Stree 2

StarringCinematographyJishnu BhattacharjeeEdited byHemanti SarkarMusic byDistributed by149 minutes^[1]CountryIndiaLanguageHindiBudget₹50 crore^[2]Box officeest. ₹374.49 crore^[3]

Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank (transl. Woman 2: Terror of the Headless) is a 2024 Hindi-language comedy horror film directed by Amar Kaushik, written by Niren Bhatt, and produced jointly by Maddock Films and Jio Studios. It is the fifth installment in the Maddock Supernatural Universe and is a sequel to Stree (2018). The film stars Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Banerjee and Aparshakti Khurana.

Kaushik expressed interest in a sequel to Stree as early as October 2018, and Rao later confirmed that development was underway in February 2022, albeit without original writers and producers Raj & DK, who fell out with producer Dinesh Vijan over the rights to the franchise, leading to Bhatt taking over as writer. Vijan and Jyoti Deshpande officially announced the sequel in April 2023. Principal photography commenced the following July and was predominantly completed in Chanderi and Bihar before wrapping by mid‐2024. The film has music composed by Sachin–Jigar, score composed by Justin Varghese, cinematography handled by Jishnu Bhattacharjee and editing by Hemanti Sarkar.

Stree 2 was theatrically released worldwide on 15 August 2024 and received positive reviews from critics. The film has grossed about ₹375 crore at the box office, emerging as the second highest-grossing Indian film of 2024 and the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2024.^[3][4]

The film starts with the ending scene of the previous one, with Stree about to enter Chanderi once again, a year later, when she sees a statue of herself at the town entrance with the phrase 'O Stree, protect us'. Seeing this, she turns back and leaves. But once she does this, far away in the woods the ground explodes into lava and an unknown creature appears.

Sometime later, a random girl steps out at night for a smoke and chat on her phone when she sees a dark figure standing afar. A mysterious round item rolls over to her, which when she picks up to inspect, turns out to be a horrifying disfigured screaming head, wrapping its long hair around her arms and face. The horrified girl is then dragged into a hellish portal and disappears.

A few more years later, Vicky, the town's famous ladies tailor, is often dreaming about the Girl With No Name (credited as "She"), his love interest, returning to him, while his friend Bittu now has a girlfriend named Chitti. During the final days of Maha pooja, Rudra, the librarian, receives a letter hoping it to be from his girlfriend Shama, but instead it is anonymous, with the missing pages of the Chanderi Puran inside and a cryptic message saying "He will come", leaving him confused and worried. He tries talking about it with Vicky, but he ignores it, assuming the danger to be behind them now. But that night, the same monstrous head targets Chitti. Vicky and Bittu, who are outside her house hear her screams. They, her family and more people rush to help, but are too late, as she has already been dragged out from her room with the wall broken. A beggar, being an eye witness, tells them about a headless figure taking her away but they don't believe him. Vicky then follows another figure leading him to Stree's lair. That person turns out to be She, who Vicky excitedly reunites with. She tells him about the culprit behind Chitti's and many more women's abduction, a monster named "Sarkata" (the headless one) who was also Stree's murderer which turned her into a witch, and is now able to target and abduct women now that she has left.

Vicky and Bittu discuss this with Rudra. He reads from the loose pages of the Chanderi Puran, telling them about Sarkata's background. The monster is the ghost of a man named Chandrabhan, who used to be the town's head. He was an alcoholic, misogynistic and a debauched man who believed in women only being good enough for serving men. He and the other jealous and cruel men couldn't bear to see Stree, the exceptionally beautiful courtesan, happily marrying her lover. Out of spite, they first beheaded her husband and then burnt her alive in front of her crying little daughter. After Stree became a vengeful witch, she took her revenge on these men by beheading them too and then burying them. The trio realize that the Sarkata is now targeting those women who live a modern lifestyle, have a progressive mindset and being given equal importance as men.

