The era of Teesri Manzil gave way to Gupt, and then what?
Where Have Bollywood Suspense Films Disappeared?
At the very beginning of this article, let me speak out. I know that almost every film I list here is either an inspiration, a blatant copy or an unofficial adaptation of a Hollywood film.
That being said, I do not lose respect for any of the films or names in this list. Because I have lived in the eighties, and the very of watching a film that wasn’t a documentary on Doordarshan was a blessed occasion, inspired or not, it didn’t matter.
I have always maintained that the Indianisation of a Western concept is as much of a commendable job as creating brand new script and screenplay.
By all calculations, a murder mystery or a whodunnit should not have existed in Bollywood. The latter is known for its 2.5 hour runtime movies. A murder mystery novel famously ends under 300 pages.
One of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels, ‘And Then There Were None’, has a page count of 250 pages, a light read. A typical novel that’s primed to become a movie runs more than 300 pages. The Hunger Games went on for a considerable 374 pages.
A Bollywood director needs to take the long winding path to adapt a typical murder mystery to the silver screen. Which was okay. Prior to the nineties, the audiences were habituated to have the story start only after 20 to 30 minutes of song and dance and introduction of characters. In badly made eighties movies, the plot point came only at the 1 hour mark!
So, making a murder mystery involved some heavy sub-plot writing, which would also mean two writers, more money to be paid to the comic relief, another song put in just so the length remains pure. Quite frankly, a headache.
But then, which Bollywood director or producer doesn’t want one, given that its returns could be iconic and immemorial?
For these reasons and more, Bollywood has kept the classic ‘whodunnit’ genre alive. The genre has seen some subplots, like psychological thrillers, serial killers, and whatnot. What’s sorely missing, in 2026, is the one-room-mystery’.
One of the most successful whodunnits in cinema history was Teesri Manzil (1966). The Shammi Kapoor starrer famously started the story even before the credits rolled in. It was also the precursor to the impactful ‘cold opening’ that Bollywood OTTs would embrace decades later.
But even the legendary Vijay Anand had no option but to give in to the Bollywood timeframe, fortunately giving us chartbusters like ‘Oh Haseeno Zulfo Waali’ and ‘O Mere Sona Re Sona’.
But before that, in 1964 was Woh Kaun Thi. This Manoj Kumar -Sadhana starrer was a class act in psychological mysteries. Raj Khosla used the classic whodunnit to delve into the Indian man and woman relationship trope.
Woh Kaun Thi wasn’t any whodunnit, it was the quest of a vulnerable, self-doubting Indian man wondering who the woman he loved really was — and India connected.
Before trilogies became a thing, the public conferred that feat to Raj Khosla, for Woh Kaun Thi, Mera Saaya (1966) and Anita (1967).
In Mera Saaya, a lawyer comes home to see his wife die, and years later, he finds out that an woman who looks just like his wife has been arrested with a career criminal.
In Anita, a lovelorn couple are separated by society, only for the woman to commit suicide, but her lover doesn’t believe the love of his life could be so weak, and decides to investigate.
With these films, Khosla did away with the external investigator, and brought mysteries to the family unit — something that the Indian diaspora welcomed.
And then came the 1969, Rajesh Khanna-starrer Ittefaq, that turned the whodunnit on its head, making it one of the slickest Bollywood films.
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A detective investigating a crime usually translated into money for the common audience, a man trying to find out where his love disappeared meant a love story, and doesn’t everyone love a love story?
The seventies brought in a fresh new generation of film-goers, those who were free of the Independence-hangover, those who were kept away from all the problems their parents had faced in their rural origins, the urban audience, so to say.
But trust BR Chopra to decide to resume serious filmmaking even in the whoop-de-doo seventies. In 1973, he released the seminal one-room mystery, Dhund by BR Chopra. That film created the template for the one-room, or for Bollywood, the one-bungalow crime whodunnit.
