One of the most sacred stories in human civilisation is coming to the big screen — and Dharma Productions wants the world to know it means business. On Friday, 16 October 2026, the Karan Johar-led studio posted the new Hindi trailer for Ramayana: Rise of Legend on X, framing the project in the boldest possible terms: 'Mankind's greatest story comes to life.'

The post names producer Namit Malhotra as the driving creative force — 'Our Truth. Our History.' — and confirms that celebrated director Nitesh Tiwari is at the helm. Tiwari is the filmmaker behind two of Hindi cinema's most decorated modern classics: Dangal (2016), the Aamir Khan wrestling epic that became one of the highest-grossing Indian films ever made, and Chhichhore (2019), the National Award-winning college drama.

Tiwari, Malhotra, and the weight of the Ramayana

Pairing that pedigree with the Ramayana — the ancient Sanskrit epic narrating the life of Lord Rama, revered across Hindu mythology and adapted in virtually every major Indian art form for millennia — signals that Dharma is not positioning this as a routine mythological retelling. The phrase 'Rise of Legend' suggests an origin-arc treatment, and the studio's choice to lead with 'Our Truth. Our History.' plants a flag: this is a cultural reclamation project as much as a blockbuster.

Namit Malhotra brings significant visual-effects infrastructure to the table. The Ramayana's landscapes — Lanka, Ayodhya, the celestial realms — demand exactly the kind of large-scale digital world-building that defines modern tentpole filmmaking globally. Dharma's bet appears to be that the story's spiritual and emotional universality, fused with contemporary cinematic craft, can reach audiences well beyond India's borders.

Indian mythology's long road to big-budget cinema

Indian cinema has returned to the Ramayana repeatedly, from television serials that transfixed a generation to animated features and regional-language productions. Yet a Hindi-language, studio-backed, VFX-heavy theatrical adaptation of this scale has remained elusive — which is precisely why this trailer lands with such force in the industry conversation. Every major Hindi studio has eyed the mythology space since the global success of large-scale fantasy franchises demonstrated what a devoted audience will pay to see their defining stories told with world-class production values.

Dharma Productions, with its track record of bringing big-canvas storytelling to multiplex audiences, is now staking its name on perhaps the biggest canvas of all. A theatrical release date has not yet been confirmed, but the trailer's arrival signals the machine is moving.

The ancient epic has waited centuries for this moment — and judging by today's trailer drop, it will not wait much longer.