Vicky decides to seek Stree's help, but to bring her back, they meet their friend Jana in Delhi, whose mother had deleted and blocked everyone's contacts from his phone, in order for him to prepare for the IAS exam. They also accidentally let his cousin brother Bhaskar aka Bhediya out, terrifying both of them. They bring him back to Chanderi under the pretense of performing in an act for Rudra's shows, but soon they nervously tell him the truth and ask for his help to bring Stree back, since he was once under her control and might still have it in him to contact her. Reluctantly he and the others go back to her lair to look for her, but they see the Sarkata lurking there instead. Jana is suddenly pulled into the darkness. The others find him pinned to a corner on the wall. They pull him down and, to their horror, discover him to be dead. But a few minutes later, he wakes up, to everyone's huge relief, and they rush off. While they are riding off on their bikes, the head follows and attacks Jana from behind, but he manages to light it on fire and they escape.

They arrive at the empty fair, where they hide together. The Sarkata, being there, is about to attack them when She suddenly appears and fights him off with her braid. But the monster easily fights her back and destroys Stree's statue, standing on top of the debris and, in a way, establishing his terror in the town.

Many women now ask Vicky to help them again and hail him as their protector. Although Vicky is very scared and reluctant to fight this terrifying monster, his friends finally manage to convince him. Also, Jana explains to them that he saw Sarkata's lair while he was unconscious and saw all the women held captive there. They devise a plan to attack him by driving a knife through his chest. For this, Rudra lures him to come by hosting a dance performance in which his girlfriend Shama is the main dancer. Meanwhile, inside Stree's lair, She tries to open the portal to the Sarkata's lair in order to save the women being held captive there, but with no success.

Back at the event, when the monster arrives, Vicky steps forward with the knife and is about to stab him in the chest but the Sarkata takes out his head from behind his back, which shoots a blinding light towards Vicky and the others. While Vicky's vision is temporarily blurred by it, it casts a spell on the rest, including Bittu, who now obey the monster. They step aside and let him take Shama away too.

All the town's men, now under Sarkata's control, start hailing him, also suppressing and dominating women and even forbidding little girls to receive education. Thinking hard, Vicky, Jana and Rudra, the only unaffected men, track down the person who sent the missing pages of the Chanderi Puran, a delusional man in a mental asylum, who also happens to be a descendant of the Sarkata. He tells them about a way to stop him in his lair, which can only be entered by a person who is neither a man nor a woman and that he will be wanting a woman's sacrifice. They need to do it by the last day of Maha Pooja or else every woman held captive will be sacrificed.

With a new plan in mind, She, along with the others arrive at Stree's lair. Using her powers, she merges her body with Vicky's, and they enter Sarkata's lair. Once there, they separate, and see all the women held captive under a tree. She tells Vicky to go and save them, also saying that she is going to be the sacrifice. Vicky is horrified and instantly protests, but the girl manages to convince him. In despair, he goes over to the other women, while the monstrous head starts sucking the life out of She. But Vicky sees that in the process, all the other women's lives are being sucked out as well. He immediately rushes to save her and cuts the head with his knife in two halves. But they see that every detached part is regenerating into a new head. Facing difficulty in dealing with all of them, Bhaskar, Jana's cousin brother arrives, shapeshifts into a werewolf, and fights off the heads. They merge into the monstrous body with finally Sarkata attaching his actual head on top. Bhaskar pounces on him but is overpowered. She tells Vicky to pull out a magical knife stuck in a rock and use it to kill Sarkata, as it was the same knife used by Stree herself to behead him the first time, but Vicky is unable to pull it out. The monster pins the woman to a wall, strangling her, and pulls out her braid. In desperation, She cries for her mother.

The woman arrives, revealing to be Stree herself, who viciously fights the monster. But they are unable to beat the other as both entities are equally powerful. Vicky finally manages to pull out the knife and throws it towards Stree, who uses it once again to chop off his head. She then drags his body towards the lava flowing underground, burning it and the chopped head. She then rushes to attack She and Vicky but stops, finally recognising her daughter and looking at her lovingly, who tells her to go now. Stree then disappears into the smoke.

Jana, who could see everything happening inside the lair, had kept Rudra and Bittu in the loop. Bittu and all the other men are now cured. All the women held captive now step out of Stree's lair. Vicky and his friends are rewarded again for their bravery.

When Vicky asks She why Stree tried to kill her previously, she explains that her mother only remembered her as a child, since it was the way she last saw her before being murdered. She also confirms his friends' suspicion that she is indeed a witch, and now she has to go. Vicky pleads with her again to stay, but she sadly refuses, although saying that she values their relationship and also whispering her name in Vicky's ear, which initially sounds weird to him, but then compliments it. She then disappears in front of him.

