Alpha
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Plot
Alpha is the first female-led film in the YRF Spy Universe, and it arrives with a premise built for that milestone. Alia Bhatt plays Sita, a fierce operative raised and trained to kill, who discovers that her childhood was stolen by Colonel Fateh Singh Lakhawat — played by Bobby Deol — the ruthless mastermind behind a secret super-soldier programme. When Sita breaks free, she joins forces with R&AW chief Vikrant Kaul, played by Anil Kapoor, and discovers a long-lost sister, Durga, played by Sharvari.
Directed by Shiv Rawail, the film follows the two sisters as they uncover the truth about their birth, the programme that made them, and the man who used them. Hrithik Roshan returns in a special appearance as Agent Kabir from the War films, and the story connects directly to the wider spy universe while standing on its own. The film’s hook is stated in its trailer: this time, Sita will not wait for rescue — she will burn Lanka down herself.
Performance
Alia Bhatt carries the film with the physical commitment the role demands. Her Sita is all coiled intensity — a woman trained since childhood to be a weapon, learning for the first time to be a person — and Bhatt plays both halves without letting either cancel the other out. The action sequences ask a lot of her, and she meets them with a focus that sells the character’s danger.
Sharvari, as Durga, is the film’s quiet surprise: her character is kept under wraps in the marketing for good reason, and her scenes with Bhatt give the film its emotional core. Bobby Deol is a cold, controlled villain as Fateh, a mentor turned enemy, while Anil Kapoor brings authority to Vikrant Kaul. Hrithik Roshan’s cameo as Kabir is brief but crowd-pleasing, and Dia Mirza adds weight in support.
Screenplay and Direction
Shiv Rawail, making his feature directing debut after the acclaimed series The Railway Men, directs with a confidence that belies that inexperience. The screenplay, by Soumil Shukla and Shridhar Raghavan from Uday Chopra’s story, keeps the origin story moving — childhood, training, escape, reunion — without getting lost in spy-universe homework. The action, staged by Craig Macrae and Sunil Rodrigues, is the film’s strongest suit: clean, physical and well-shot by cinematographer Rubais.
The film’s weakness, noted by several critics, is its second half, where the story’s momentum softens into exposition and the emotional beats repeat rather than deepen. At 140 minutes it is not overlong, but it feels it in places, and the dialogue sometimes tells the audience what the action has already shown. Still, as a first chapter for two new heroes, it lays a solid foundation — and its visual polish is among the best in the spy universe.
Music
Rohansh and Abeer Pandit compose the songs, with Sanchit and Ankit Balhara on background score, and the music is designed to be felt rather than remembered. The trailer’s use of HUGEL’s global track Jamaican (Bam Bam) set the film’s pulse — relentless, high-energy, international — and the score follows that template through the action sequences, driving the chases and fights without competing with them.
The songs themselves are less central than in a traditional Bollywood action film, which suits a spy thriller that wants to be taken seriously. The score’s job is atmosphere, and it does it well: tense in the facility scenes, propulsive in the action, and quiet in the sisters’ scenes together. It is functional music in the best sense — it serves the film first.
Themes
Alpha is a film about who gets to be the hero of their own story. Sita was written as a weapon by other people; the film’s arc is her rewriting herself as a person, and then as a protector. The sisterhood at its centre — two women raised apart, finding each other through a shared past — is the film’s real subject, and it gives the spy-universe formula something it had not had before: a story where the most important relationship is not between a hero and a villain, but between two sisters.
It also asks what a franchise owes its new heroes. The YRF Spy Universe was built on male stars; Alpha’s gamble is that audiences will follow female agents with the same loyalty. The film’s mixed box-office reception suggests that gamble is not yet fully won — but the characters, and the actresses playing them, earned the right to try again.
Conclusion
Alpha closed its theatrical run with around ₹98.62 crore worldwide — below its big budget, and the lowest-grossing entry in the spy universe so far — but its Netflix premiere on 28 August 2026 gave it a second audience, and its television premiere followed in October. Released on 3 July 2026, it remains a significant film for what it attempted.
For viewers who want a stylish, female-led spy action film with two strong leads and a universe to explore, Alpha is worth the watch. Its flaws are real, but so is its ambition — and Sita and Durga are characters Hindi cinema should not let go of yet.