The actor's retro, scarred and smoking poster rounds off Sanjay Leela Bhansali's three-hero reveal, following looks already out for Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali kept the biggest gun for last. Vicky Kaushal's first look from Love And War is out, and it's the moodiest of the three posters Bhansali Productions has released so far for the film.
The image, shared on Vicky's Instagram and by Bhansali Productions, shows the actor with a cigarette between his fingers and a silver lighter in his right hand. Curly hair, a moustache, and what looks like a scar or a mark on his forehead complete a character that reads darker and rougher than anything we've seen from him in a while. There's a distinct retro texture to the frame, in keeping with the period mounting Bhansali is known for.
This is Vicky's first film with Bhansali, and the poster arrives after Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor's looks were already out in public. Where their posters leaned into a certain grandness that's become Bhansali's signature, Vicky's plays it colder. Just the eyes, the smoke, and not much else given away.
The internet noticed the shift in tone almost immediately. The Free Press Journal reported that fans flooded the comments calling it the strongest of the three, with one user writing that Vicky was "owning this character" and another going as far as to say the poster had "mogged every other poster." A few comments framed it as a deliberate sequencing choice by Bhansali's team, save the most intense look for the final drop. Whether that was the plan or a happy accident of release order, it's done the job of keeping Love And War in conversation days after the first two posters came out.
What none of the three posters have done yet is give away plot. We know a mood, a silhouette, a texture. We don't know who these three people are to each other, what era exactly this is set in beyond the visual cues, or how the title's two words map onto the story. Bhansali has built an entire career on making audiences wait for that information, and going by the response to Vicky's reveal, that patience is being rewarded with engagement rather than fatigue.
Love And War is set for a theatrical release on January 21, 2027. Expect the next drop to come with a bit more, maybe a teaser, maybe a title track, but going by this rollout, don't count on much more than that just yet.
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