Bhaskar, now in his human form, meets Jana in the woods again and receives clothes from him, including underwear from a brand named "Munni". Also, he requests Jana to set him up with She, who refuses, telling him She is his friend's girlfriend, but Bhaskar pleads with him.

In a mid credits scene, it is shown that a mysterious pot arrives at the mental institution. It rolls over to Sarkata's descendant, who when picks it up and opens it, sees lava inside. A flaming smoke comes out of it and gets inhaled by the man, making him possessed by the monster.

• Rajkummar Rao as Vicky
• Shraddha Kapoor as She, the nameless pantheism
• Pankaj Tripathi as Rudra
• Abhishek Banerjee as Jana, Vicky's friend
• Aparshakti Khurana as Bittu, Vicky’s friend
• Atul Srivastava as Vicky's father
• Mushtaq Khan as MLA
• Sunita Rajwar as Jana's mother
• Anya Singh as Chitti
• Arvind Bilgaiyan as Jana's father
• Bhoomi Rajgor as Stree
• Sunil Kumar as Sarkata
• Aakash Dabhade as Narendra, Jana's friend
• Simran Sharma as Mamata, Narendra's wife
• Ajay Pal as postman
• Mustaqueem Khan as Durga
• Badriprasad Chavan as Lokesh
• Vipasha Arvind as Anju Bhabhi
• Tamannaah Bhatia as Shama (special appearance)^[5]
• Varun Dhawan as Bhaskar / Bhediya, reprises his role from Bhediya (special appearance)^[6]
• Akshay Kumar as Sarkata's descendant (special appearance)^[7]
• Amar Kaushik (cameo in the song "Aaj Ki Raat")^[5]

In October 2018, director Amar Kaushik announced his plans for a sequel to the Stree.^[8] In February 2022, actor Rajkummar Rao confirmed the sequel's development.^[9] In March 2023, the sequel entered the pre-production stage, with filming scheduled to commence in July 2023.^[10][11] In April 2023, the makers announced that the film would release on 30 August 2024.^[12] The cast included Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Banerjee and Aparshakti Khurana, reprising their roles from the previous film.^[13]

Principal photography commenced on 10 July 2023,^[14] with the initial shoot held in Chanderi.^[15] Most of the main cast was present barring Pankaj Tripathi who joined the sets after completing his work on Main Atal Hoon.^[16][17] The second schedule began in the same place in November 2023.^[18] In December, a dance number featuring Tamannaah Bhatia alongside Rao, Tripathi, Khurrana, and Banerjee, along with the director, was filmed in Bihar and choreographed by Vijay Ganguly.^[19][5] According to him, it was shot under harsh weather conditions as Kaushik wanted to capture a realistic setting, as the following scene takes place in a live location.^[20] Varun Dhawan joined the set in February 2024 to shoot his special appearance, reprising his role from the film Bhediya.^[6]

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) did not mandate any visual cuts for Stree 2. However, the board requested two audio modifications: the removal of a celebrity's name and the muting of a national monument's name. After these changes, the film was granted a U/A rating and has a runtime of 149 minutes.^[1]

Stree 2
Soundtrack album by Sachin–Jigar
Released	10 August 2024
Studio	White Noise Collectives
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	14:40
Language	Hindi
Label	Saregama
Producer	Sachin–Jigar, Abhishek Singh
Sachin–Jigar chronology
Munjya (2024) Stree 2 (2024)
Official audio
Stree 2 (Audio Jukebox) on YouTube

The film's music was composed by Sachin–Jigar, with lyrics written by Amitabh Bhattacharya, and the background score by Justin Varghese. The first single titled "Aaj Ki Raat" was released on 24 July 2024.^[21] The second single titled "Aayi Nai" was released on 1 August 2024.^[22] The third single titled "Tumhare Hi Rahenge Hum" was released on 6 August 2024.^[23] The fourth single titled "Khoobsurat" was released on 9 August 2024.^[24] The entire album featuring 4 tracks was released on 10 August 2024.^[25]

The teaser for Stree 2 premiered in theatres during the end credits of Munjya on 14 June, and was later released on social media on 25 June 2024.^[26][27] The trailer of the film was released on 18 July 2024 and received over 10 crore views across platforms within 24 hours.^[28]

