General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Sky Force (स्काई फोर्स)

Sky Force (स्काई फोर्स) is a 2025 Hindi-language war drama directed by Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Anil Kapur, inspired by a real Indian Air Force operation during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war: the airstrike on Pakistan's Sargodha airbase. It stars Akshay Kumar as Wing Commander K.O. Ahuja and debutant Veer Pahariya as Squadron Leader T. Vijaya, alongside Sara Ali Khan and Nimrat Kaur, and was released in cinemas on 24 January 2025, the Republic Day weekend.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Release	24 January 2025, theatrically in India and several overseas markets¹^•⁴
Directors	Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Anil Kapur (Kapur's directorial debut)¹^•⁵
Historical basis	A retaliatory airstrike on Pakistan's Sargodha airbase during the 1965 Indo-Pak war⁶
Lead cast	Akshay Kumar (K.O. Ahuja), Veer Pahariya (T. Vijaya, "Tabby"), Sara Ali Khan, Nimrat Kaur³
Production	Maddock Films, Jio Studios, and Leo Films; producers Dinesh Vijan, Jyoti Deshpande, and Amar Kaushik⁷^•⁸
Box office	₹1.314 billion (₹131.44 crore) India net; ₹1.689 billion (₹168.88 crore) worldwide gross⁹
Streaming	Prime Video, exclusive global premiere from 21 March 2025 across 240 countries and territories¹⁰

Spoilers

Story and historical basis

The film dramatizes an operation the screenplay calls Sky Force: the 1965 Indian Air Force retaliatory strike that destroyed a fleet of modern American jets housed at Pakistan's Sargodha base.² Its central story follows a pilot on stand-by during the operation who disobeys his leader's direct orders and takes off in a plane that is not airworthy, his flying credited with saving his fellow pilots' lives.²

The two lead characters are modeled on real officers. Akshay Kumar's K.O. Ahuja corresponds to O P Taneja, and Veer Pahariya's T. Vijaya (called Tabby) corresponds to Ajjamada B Devaiah, whom the film depicts going missing in action after a solo engagement and whose fate Ahuja spends years trying to establish.⁶^•¹¹ According to the New Indian Express, Devaiah is the only Indian Air Force officer to have been given the Maha Vir Chakra (India's second-highest wartime military gallantry medal) posthumously.⁶ The frame narrative opens in December 1971, during the war that led to the liberation of Bangladesh, when the interrogation of a captured Pakistani pilot (Sharad Kelkar) yields a clue to the missing pilot's disappearance.¹²^•²

Production

The film was developed at Maddock Films, a production house known for horror comedies, and the New Indian Express described it as the studio's first foray into nationalist cinema.⁶ Abhishek Anil Kapur, a longtime Maddock associate whose career there began with Stree, was brought in as co-director alongside Sandeep Kewlani because of Kewlani's limited directorial experience; the script was narrated to Akshay Kumar on the set of Sarfira, and he agreed to star.⁵ Kewlani said he was drawn to the project because Indian cinema has produced very few films about the Air Force, and that the production involved detailed research to bring large-scale aerial combat sequences to the screen.¹³

The crew included cinematographer Santhana Krishnan Ravichandran, editor A. Sreekar Prasad, and music by Tanishk Bagchi, with songs including "Maaye" (sung by B. Praak), "Yaad Aati Hai," "Tu Hai Toh Main Hoon," and "Rang."¹⁴^•¹⁵

Censorship and release

The British Board of Film Classification classified the film 12A for cinema release on 20 January 2025 after the distributor, Bollywood Films, chose to cut bloody detail in violence scenes; an uncut version would have received a 15. The BBFC notes intense combat scenes with shootings, explosions, and plane crashes, brief verbal references to a "suicide mission," and infrequent strong language.¹ The film opened on 24 January 2025 in India, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Canada, Indonesia, and other markets.⁴

Box office

Commercial performance. Sky Force opened to ₹153 million (₹15.30 crore) in India on day one and reached ₹732 million (₹73.20 crore) over its opening weekend and ₹997 million (₹99.70 crore) in its first week, boosted by the Republic Day holiday. Collections then fell steeply, week two dropped 75 percent, and the film finished with ₹1.314 billion (₹131.44 crore) India net and ₹1.689 billion (₹168.88 crore) worldwide gross, including ₹137 million (₹13.7 crore) overseas. Bollywood Hungama's trade summary rates the performance as average.⁹ The Numbers records about $8.56 million in international gross, with India accounting for $8.24 million of it.¹⁶ Trade coverage during the run also carried a credibility dispute: the film's director denied allegations of "block booking" to inflate first-week numbers, while a Mumbai-based trade analyst claimed the opening gross was inflated from about $6 million to over $9 million.¹⁷

Reception

Critical response was mixed. The Indian Express and NDTV both rated it 2.5 out of 5; Shubhra Gupta argued that the brave pilot T. Vijaya, played by debutant Veer Pahariya, should have led the film but consistently plays second fiddle to Akshay Kumar's character.²^•¹² The Guardian called it a "threadbare air-war flagwaver," praising Kumar's humanist gravitas while criticizing the dogfight visuals as looking like cutscenes from a mid-1990s PlayStation game.¹⁸ India Today was more positive, describing a non-fussy film about emotions and valor that uses the elements of commercial patriotic cinema without overdoing them.¹⁹ On Rotten Tomatoes the film held a Tomatometer score of 77 percent from 9 reviews.⁸

Reviewers repeatedly compared the film with Fighter, the previous year's Republic Day release about Indian fighter pilots; several noted that Sky Force is a period variation on the same theme, mounted on a smaller budget, with Inside Box Office reporting an expected budget of ₹1.25 billion (₹125 crore) to ₹1.5 billion (₹150 crore) against Fighter's roughly ₹2.5 billion (₹250 crore).²^•¹⁸^•²⁰

Veer Pahariya won Best Debut Actor at the International Iconic Awards and Fresh Face of the Year at the Pinkvilla Style Icons Awards in 2025; the film received two wins and six nominations overall.²¹

Home media

Sky Force began streaming on Prime Video in India and across 240 countries and territories from 21 March 2025, as an exclusive global premiere; it is available in 4K with subtitles in multiple languages.¹⁰^•²²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Hindi films of the 2020s › Hindi films of 2025

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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