There is something almost unfair about the position Jeethu Joseph put himself in. After writing and directing Drishyam in 2013, a film that genuinely rewired how Indian audiences think about thriller storytelling, and then following it up with Drishyam 2 in 2021 — a sequel that had no business being as gripping as it was — the man now had to close the chapter on one of Indian cinema’s most beloved franchises. A franchise that millions of people grew up with, argued about at dinner tables, rewatched with their parents, and quoted casually in conversations. Close it well, and you become a legend. Close it badly, and people will never let you forget it.
So here we are. Drishyam 3 is finally in theatres, released on May 21, 2026, which also happens to be Mohanlal’s 66th birthday. A fitting date. A symbolic one, even. Because Georgekutty, the quiet, calculating, morally complicated cable TV operator from Idukki, has always been the role that shows you exactly why Mohanlal is called the Complete Actor. And this third chapter asks him to do more of what he does best — carry the weight of an entire franchise on his shoulders, with nothing but stillness, intelligence, and the occasional devastating glance.
I sat through all 159 minutes of Drishyam 3. Here is everything you need to know — the cast, the story, the performances, what worked, what did not, how it compares to its predecessors, what the critics are saying, and whether this is the ending Georgekutty’s story deserved.
The Cast of Drishyam 3: Old Faces, New Complications
The entire core family is back, and that alone brings a warmth to the film that is hard to manufacture.
Mohanlal plays Georgekutty, now a theatre owner turned film producer, still carrying the unspoken weight of a crime that only his family knows about. Meena returns as Rani, his wife, whose quiet suffering across three films has been one of the most underrated performances in contemporary Malayalam cinema. Ansiba Hassan is back as Anju, the elder daughter whose accidental act in the original film set everything in motion. Esther Anil plays the younger daughter Anu, now a little older, a little wiser, and just as central to the family’s emotional core.
The supporting cast brings some serious firepower. Asha Sharath returns as DIG Geetha Prabhakar, whose personal vendetta against Georgekutty has driven much of the franchise’s tension. Siddique plays Prabhakar. Murali Gopy steps in as IG Thomas Bastin, a new law enforcement figure who brings a different kind of pressure to the table. And then there is Biju Menon, playing superstar Arun Kumar, whose involvement in the story’s main engine is one of the cleverest conceits in the entire trilogy.
The film was directed by Jeethu Joseph, written by Jeethu Joseph, shot by Satheesh Kurup, edited by V.S. Vinayak, and scored by Anil Johnson. This is essentially the same technical team from Drishyam 2, which means the visual grammar and emotional language of the franchise remains consistent throughout.
The Story: What Is Drishyam 3 Actually About?
The story picks up roughly four and a half years after the events of Drishyam 2. Georgekutty, who by the end of the second film had written a novel loosely based on his own life, has now taken the next step — he has produced a film based on that very novel, also titled Drishyam, with superstar Arun Kumar (Biju Menon) in the lead role.
The film within the film becomes a massive box office blockbuster, and overnight, Georgekutty’s name is everywhere. He is not just the quiet cable TV operator from Thodupuzha anymore — he is a successful film producer who is suddenly very much in the public eye. And that, as Georgekutty knows better than anyone, is the worst possible thing that could happen to a man with secrets.
With fame comes scrutiny. Two persistent journalists begin circling Georgekutty and his family, not to write a feel-good producer profile, but because they smell something deeper. They believe Georgekutty’s story holds the key to unearthing the truth about Varun’s disappearance — the police officer’s son whose death the entire franchise has been built around — and they are convinced that exposing it would make their careers.
Meanwhile, Georgekutty is also dealing with a far more personal crisis. He is trying to arrange a marriage for his elder daughter Anju, but the shadow of old controversies follows the family everywhere. No alliance seems to stick. Anju herself is worn down by it. And Georgekutty, who has always been the family’s shield, finds himself increasingly exhausted by the cost of the life he has built.
On top of all this, a new antagonist enters the picture in the form of IG Thomas Bastin (Murali Gopy), a man who does not share DIG Geetha Prabhakar’s personal grief but has a calculated, professional interest in closing a very old, very inconvenient case.
