A sprawling, profane revenge epic that turns a local gang war into a generational saga. It’s messy by design, but the energy, humor, and lived-in detail make it feel singular and essential for crime-film fans.
Best for
Viewers who like long, character-dense crime epics
Fans of dark humor mixed with brutality
People interested in Indian regional crime stories and political underworlds
Audiences who enjoy antihero family sagas and revenge cycles
Skip if
You want a tightly paced, streamlined thriller
You dislike large casts and shifting timelines
You prefer restrained violence and low-volume storytelling
You need a self-contained ending in a single film
Overview
Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1 is less a standard gangster movie than a combustible family chronicle, where revenge becomes inheritance and masculinity becomes performance. The film’s scale is huge, but its most memorable moments are often the smallest: a joke, a swaggering gesture, a petty humiliation that curdles into bloodshed. It has the rough edges of a story that feels passed around by mouth before it was ever filmed.
Worth noting
What makes it stand out is how it refuses to romanticize its criminals. The violence is brutal, but the film is just as interested in ego, class resentment, and the absurd rituals men use to feel powerful. That balance of menace and comedy gives it a restless, unpredictable charge.
Bottom line
It can be sprawling and sometimes deliberately overstuffed, but that density is part of its appeal. For viewers willing to settle into its world, it delivers one of the great modern crime sagas: local in texture, epic in consequence, and constantly alive to the chaos of its own making.
Top Letterboxd reviews
ani (4★) · 780 likes
There's a throwaway moment here where Sardar Khan tries to kick open a door that opens just by gently pulling it; it's one of the film's several great comic moments, but it also represents the fundamental tragedy fascinating Kashyap here. Indian men constantly exerting force not because they necessarily need to, but because it makes them feel powerful and sexy and in charge of their own destiny. Everyone's vulgar power fantasy is undercut at some turn as a consequence of… more There's a throwaway moment here where Sardar Khan tries to kick open a door that opens just by gently pulling it; it's one of the film's several great comic moments, but it also represents the fundamental tragedy fascinating Kashyap here. Indian men constantly exerting force not because they necessarily need to, but because it makes them feel powerful and sexy and in charge of their own destiny. Everyone's vulgar power fantasy is undercut at some turn as a consequence of… more
Varun Gokul (3.5★) · 373 likes
sardar: omg my son has been shot
Son: im fine dad
sardar: ur not *slaps him*
Ritesh Sharma (5★) · 371 likes
A middle class guy named Zeishan Qadri on a random day in the early 2010s knocked on Anurag Kashyap's studio door with a script which had nothing but former's childhood in Dhanbad and Wasseypur locked in it, suggesting the latter to make a movie on the gangster uprising of the pre independent Bihar state.
Anurag Kashyap didn't have any clue whatsoever that a never seen before true story spanning several decades in the enormous runtime of 5 hrs will have… more
Michael James (4.5★) · 208 likes
An audaciously bold and raw 320 minute epic bloody gangster crime drama from Anurag Kashyap, that gets set in a lawless land, following three crime families through seven decades, capturing their personal relationships, rivalries, blood feud, politics, coal mafia and power struggle. It is a full on show of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. However the movie neatly twists it into satirical and never glorifies it. The first part covers the initial five decades spanning from 1940-1990’s.
Everything about the movie… more
Preet (5★) · 176 likes
'Hate is inherited'
Gangs of wasseypur brings the stories of gangsters in India to life with the most natural, raw and unfiltered portrayal of the thugs which perfectly matches the violent and chaotic world of the film.
Power, violence and how revenge passes down through generations. It mixes family loyalty, politics, and crime, showing how people are willing to do anything for control of wasseypur. The films main character is not 'Shahid khan' or 'Sardaar khan' or 'Faizal khan' the main character is the city itself 'Wasseypur'.