Nitesh Tiwari's 'Ramayana' Adaptation Brings Ancient Epic to Global Theaters

Director Nitesh Tiwari's upcoming Hindi feature film "Ramayana" is slated to reach international audiences this fall, with an English-dubbed version scheduled to arrive in American movie theaters in November. The production, which also opens in theaters across the Philippines on November 5, represents the latest high-profile screen adaptation of an ancient South Asian epic tradition that has influenced creative arts across the world for centuries.

Originally composed in Sanskrit between roughly 400 BCE and 400 CE, the "Ramayana," meaning "Journey of Rama," chronicles the life of Rama, an exiled royal prince and an earthly incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu. The central narrative details Rama's arduous quest across the subcontinent to rescue his wife, Sita, after she is kidnapped by the demon monarch Ravana. Over hundreds of years, communities throughout South Asia have transmitted and reimagined the story using diverse artistic forms, including oral narrative poetry, stage dramas, shadow puppetry, folk songs, comic books, and television broadcasts.

The forthcoming film has attracted attention in part due to its official promotional tagline, "Our Truth, Our History." According to Sohini Sarah Pillai, an assistant professor of religion at Kalamazoo College who studies cinematic adaptations of South Asian epics, that slogan implies there is only one historically accurate method to recount the epic. Pillai points out that this phrasing mirrors a prominent Hindu nationalist perspective asserting that the ancient Sanskrit text and traditional retellings are the sole legitimate versions of Rama's story, despite centuries of varied cultural expressions.

The intersection of the epic tradition and political discourse has previously surfaced in major cinematic projects. In Danny Boyle's 2008 Academy Award-winning drama "Slumdog Millionaire," the plot incorporates modern Hindu nationalist views depicting Rama as a literal historical ruler of the ancient city of Ayodhya. The movie references the real-world December 6, 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid, a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya torn down by Hindu nationalists who alleged it stood atop Rama's birthplace. The subsequent violence across South Asia claimed more than 2,000 lives, an event remembered by protagonist Jamal Malik when answering a high-stakes television quiz question regarding depictions of Rama.

Mainstream Western cinema has also incorporated the themes and imagery of the epic in diverse ways. In director Alfonso Cuarón's 1995 film adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel "A Little Princess," the protagonist Sara Crewe recounts the story of Rama and Sita's exile in a forest to navigate her own grief and separation from her father. Media studies scholar Jyotsna Kapur observed that the ancient tale serves as an imaginative emotional bridge uniting father and daughter while they are forced apart.

The epic's loyal deity Hanuman has similarly inspired characters in contemporary Hollywood releases. Director Ryan Coogler featured mentions of Hanuman in the Marvel Studios blockbusters "Black Panther" and "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," where the Jabari tribe leader M'Baku invokes the deity's name—replacing the comic books' original reference to the West African deity Ghekre. Additionally, animator Sanjay Patel explored the character through the lens of an Indian American boy's imagination in the Oscar-nominated 2015 Pixar short "Sanjay's Super Team," while Dev Patel's 2024 film "Monkey Man" drew on Hanuman to explore social justice themes and systemic corruption in India.

The legacy of the ancient epic continues to expand in live performance spaces as well. On stage, alternative interpretations have challenged single-perspective traditions, including "The Sitayana (Or How to Make an Exit)," a play by the late Chicago dramatist Lavina Jadhwani. Produced by CHUANG Stage at the Boston Center for the Arts through October 31, the production reinterprets the classical Sanskrit narrative entirely through Sita's vantage point across various phases of her life, highlighting the enduring breadth of the centuries-old story.