The second half is where the film really finds its footing. The suspense tightens, the stakes feel genuine, and Jeethu Joseph pulls off a few twists that will genuinely surprise you — even if you have spent the last 13 years watching this family outmaneuver everyone who comes for them.
Mohanlal: Why They Still Call Him the Complete Actor
Let me be direct about this. If Drishyam 3 works at all — and it does work, despite its flaws — it is because of what Mohanlal does in practically every scene he is in.
There is a particular kind of acting that does not announce itself. It does not ask for your attention with raised voices or dramatic gestures. Mohanlal’s Georgekutty, across all three films, has always operated in that register. The man communicates fear, guilt, love, and calculation all through the slightest shift in his eyes, the way he pauses before answering a question, the way he holds very, very still when everyone around him is unraveling.
In the third film, Georgekutty is visibly tired in a way he was not before. The weariness is not played for sympathy — Mohanlal is far too smart an actor for that. It is played as the natural consequence of a decade of living with a secret that has slowly eaten into everything good in his life. There is one scene in the second half where he is sitting alone, and you can see years of it on his face. No dialogue. No music swelling underneath. Just a man reckoning with himself. It is quietly extraordinary.
Meena is the film’s hidden MVP. Rani George gets slightly more to do here than in the previous parts, and Meena makes every moment count. There is a vulnerability to this character that has always made her compelling — she did not choose this life, she was pulled into it by love and circumstance, and she has been paying the price ever since. Meena carries that history in her performance without ever overplaying it.
Murali Gopy as the new antagonist IG Thomas Bastin is an absolute revelation. His dialogue delivery, his measured menace, the intelligence he brings to a character who is dangerous precisely because he is not emotional about any of this — he nearly steals the film. Biju Menon’s brief but pivotal role as the superstar Arun Kumar is perfectly judged. He understands that he is a device in this story, not the story itself, and he plays it with exactly the right amount of ease.
Drishyam 1 vs Drishyam 2 vs Drishyam 3: Where Does the Third Film Stand?
This is the question everyone is asking, so let me answer it honestly.
Drishyam (2013) is the gold standard. There is a reason it became one of the most widely adapted films in Indian cinema history. The original worked because it felt genuinely fresh — a thriller about an ordinary, uneducated man who outsmarts the system through meticulous planning and sheer nerve. The tension was relentless, the emotional stakes were clear and immediate, and the ending was one of the most satisfying gut-punches you will ever experience in a movie theatre. The budget was modest, the scale was intimate, and every rupee of it ended up on screen in the form of suspense.
Drishyam 2 (2021) was a miracle of a sequel. Released during the pandemic on OTT, it managed to recapture much of what made the original special while taking the story to a more complex, morally layered place. Georgekutty was no longer just protecting his family from immediate danger — he was managing a long-term cover-up while watching the psychological toll it took on people he loved. The second film was arguably a richer character study than the first, even if it occasionally leaned a little too heavily on the audience’s nostalgia for the original.
Drishyam 3 (2026) is the weakest of the three, but it is still a good film. The first half suffers from a pace problem that the previous installments did not have. Some of the setup feels mechanical — you can feel the gears turning rather than watching a story unfold naturally. A few plot developments in the early portions are predictable in a way that slightly deflates the tension before it has a chance to build.
But the second half recovers strongly. The interval twist is genuinely effective. The emotional payoff in the final act earns its tears. And as a conclusion to the franchise — a definitive answer to the question of whether Georgekutty ever truly escapes what he has done — it is satisfying in a way that feels earned rather than convenient.
To rank them plainly: Drishyam 1 remains the best, Drishyam 2 a worthy sequel, and Drishyam 3 an imperfect but emotionally complete finale.
The Hindi Adaptation: Ajay Devgn’s Drishyam 3 Is Coming
One cannot talk about the Drishyam franchise without acknowledging the Hindi universe that has grown alongside it.
