularly relevant because this year's shortlist of submissions was multilingual. Four Marathi films were among the 33 entries, alongside films in Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Nagamese and other categories.

The result therefore reflects not only the exclusion of a major Hindi franchise but also the selection of a regional-language film with a distinct cultural setting.For now, Gondhal carries India's official Oscar entry, while Dhurandhar remains one of the notable films that competed for the country's nomination Sources & Verification

This report was prepared using contemporary coverage of the Film Federation of India’s 2027 Oscar selection, including reporting that identifies the 33 submitted films, the 13-member jury and Gondhal as India's selected entry. FFI selection-process information was cross-checked with earlier reporting on the eligibility and submission procedure. The article distinguishes the confirmed selection result from interpretations about why individual films were not chosen.

Important editorial note: I could verify that Viveck Vaswani was a member of the jury, but the currently accessible sources did not provide a sufficiently reliable verbatim record of a detailed Vaswani explanation specifically saying why Dhurandhar was rejected. Therefore, this version does not invent or attribute a specific rationale to him that I could not independently verify.