Four carefree, jaded middle-class bachelors from Calcutta head out for a holiday in the wilderness. Before long, each man undergoes their own journey of self-discovery.

Adapted from Sunil Gangopadhyay’s celebrated 1968 novel, Days and Nights in the Forest is one of director Satyajit Ray’s greatest achievements, a modern search for connection that conjures the timeless resonance of a folktale. Desperate to flee Calcutta’s rat race, four friends drive to Palamu, one of India’s rural “tribal lands,” where they bribe a watchman into letting them stay at a sylvan guesthouse. Despite vowing to get away from it all, the crew soon mixes with the locals, including a woodland family. Filled with some of Ray’s most indelible characterizations and lavish images (shot by longtime cinematographer Soumendu Roy), the film touches on masculine vulnerabilities and Indian class divisions with the graceful complexity of a master at his peak.

Restored in 4K in 2025 by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Film Heritage Foundation in collaboration with Janus Films & The Criterion Collection at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from the original camera and sound negatives provided by Purnima Dutta and the magnetic track preserved by BFI National Archive. Funding provided by Golden Globe Foundation. Special thanks to Wes Anderson and Sandip Ray.

In Bengali with English subtitles