The Hindi remake of Drishyam (2015), starring Ajay Devgn as Vijay Salgaonkar — the Hindi-adapted version of Georgekutty — was a massive commercial success and introduced the story to an entirely new audience that had no familiarity with the Malayalam original. Ajay Devgn brought a different texture to the character, more overtly intense where Mohanlal was understated, but the performance worked within the context of mainstream Bollywood thriller filmmaking.
The Hindi Drishyam 2, released in 2022, was similarly well-received, with Ajay Devgn and the entire original Hindi cast reprising their roles.
Now, with the Malayalam Drishyam 3 already in theatres, the Hindi adaptation is officially in the pipeline. Industry reports confirm that a Hindi version of Drishyam 3 is planned for a theatrical release on October 2, 2026, the same date that has historically been significant for Ajay Devgn’s films. The cast details for the Hindi adaptation are yet to be formally announced, but given how closely the previous Hindi adaptations followed their Malayalam counterparts in terms of story, the October release would give the makers enough time to study the reception of the original and fine-tune the Hindi version accordingly.
Ajay Devgn has a different pull on the Hindi-speaking audience, and there is no doubt that the Hindi Drishyam 3 will be a major theatrical event of its own. But having now watched the Malayalam original, I genuinely hope the Hindi version does justice to the emotional weight of this conclusion — because the story, at its heart, deserves to land the same way regardless of which language it is told in.
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What Top Platforms and Critics Are Saying
The response to Drishyam 3 has been a genuine mix, and it is worth giving you an honest picture rather than just the positive highlights.
On IMDB, the film currently holds a rating of 8.4 out of 10, which is marginally higher than Drishyam 2’s 8.2. That is a strong number and reflects the enormous goodwill audiences have for this franchise and for Mohanlal specifically.
Rotten Tomatoes presents a more divided picture. While audience engagement has been high, at least one critic review on the platform gave it 2.5 out of 5, noting that the film’s visual language occasionally felt unpolished for a production of this scale and ambition. That is a fair critique — cinematographer Satheesh Kurup is capable of much more technically refined work than some of what appears in Drishyam 3.
The website 123telugu.com, which covers South Indian cinema closely and tends to be fairly unsparing in its assessments, gave the film 2.75 out of 5, calling it a mixed bag that suffers from a sluggish first half and storylines that are too predictable for a franchise built on unpredictability.
On the other hand, the Art Threat website called it a masterclass in suspense and gave it 4.5 out of 5, with particular praise for the franchise’s emotional culmination and Mohanlal’s performance.
The Sunday Guardian described it as a cleverly crafted thriller that serves as a perfect conclusion to the franchise, while acknowledging the weak first half and some predictability in the setup.
The general consensus in the Kerala theatrical circuit has been enthusiastic, with packed houses and strong word of mouth particularly around the interval twist and the second half. The film’s advance bookings alone crossed 35 crore worldwide before release, making it the second-highest pre-seller in Malayalam cinema history after Empuraan.
Opening day numbers were extraordinary. The film reportedly clocked over 45 crore worldwide on its first day, with Kerala alone contributing around 11 crore. That is a number that reflects not just curiosity but genuine, committed audience love for Georgekutty and this world.
What Worked and What Could Have Been Better
Let me be genuinely honest here, because you deserve a real review, not a fan letter.
What worked is almost everything in the second half. The interval twist is smart and lands cleanly. The escalation of the threat against Georgekutty feels fresh even within a franchise you are deeply familiar with. Murali Gopy’s antagonist is a brilliant addition — he brings a different kind of danger to the table than what the previous villains offered, and the scenes between him and Mohanlal crackle with intelligence. The emotional climax involving the family, particularly a sequence with Anju, is devastating in the best way. Anil Johnson’s background score continues to do precisely what it needs to do — it amplifies tension without telegraphing it.
The film within a film conceit is also genuinely clever. Having Georgekutty produce a movie called Drishyam, about a story that is essentially his own, is the kind of meta-narrative playfulness that the franchise could only really afford to attempt in its third chapter. It gives the story a structural richness that elevates it beyond a simple continuation.
