Karan Johar says 'Animal' is the best for him in 2023; and it took a while for him to come to this statement

2023 capped off with a mega clash in the form of Dunki vs Salaar, but more than these two films, if there was one film that made the maximum noise in all possible ways, it was Animal. The Ranbir Kapoor and Rashmika Mandanna-led film did not just earn an unprecedented amount of money and became one of the highest-grossers of 2023 but, as any Sandeep Reddy Vanga film does, sparked conversations and controversies in all facets.

And while everyone has their opinion about the film, filmmaker Karan Johar also has a rather strong opinion on the same. Making a rather bold statement, Jhar went on to talk about it in an interview as he revealed thataccording to him, Animal is the best action-thriller film of 2023. While talking to Galatta Plus, the filmmaker said that when he expressed his love for Animal, people came up to him and said, ‘You made Rocky aur Rani, that’s the vaccination for a film like Animal. It’s the opposite extreme’.

Responding to them, Johar said, “I can’t disagree with you more because I think Animal to me is my best film of the year. It took me a while to reach this statement and a lot of courage because when you’re around people, you fear judgment,” he said, adding that he also liked Kabir Singh. Even at that time, he didn’t express his love for the movie without worrying what others would think about him.

He also gave reasoning for specifically liking the film as he said, “I’m just going to say it that I loved Animal for its front footed absolutely conviction-based narrative, storytelling, breaking grammar, breaking myths, breaking everything that you conform to in mainstream cinema. Suddenly, you have an interval block where the hero is getting bashed up, and people are singing a song. I’m like, ‘Where have you seen a sequence like this? It’s genius.’”

That wasn't it. Johar mentioned that the locking horns between Bobby Deol and Ranbir Kapoor in the near-climax got him teary-eyed. 

“The end when the two men are going for each other, and they play that song, I had tears in my eyes and there was only blood. So, I was like something is wrong with me, something is wrong with him (Sandeep Reddy Vanga), but something put together is very right about the film,” he said, adding that it’s not the work of an average thinking mind. “This is the mind of somebody who is so distinct and so individualistic that I was so blown away,” he added.

Calling the success of the movie ‘game changing’, Johar said, “I saw the film twice. First, to see it as an audience, and second, to study it. I think the success of Animal and the acceptance and the film itself is game-changing.”

Sharing why he thinks this way, the filmmaker opined that it’s going to bring in a tone and syntax that doesn’t exist. “What I love about Sandeep in Kabir Singh and Arjun Reddy is that he has a popular song, he plays it and stops it whenever he wants to. He is telling his story with conviction, and that’s what I believe I also want to have which I had while making Rocky aur Rani,” he concluded.

Animal grossed Rs 850 crores at the box office nd with over 200 minutes of runtime, it is one of the and possible the longest commercial potboiler films ever to be made.