Produced by Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Vikas Bahl, and Madhu Mantena, the film stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal, and debutante Sobhita Dhulipala.

It depicts in eight chapters the cat and mouse chase of serial killer Ramanna (Siddiqui) by corrupt cop Raghavan (Kaushal).

Abandoning the period-piece concept, he co-wrote the film with Vasan Bala, setting it in the contemporary time.

Raghavan is in a relationship with Smrutika "Simi" Naidu, but he is an abusive partner: he beats her and has forced her to have three abortions.

Raghavan proves to be a killer himself when, after a trip to visit his father, he murders an African drug dealer.

He retrieves a tyre iron similar to Ramanna's favored murder weapon and smashes Simi's head with it.

The next day Ramanna surrenders to Raghavan and claims a deep connection with him: each man is the missing half of the other.

[4] Bludgeoning his victims, he produced widespread panic until he was captured by the Mumbai police and confessed to 41 murders.

Kashyap modelled the character on Raghubir Yadav, who had portrayed Raman Raghav in Sriram Raghavan's 1991 film.

Kaushal locked himself in the room and isolated himself from phone, internet and newspaper and kept repeating his lines from the scenes.

[20] The visual effects and title sequence for the film were executed by Mumbai-based VFX and animation studio, Plexus.

[23] The film's soundtrack and background score was composed by Ram Sampath, while the lyrics were penned by Varun Grover.

Sona Mohapatra, Nayantara Bhatkal, Siddharth Basrur and Ram Sampath provided vocals for the album's songs.

[33] A user generated song "I am Ramantic" was released online which showed people from Mumbai and other cities, who shot their ten-second videos sporting the Raman Raghav 2.0 sunglasses.

[21] Raman Raghav 2.0 premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, in the Directors' Fortnight section to positive response.

[40][41][42] Before the release, a special screening was held in Mumbai which was attended by actors like Kangana Ranaut, Shweta Tripathi and Abhishek Chaubey.

[47] Saibal Chattejee of NDTV praised the "gripping, visceral genre film", and described the villain as "a cross between No Country for Old Men's Anton Chigurh and Se7en's John Doe".

[48] Writing for The Hindu, Namrata Joshi called Raman Raghav 2.0 a "taut thriller" that "takes you on an entertainment high.

"[49] Anna M. M. Vetticad praised Siddiqui for his "eerie, scary, [and] disgusting" portrayal of the serial killer, and was particularly impressed by his ability to elicit laughs "for the matter-of-fact manner in which he goes about his bloody business".

[53] Contrary to the positive critical reviews, Rajeev Masand felt the film "doesn't bring anything blazingly new or original to the serial killer genre.

"[54] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express wrote that the film was "atmospheric yet hollow" and the viewers are "turned into cringing voyeurs, into reluctant participants, without redemption".

[55] Ananya Bhattacharya of India Today praised the film but felt that Dhulipala's character was the "weak link" as she "doesn't have much to do".

"[57] Maitland McDonagh commented that the film performs a "surprisingly deep dive into lust, murder and violent obsession" and "delivers a couple of truly suspenseful sequences.

"[58] Guy Lodge from Variety mentioned it as a "luridly absorbing serial killer thriller" and felt Siddiqui's performance has an "unblinking intensity".

[21] Wendy Ide from Screen International reviewed the film and called it a "propulsive and bloodthirsty thriller" and an "adrenalised energy which rarely flags."

[63] Kashyap, along with Siddiqui and Bala received the official jury prizes at the Fantastic Film Festival of the University of Málaga.