What could have been better is the first half. It drags. There are scenes that feel like necessary architecture — setting up pieces for the second half to knock over — but they are built with less elegance than Jeethu Joseph is capable of. Compared to the taut, propulsive first halves of the first two films, the opening sixty minutes of Drishyam 3 feel a little like watching someone prepare for a meal rather than actually eating it.
The cinematography, as mentioned, is occasionally flat in a way that is surprising given the standard set by earlier entries. Some of the media reporter characters who serve as the film’s initial threat feel underdeveloped — their motivations are clear but their characterisation is thin, which makes them feel like functional plot devices rather than real people.
And while the film’s conclusion is emotionally satisfying, there is a nagging feeling that Jeethu Joseph played it slightly safer than the story warranted. Drishyam 1 had the courage to end in a place that made you genuinely uncomfortable in your admiration for a man who had done something terrible to protect people he loved. The third film’s ending is moving and well-earned, but it is kinder. That kindness may leave some longtime fans feeling that Georgekutty got away a little too cleanly — even now, even after everything.
My Personal View and Rating
I have spent a lot of time with this franchise. I watched the original in theatres in 2013. I was one of the many people who stayed up past midnight to watch Drishyam 2 on OTT during the pandemic. Georgekutty is one of Indian cinema’s great characters — morally ambiguous, deeply human, driven entirely by love and fear in equal measure. Mohanlal has inhabited him across three films and over a decade in a way that very few actors in world cinema achieve with a single character.
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Drishyam 3 is not the best film in the trilogy. But it is a worthy, honest, emotionally complete conclusion to a franchise that deserved a real ending rather than a convenient one. The flaws are real and worth naming. The first half genuinely tests your patience in a way the earlier films never did. But the second half, and particularly the final twenty minutes, remind you exactly why this story has endured.
Mohanlal, at 66, in what he has said is his final appearance as Georgekutty, is extraordinary. Not in a showy, awards-reel kind of way. In the quiet, intimate, lived-in way that only the greatest screen actors can manage. He makes you believe in this man. He makes you root for him even when you know you probably should not. That is a gift very few people in this industry have.
Popnewsblend rating: 3.5 out of 5. Emotionally, it earns something closer to 4. Technically and structurally, it falls short of what this franchise has established as its own benchmark. Split the difference and you get a film that is worth every minute of its 159-minute runtime, even the slow ones.
See it in theatres. Experience it with an audience. Because the moments that land in Drishyam 3 land harder when the person sitting next to you is holding their breath at the same time.
Conclusion: The End of the Road for Georgekutty
In February 2026, Jeethu Joseph confirmed publicly that Drishyam 3 would be the final film in the franchise. That declaration carries weight. It means this is the last time we will see Mohanlal sit across from a police officer with that quiet, unreadable expression. The last time we will watch this family hold each other together by sheer will. The last time Georgekutty will have to outthink everyone who comes for the people he loves.
The Drishyam franchise began in 2013 as a modest Malayalam thriller with a budget that most Bollywood productions would spend on a single action sequence. It became one of the most widely adapted stories in Indian cinema, spawning remakes in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Sinhala, and Mandarin. It made Jeethu Joseph one of the most respected writer-directors in contemporary Indian cinema. And it gave Mohanlal the role that will be discussed decades from now as the definitive performance of his extraordinary career.
Drishyam 3 closes this story. Not perfectly. But honestly. And in the end, honesty is what this franchise has always been about — the honesty of a man who would lie to everyone in the world to protect the people who mean everything to him.
That contradiction, that beautiful terrible contradiction, is what Drishyam has always been. And it is what it remains, right until the final frame.
Frequently Asked Questions About Drishyam 3
Is Drishyam 3 the final film in the franchise?
Yes. Director Jeethu Joseph confirmed in February 2026 that Drishyam 3 is the third and final installment in the Drishyam franchise. He has described it as the definitive conclusion to Georgekutty’s story.
When was Drishyam 3 released?
