Bengali films for Puja 2026: what opens in cinemas, and what is new on Hoichoi

Every Bengali who grew up in Kolkata remembers one Puja film more clearly than the pandals of that year. The queue outside the hall on Saptami afternoon, the new clothes already a little crushed, the interval rush for the counter. The Puja week has been the big week for Bengali cinema for as long as anyone can remember, and 2026 is no different: four films have been dated around Shashthi. Our pick of them is Srijit Mukherji's Emperor vs Sarat Chandra.

The rumours start long before the Puja, so this list keeps to one rule: a film is here only if its own booking page gives it a Puja date. Dates for films can move up to the last week, and if a line here disagrees with the booking site on the day you read this, trust the booking site.

Which Bengali films open in cinemas this Puja?

One disagreement to know about. Wikipedia's list of Bengali films of 2026 puts The Eken and Emperor vs Sarat Chandra on 16 October, a day after the date BookMyShow gives. We go by the booking site, because that is where your ticket will come from.

Emperor vs Sarat Chandra: the book the British banned

This is the one we would see first. Srijit Mukherji's film, with Abir Chatterjee, Tota Roy Chowdhury and Mimi Chakraborty in the cast, is about Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel Pather Dabi and the colonial government's fight with it. The history is better than most scripts. The novel ran in the journal Bangabani before it came out as a book in 1926. Its first edition of 5,000 copies sold out within a week, and then the British banned it. Sarat Chandra wrote to Tagore about the ban, and Tagore, of all people, took the government's side and called the book seditious. Nearly a century later that exchange still stings.

Wikipedia's page on the film adds that Srijit Mukherji wrote its music himself, his first time as a film's composer. Before you go, the novel itself is in our catalogue as an audio story, read on Mir Afsar Ali's channel, and more of Sarat Chandra is on his author page.

▶4:32:49Play: Pather Dabi

Pather Dabi

Mir Afsar Ali

The whole novel on Goppo Mir-er Thek, four and a half hours long. Start it on Shashthi and you will know Sabyasachi better than the film does by Saptami.

▶ Play hereWatch on YouTube · Mir Afsar Ali

The Eken: Kerala-e Kurukshetra: Eken Babu goes south

Sujan Dasgupta's Eken Babu, the detective who looks like the last man anyone would hire, gets his fourth film after The Eken (2022), Ruddhaswas Rajasthan (2023) and Benaras-e Bibhishika (2025), by Wikipedia's list of Indian film series. Anirban Chakrabarti plays him again, Joydeep Mukherjee directs, and Hoichoi Studios made it. This time the case takes him to Kerala, where an undercover job has come apart. If the Puja crowd at the hall is too much, his stories are just as good in the ear, on our Eken Babu page.

▶1:56:49Play: Manhattan-ey Moonstone

Manhattan-ey Moonstone

Mirchi Bangla

Eken Babu in New York, on Mirchi Bangla's Sunday Suspense: nearly two hours, and the most played Eken Babu story we carry, at 3.2 million YouTube views.

▶ Play hereWatch on YouTube · Mirchi Bangla

Bohurupi: The Golden Daku: the sequel

Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee's follow-up to their 2024 film Bohurupi brings back its characters Bikram and Jhimli. Jisshu Sengupta, Shiboprosad Mukherjee, Koushani Mukherjee and Sohini Sarkar lead the cast, and Anupam Roy is among the composers. Wikipedia's page says it was shot at 96 locations across Murshidabad, Birbhum and Bardhaman, which makes it a Puja film that has travelled further across Bengal than most of its audience will this week.

DeSu7: Dev and Subhashree, and Dev's first film as director

The only one of the four with booking open on 30 September, and no wonder. Wikipedia's page on DeSu7 records that tickets went on sale on 19 January 2026, about nine months before release, which it calls a first for Bengali cinema. It brings Dev and Subhashree Ganguly back together, after six earlier films starting with Challenge in 2009, with Anirban Bhattacharya in the cast. It is also Dev's first film as director: he took over the job, the same page says, from Shoojit Rino Dutta, who had been announced first. BookMyShow credits Dev as director and producer.

If you want the pair on screen before Friday, this is their Puja song from 2009.

4:52

Dhaker Taley

SVF Music

From Paran Jai Jaliya Re (2009), with Dev and Subhashree on screen: Abhijeet, Parinita and Sudipto sing to Jeet Gannguli's music. More in our Durga Puja songs.

▶ Play hereMore in the Pujo mood

What is new on Hoichoi, Netflix and Prime Video?

Hoichoi has a new Bengali series called Debipokkho. It is directed by Suman Das, with Ushasi Ray, Aparajita Adhya, Ananya Sen and Sushmit Mukherjee, Hoichoi dated it 2 October, and its page now lists all eight episodes, rated U/A 16+. Hoichoi's outline makes it a family mystery. Ishani is back at the Sheel family home just as its sacred golden tongue goes missing, suspicion falls on her, and the plot turns on a riddle and not one will but two.

If you came here looking for Bengali films on Netflix or Prime Video for the Puja days: on 30 September neither had announced a Bengali film or series for the Puja week on an official page, and none of the four cinema films above had a streaming date on its booking page.

The Puja itself runs from Shashthi on 16 and 17 October to Dashami on 21 October; our day-by-day guide has the dates and the timings. Our advice is the old one. See the film on Shashthi or Saptami afternoon, when the pandals are hot and the hall is cool, and keep the evenings for the streets.

Just inNew stories from the channelsWhat the Bengali story channels have just put up, played from their own YouTube.See the stories