With this audience, there was a risk of being rejected outright for being ‘too serious.’ And that brought in movies with not just a comedy track, but a true comic, modern vibe — like the legendary Khel Khel Mein (1975)
Khel Khel Mein is the OG young, college-romance-thriller combination, starring Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh (Kapoor) and Rakesh Roshan. That film is a masterclass in aspects of crime noir, everyday crime, greed, jealousy — everything other whodunnit had, just made a hit posh and modern.
It’s not a long shot to say that KKM was the vibe and class that future college movies like Main Hoon Na and Student of the Year opted for.
The 80s saw several more whodunnits with a mix of scripts — and these whodunnits explored experimental scripts — in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Khamosh (1986), a film crew experiences the murder of one of their actors. That film had the who’s who of talent — Amol Palekar, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Shabana Azmi, Ajit Vachani, and so many others.
There were a couple more, including the much publicised Rishi Kapoor starrer Khoj (1989). By that time, the whodunnit was a flailing genre. Kapoor being in that film was heralded as an A Lister reviving a genre. Unfortunately, the film didn’t do well at the box office.
The flail of the whodunnit continued. Partho Ghosh was among the few flame-keepers. He came up with the sudden surprise like 100 Days (1991), Esmayeel Shroff added the lacklustre entry of Police Public (1990), all in a spate of five years.
The latter had a firebrand cast of Raaj Kumar, Naseeruddin Shah, Kabir Bedi and others, but faltered at the box office. Even so, Police Public is one of the best examples of the whodunnit, with one single clue unravelling the entire mystery, a shattered wristwatch, for those who won’t be watching the film.
Before we forget, no Bollywood whodunnit article is complete without the 1992 blockbuster Khiladi, launching the careers of Akshay Kumar, Deepak Tijori and Ayesha Jhulka, another pure murder mystery. It is also a template about how directors added a whole hour of fluff before the story finally started. The plot had a Khel Khel Mein hangover, but the twists made it all the more interesting.
In 1995 came Nagarjuna’s Criminal, another whodunnit which was successful at the box office, and could have been more. But by this time, the Internet had found India, and the audience saw it as a scene to scene copy of the Harrison Ford starrer The Fugitive.
It took just two years for Bollywood to once again go the whodunnit way, and the grand success should have revived the genre. But so glitzy, glamorous was this outing, it gave birth to the modern ‘thriller’ in Bollywood — this film was the 1997 Bobby Deol vehicle Gupt.
Make no mistake about it, Gupt is the ultimate whodunnit, it has the emotional layer, the characters, the pivot, the one-catch-that-solves. But so mercurial and peak were Kajol, Bobby Deol and Manisha Koirala in it, spectacle walked over script.
Since 1997, there have been a flurry of whodunnits, but none of worked as spectacularly as Gupt. There as 2001: Do Hazaar Ek, a murder mystery, and then there was Tarkeib, starring the very talented Nana Patekar.
There’s every chance that the B-circuit had tens and hundreds of murder mysteries releasing. Forget NFDC, one would require the entire force of FBI, CID, CBI and the Secret Service to know just how many B-movies flood the market every year.
In 2026, we have high-speed chases, forensic DNA sequencing, and political conspiracies stretching to Delhi — but we’ve lost the simple, terrifying tension of a locked door. That tension that Vijay Anand so nicely brought with his serial, Tehkikaat, with Doordarshan brought out so well with their rendition of Byomkesh Bakshi, and then Marathi TV went with Hello Inspector.
We’ve traded the clue for the conspiracy, and in doing so, we’ve forgotten how to just tell a good story about a room full of suspects.
Bollywood is sorely missing the whodunnits, the time when a couple or a group of friends would watch a suspense film and actually try to find out who the killer is. Housefull 5 (2025), to give credit where it’s due, had a good plot.
Without the comedy, it could have actually been a good whodunnit. But when a film forgets to tell you that their song Laal Pari might actually be a hat tip to Bloody Mary, its more than a missed opportunity.
I’m Roy, and I’m on a mission to archive the hidden histories of Indian cinema. If you want to see more deep-dives into 80s swashbucklers, forgotten vamps, and the evolution of ‘Desi’ aesthetics, hit the Follow button to join the journey. More nostalgia is coming your way soon.