Drishyam 3 was released worldwide in theatres on May 21, 2026. The date was specifically chosen to coincide with Mohanlal’s 66th birthday.
Do I need to watch Drishyam 1 and Drishyam 2 before watching Drishyam 3?
Absolutely yes. Drishyam 3 picks up directly from the events of the second film and assumes detailed knowledge of everything that happened in both earlier instalments. Going in without that context will leave you confused about the characters, their relationships, and the significance of the central conflict.
What is the runtime of Drishyam 3?
The film runs for 159 minutes, making it the longest entry in the trilogy.
Where can I watch Drishyam 3 on OTT?
As of the time of writing, Drishyam 3 is in its theatrical window. Distributors reportedly agreed to a minimum four-week exclusive theatrical run before any OTT streaming rights take effect. Given the franchise’s history, it is widely expected to land on a major OTT platform — likely Amazon Prime Video, which has carried previous entries — after the theatrical run concludes.
Who plays the antagonist in Drishyam 3?
The primary new antagonist is IG Thomas Bastin, played by Murali Gopy. Additionally, DIG Geetha Prabhakar (Asha Sharath), who has been a recurring adversarial figure throughout the franchise, continues to play an important role.
Who is Biju Menon playing in Drishyam 3?
Biju Menon plays Arun Kumar, a fictional superstar who stars in Georgekutty’s film production — also called Drishyam — within the story. It is a clever meta-narrative element that becomes central to the plot.
Is Drishyam 3 getting a Hindi remake?
Yes. A Hindi adaptation of Drishyam 3 is confirmed and reportedly planned for theatrical release on October 2, 2026. Based on the pattern established by the earlier Hindi remakes, Ajay Devgn is expected to reprise his role as Vijay Salgaonkar. Official casting announcements are yet to be made at the time of writing.
What are the ratings for Drishyam 3?
IMDB currently gives the film 8.4 out of 10. Critical reception has been more divided — 123telugu.com gave it 2.75 out of 5, while Art Threat called it a masterclass in suspense and rated it 4.5 out of 5. General audience response has been very positive, particularly for the second half and for Mohanlal’s performance.
How much did Drishyam 3 earn at the box office on its opening day?
The film reportedly earned over 45 crore worldwide on its opening day, with Kerala alone contributing around 11 crore in net collection. Pre-sales before release had already crossed 35 crore worldwide, making it the second-highest pre-seller in Malayalam cinema history.
How does Drishyam 3 compare to the original Drishyam (2013)?
The original Drishyam remains the gold standard of the franchise — tighter, fresher, and structurally more disciplined. Drishyam 3 is the weakest of the three films structurally, particularly in its first half, but it compensates with strong emotional payoff, an excellent second half, and a conclusion that gives the franchise a satisfying and honest ending. As a trilogy closer, it does the job. As a standalone film, it needs its predecessors to hit the notes it reaches for.
Is Mohanlal’s performance in Drishyam 3 worth watching?
Without question. Mohanlal’s portrayal of Georgekutty across all three films, and particularly in this final chapter, is a masterclass in restrained, lived-in acting. The emotional depth he brings to a man living under the weight of an unspeakable secret, without ever seeking sympathy for it, is the kind of performance that only the genuinely great screen actors can sustain over an entire trilogy. If you care about acting — not just performance, but actual craft — Mohanlal in Drishyam 3 is worth the price of a theatre ticket on its own.
Hi, I’m Prashant Jain — a film enthusiast and critic who lives and breathes cinema. From big-screen releases to the latest drops on OTT, I watch extensively and review honestly, without hype or bias.
I believe a good review should go beyond just “good” or “bad.” It should help you understand what works, what doesn’t, and whether a film is truly worth your time. My reviews focus on storytelling, performances, direction, and overall impact — all through the lens of a genuine viewer.
I regularly cover new movie releases and trending web series across OTT, bringing clear, no-nonsense insights for audiences who want real opinions, not paid praise.
Through PopNewsBlend, I aim to cut through the noise and give you reviews you can trust — whether you’re deciding what to watch next or just love discussing cinema as much as I do.
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