Ajay finds himself and his image in jeopardy when he slaps his student, Atul Raghuvanshi, in frustration over a doubt regarding World War II.

Out of despair of wanting to escape the wrath of the MLA, Ajay decides to visit places across Europe he deems were important to World War II (inc. Anne Frank's house and Auschwitz).

[4] Filming began in April 2022, and was shot in Mumbai, Kanpur, Lucknow, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Kraków, Warsaw, Auschwitz (present-day Oświęcim) and in parts of Poland.

[11] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 1.5 out of 5, writing, "Varun Dhawan-Janhvi Kapoor-starrer promises a lot, but keeps faltering, never quite knowing what to make of a wholly harebrained flourish in the plot.

"[13] Amongst positive reviews, Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave the film 3 out of 5, writing, "Director Nitesh Tiwari has a knack for creating intriguing characters and scenarios that feel fresh yet familiar at the same time.

[a] Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Jewish human rights organisation Simon Wiesenthal Center asked Amazon to “stop monetising” Bawaal with immediate effect and called the film a “banal trivialisation of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”[21][22] On 28 July 2023, Embassy of Israel, New Delhi tweeted that "The Israeli embassy is disturbed by the trivialization of the significance of the Holocaust in the recent movie 'Bawaal'.