Stree 2 was initially scheduled for a worldwide theatrical release on 30 August 2024 but was later rescheduled to premiere on Independence Day 2024. The day before its release, nearly 3,000 paid preview night shows were held.^[29][30]

The film will premiere on Amazon Prime following its theatrical run.^[31]

Stree 2 received positive reviews from critics.^[32] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 67% of 12 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.3/10.^[33] A critic for Bollywood Hungama rated the film 4.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, "Stree 2 marks the birth of a successful franchise and is laced with humour and horror in ample doses."^[34] Simran Khan of Times Now awarded the film 4 out of 5 stars, describing it as a “well-packaged entertainer.” She commended Rao’s standout performance and praised the strong supporting cast, including Kapoor and Tripathi. While she noted a few flaws, such as a predictable climax, she emphasized that the film effectively balances horror and comedy, making it an entertaining watch that will appeal to fans of the genre.^[35] Abhishek Srivastava of The Times of India also rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, calling it “a headless wonder that’s got humour in spades.” He highlighted the film’s clever script, which builds on the charm of its predecessor by introducing a male villain, Sarkata, who targets modern women. Although the second half suffers from pacing issues and some underwhelming character moments, Srivastava found that the film ultimately delivers an entertaining experience in the horror-comedy genre.^[36]

Tushar Joshi of India Today rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars, noting that “Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor’s multiverse of madness is entertaining.” He praised the film’s humorous and thrilling continuation of the franchise, emphasizing its clever script and improved visual effects. However, Joshi pointed out that the film struggles with pacing and coherence in its multiverse crossover, though it shines due to strong performances, particularly from Rao and a surprising cameo by Akshay Kumar.^[37] Rishabh Suri of the Hindustan Times praised the sequel for its improvement from the predecessor, commenting that “Rajkummar Rao leads a sequel that’s better than the original; Abhishek Banerjee is the highlight.” Suri noted that the film skillfully blends humor with commentary on societal issues, particularly regarding women grappling with patriarchal constraints. He highlighted sharp dialogue and standout performances, especially from Rao and Banerjee, while also praising Bhatia’s notable entry.^[38] Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com rated 3/5 stars and notes "Original's goodwill, natural bonhomie amongst the actors and wild card entries, Stree 2's spirited return sure has its high points."^[39]

Shilajit Mitra of The Hindu provided a more mixed review, remarking that “Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, and gang deliver the laughs, but not much else.” He noted that while the film retains the charm of its predecessor, it feels like a factory-made sequel, losing some of the original’s nuanced commentary on patriarchy amidst a convoluted plot. Although Rao’s performance as Vicky is delightful, Mitra critiqued the film’s over-reliance on franchise complexity, which he felt diminished the fresh edge that made the first instalment resonate.^[40]

Pratiksha Mishra of The Quint criticized the film’s visual effects, arguing that they make the antagonist, Sarkata, appear less menacing and more cartoonish. Mishra stated that this undermines the intended horror and seriousness of the character’s toxic masculinity, diminishing the film’s overall scare factor compared to the original, despite the sequel’s attempt to heighten the horror by changing the antagonist’s gender.^[41] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV India offered a similar perspective, giving the film 2.5 out of 5 stars. He remarked that “Shraddha Kapoor’s film is bemusing rather than petrifying,” noting that the film attempts to build on the success of its predecessor with a mix of comedy and supernatural elements but ultimately falls short due to its repetitive plot and lack of genuine scares. Chatterjee acknowledged the commendable performances but criticized the film’s reliance on predictable humor and outdated portrayals, which he felt left the film feeling stale despite moments of creativity.^[42]

Stree 2 grossed ₹9.40 crore from paid previews in select theatres the day before its release, breaking the previous record held by Chennai Express. Released alongside Vedaa and Khel Khel Mein on Independence day, the film went on to gross ₹64.80 crore, marking the second-highest opening day for a Hindi film, behind only Jawan (2023).^[43][44] It became the highest opening day of Rao’s career and the second-highest of Kapoor's only behind Saaho (2019).^[45]

As of 20 August 2024, the film grossed ₹317.83 crore in India and ₹56.66 crore internationally, for a total worldwide gross of ₹374.49 crore.^[3]

• Stree 2 at IMDb
• Stree 2 at Bollywood Hungama