A remake of Vanga's own Telugu film Arjun Reddy (2017), it stars Shahid Kapoor in the title role as a doctor who spirals into self-destruction when his girlfriend, played by Kiara Advani, marries someone else.

Adil Hussain, Nikita Dutta, Arjan Bajwa, Suresh Oberoi, Dolly Minhas, Suparna Marwah, Anurag Arora, Soham Majumdar, Kunal Thakur, Anusha Sampath, Amit Sharma and Kamini Kaushal feature in supporting roles.

After having a brawl with the members of the opposing team in an inter-college football match; Kabir is told to either apologise or leave, but he chooses to stay upon catching sight of a new student, Preeti Sikka.

Initially timid, she adjusts to his overbearing attitude and eventually reciprocates his feelings, developing a romantic and physical relationship with him.

Preeti is later unable to reach him in time; feeling abandoned, Kabir injects himself with excessive morphine and remains unconscious for the next two days.

Upon gaining consciousness, he learns that Preeti is being forced into an arranged marriage and gatecrashes the wedding party; Harpal has him beaten and arrested.

However, producers Murad Khetani and Ashwin Varde of Cine1 Studios, who acquired the remake rights for Hindi, wanted Arjun Kapoor to play the male lead.

[10] Vanga was confident that the remake would be even more hard-hitting than the original: "When I made Arjun Reddy, I wasn't sure where to draw the line in terms of representation of certain things.

Instead of caste conflict as in Arjun Reddy, the heroine's father takes offence to Kabir's smoking and not being a turban-wearing Sikh.

"[12] Vanga explained his reasons for choosing this as the film's title: "When we started work on the Hindi script, it was a very exciting journey.

[15] Tara Sutaria was then announced,[16] but left when a delay in the production of her debut film Student of the Year 2 (2019) caused scheduling conflicts.

[10][23] The makers considered beginning the shoot in August, but it was delayed to September as Vanga wanted Kapoor to grow his beard more for the role.

"[26] He went through substantial workouts to portray Kabir in two time periods; to achieve the character's "college boy" look, he shed 14 kilos of weight, and for the "puffy, groggy alcoholic" look, he worked out in a way that he would look "bigger but not muscular".

[37] The film received an 'A' (adults only) certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) with the CBFC asking the makers to modify a scene where a character is seen snorting drugs, and also asked for insertion of static warning messages against drug abuse in all such scenes.

[38] The film received mixed reviews, with criticism directed at it for allegedly glamorising misogyny and toxic masculinity.

Through his protagonist, Sandeep bets all his cards on his leading man, making sure you either love him or hate him, but you can't ignore him.

"[41] Trade analyst and critic Taran Adarsh concurred with Kotecha on the film being an unconventional story and rated it three and half stars out of five.

[42] Anna M. M. Vetticad of Firstpost found the film "insidious" in its writing of the protagonist and wrote, "Kabir Singh and its Telugu forebear Arjun Reddy must rank among the most disturbing examples of the obsessive stalker hero being glamourised by Indian cinema."

Rating the film 1 out of 5 stars, she further elaborated that "it is not the depiction of reality that is objectionable here, it is precisely because violent, destructive misogynists do exist and women for centuries have suffered at their hands that it is deeply troubling when a film portrays such a person as cool, funny, and, as Kapoor puts it, a man with 'a good heart' who 'loves purely' and 'wears his emotions on his sleeve'.

"[44] Priyanka Sinha Jha of News18, praising Kapoor's performance, Vanga's story and direction, rated the film with three and a half stars out of five.

In the end, She says, "Reddy despite a brooding despairing protagonist takes things many notches higher and makes it one helluva trippy ride.

"[46] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express giving the film one-and-a-half stars out of five, opined, "Kabir Singh (protagonist) is all flourish, mostly surface.

"[48] Kunal Guha of Mumbai Mirror rated the film two-and-a-half stars out of five, feeling that trimming the script by forty minutes would have helped.

[49] Sandipan Sharma, writing for The Federal, praised and defended the film, saying, "filmmakers should have the right to explore the mind of a flawed person."

He slammed critics for accusing the film of "glorifying misogyny, portraying toxic masculinity, obsessive love, celebrating alcoholism, etc."

"[50] Arnab Banerjee of Deccan Chronicle also rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars, criticising it for misogyny but praising the performances of the supporting cast members including Majumdar, Bajwa, Dutta and Oberoi.