Gajab Raat: Manoj Bajpayee's Renamed Thriller Lands Oct 23

Manoj Bajpayee's new Netflix film has a new name, a trailer and a date. Gajab Raat, the suspense thriller first announced as Ghooskhor Pandat, will premiere on Netflix on October 23, 2026, according to the streamer. The makers released the trailer on October 15, India Today and The Hindu reported, eight months after the original title drew protests, a police complaint and a petition in the Delhi High Court. Here is what is confirmed about the film, the people behind it and how it got its new title.

What the trailer shows

Netflix describes Gajab Raat as a story about a cop caught between personal gain and doing what he believes is right. The film unfolds over a single night, as one decision sets off a chain of events with far-reaching consequences. The Hindu reports that Bajpayee's officer is investigating a murder, a crime with several stakeholders.

The Hollywood Reporter India walked through the trailer's opening: a raid at a hotel, a girl in a pink dress, played by Nushrratt Bharuccha, running frantically down a hotel corridor, and another girl thrown out of a moving car. Bajpayee then enters as the cop at the centre of the case. The outlet names his character as Ajay Dixit, a morally grey police officer who swings between personal gain and doing what is right.

The team behind Gajab Raat

The film is produced by Neeraj Pandey's Friday Film Works, created by Pandey and directed by Ritesh Shah, who makes his directorial debut with it. Netflix says the project reunites Pandey and Bajpayee after nearly a decade. The Hindu notes that the two worked together earlier on the crime thrillers Special 26 (2013) and Aiyaary (2018).

For Pandey, the film continues a run with Netflix that includes the Khakee series, Sikandar Ka Muqaddar and Taskaree, according to the streamer's announcement. "Gajab Raat is a thriller where the choices that people make push them to a point where there are no easy answers," Pandey said in the Netflix statement. "The tension comes as much from the moral dilemmas the characters face as from the events unfolding over the course of one night."

Bajpayee, in the same statement, spoke of seeing Shah make the transition from writer to director. Shah said the single-night setting gave the team "the opportunity to build a sense of urgency and keep raising the stakes as events unfold".

The cast

Netflix lists the cast as Manoj Bajpayee, Saqib Saleem, Akshay Oberoi, Divya Dutta, Kiku Sharda and Nushrratt Bharuccha. Earlier reports, including Scroll's in February and the Hollywood Reporter India's trailer piece, also named Shraddha Das in the film.

Bajpayee said in the Netflix statement that he has "always been drawn to characters who are not easy to define", and that the film gave him "the opportunity to inhabit a world filled with suspense, moral dilemmas and questions of accountability". He added that the characters' motivations "gradually reveal themselves as the night unfolds".

Why the title changed

The film was first shown as Ghooskhor Pandat. Scroll reported that a teaser came out after Netflix released its slate of 2026 films and series on February 3. Groups objected to pairing "Pandat", associated with the Brahmin community, with "ghooskhor", a term for a bribe-taker.

The Hindu reported that on February 6, the Uttar Pradesh Police registered an FIR at Lucknow's Hazratganj police station against the makers over the title, and that a petition had been filed in the Delhi High Court on February 5. India Today adds that the Federation of Western India Cine Employees also objected to the title. Pandey apologised for the hurt caused, said the film was "a fictional cop drama" and that "Pandat" was "simply a colloquial name for a fictional character", and took down the teaser and promotional material. Bajpayee wrote that he respected the concerns and took them seriously.

On February 10, Netflix told the Delhi High Court that the producers had decided to change the title to one that better reflected the film's narrative and intent, Scroll reported, citing Live Law. The court disposed of the petition. With the trailer launch in October, the makers confirmed that new title as Gajab Raat.

Where it fits in Bajpayee's 2026

The Hollywood Reporter India notes that Gajab Raat follows two other Bajpayee projects this year: the drama Last Man In Tower and the political thriller Governor. It is also his first film with Pandey since Aiyaary in 2018, as both The Hindu and the Hollywood Reporter India point out. The cover photograph shows Bajpayee at the 67th National Film Awards ceremony in New Delhi on October 25, 2021, receiving his award from then Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, according to the Wikimedia Commons file description.

What to watch for

Gajab Raat is a Netflix original rather than a theatrical release, so there will be no box office figures to track. The tests will be the reviews and the audience response after the October 23 premiere. Until then, the trailer and the official synopsis are the only confirmed guides to the story, and Netflix has not announced a runtime in the materials cited here.

Sources

Cover photo: Vice President's Secretariat, Wikimedia Commons, [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manoj_Bajpai_Receiving_National_Award.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manoj_Bajpai_Receiving_National_Award.jpg) (GODL-India).