स्टोलन

Stolen is a 2025 Hindi-language crime thriller directed by Karan Tejpal, released on Amazon Prime Video on June 4, 2025. The film unfolds over a single night in rural India: two urban brothers, Gautam and Raman, arrive at a railway station to attend their mother's wedding reception, but are drawn into a desperate crisis when the infant child of Jhumpa — a tribal daily-wage labourer — is abducted by a woman connected to a trafficking gang. The brothers must navigate the dangerous moral and physical terrain of a night that keeps escalating beyond their control. Starring Abhishek Banerjee, Shubham Vardhan, and Mia Maelzer, the film was originally screened at the Zurich Film Festival in 2023 under the same name and praised internationally before its Indian OTT release. Critics cited its stark realism and Arpad Bondy's atmospheric background score. Hollywood Reporter India called it a 'sharp and perceptive survival thriller.'

Stolen has no standalone song album. The film relies entirely on Arpad Bondy's atmospheric background score, which reviewers described as 'minimal yet effective' and 'never overwhelming, perfectly complementing the film's tension.' No vocal songs were released as part of the film's music.

Stolen is a significant example of the internationally-validated Hindi indie film finding its belated Indian audience through OTT. Its 2023 Zurich Film Festival premiere — followed by a 2025 Amazon Prime Video release — placed it within a small but important cohort of Hindi films that achieve international festival recognition before domestic release. Karan Tejpal's focus on child trafficking, staged entirely over a single night in rural India, makes it a formally rigorous thriller with a serious social conscience. Arpad Bondy's purely atmospheric score, with no commercial songs, reflects an internationally co-produced sensibility that prioritises storytelling over the song-placement economy.

Stolen has built a quiet but genuine critical reputation since its OTT release, with Hollywood Reporter India's 'sharp and perceptive survival thriller' verdict among its most cited reviews. Its legacy lies primarily in demonstrating the viability of a Zurich-to-OTT pipeline for Hindi indie cinema, and in Abhishek Banerjee's growing reputation as one of Hindi cinema's most versatile character actors. The score-only approach marks it as part of a growing segment of serious Hindi films that decline to participate in the commercial song-placement economy.