Student Of The Year: After Dark has released its official trailer. The trailer reveals a dead student at St Teresa named Aayesha Malik, played by Shanaya Kapoor. But her death is only the beginning of the mystery.
Shanaya Kapoor plays a double role in the series as Aayesha’s identical twin, Aditi. She enters the school to investigate what happened to her sister.
Released on October 27, the Student Of The Year After The Dark trailer takes the franchise away from its familiar campus romance and into the murder-mystery genre.
Also, unlike the previous formats, this time it is a series. Student Of The Year: After Dark is directed by Reema Maya and produced by Dharmatic Entertainment.
Student Of The Year: After Dark is scheduled to premiere on JioHotstar on November 13, 2026. Here is what the trailer reveals about Aayesha’s death, Aditi’s mission and the darker version of St Teresa’s.
Student Of The Year After Dark Trailer Explained: What Happens In St Teresa’s?
Student Of The Year: After Dark reveals Shanaya Kapoor playing double roles, Aayesha and Aditi. Aayesha is introduced as St Teresa’s queen bee, but is mysteriously found dead.
The investigating officers have declared the death an accident, but Aditi refuses to accept it. Subsequently, she enrols herself in the school to find out what really happened.
Aditi eventually enters the competitive Student Of The Year contest and discovers that her sister’s closest friends circle was in fact also her fiercest competitors.
This time, the contestant is not normal but deadly, where winning comes at a cost.
About Student Of The Year: After Dark
The original Student Of The Year (2012), directed by Karan Johar, revolved around friendship, romance and the competition between students at an elite institution. Its sequel, Student Of The Year 2 (2019), continued the franchise's campus-drama format.
But After Dark is set in a different genre. The web series retains St Teresa’s premise but changes the stakes. Instead of competing solely for recognition, the students now inhabit a story in which ambition, suspicion and a mysterious death intersect.
While sharing the trailer on social media, Karan Johar wrote, “A whole new era dawns upon St. Teresa Heritage School and the closer you get to the truth, the deadlier it gets.”
Talking about the series, Shanaya said, “While the two sisters may look alike, they couldn’t be more different in their personalities and the choices they make.”
She further added, “What appealed to me the most about Student of the Year: After Dark is how it takes a much-loved franchise into an unexpected and new territory, where the stakes go far beyond competition and winning a title. It’s this fresh and intriguing take on a familiar world that made the experience so exciting for me.”
Speaking about the latest series, director Reema Maya described Student Of The Year After Dark as ‘a popular franchise reimagined for current times’.
She added, “I wanted to explore the relentless competition that our youth find themselves grappling with. What happens when the need to succeed becomes all-consuming?”
“Our characters are young, ambitious, flawed and certainly not above suspicion. It is a murder mystery competition series, where the competition is part of the investigation. I had a lot of fun taking commercial tropes of characters and dissecting their psyche.”, Reema said.
Student Of The Year: After Dark Release Date, Cast And OTT Platform
Student Of The Year: After Dark stars Shanaya Kapoor in the lead. The original franchise began with Karan Johar's 2012 film, which introduced Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra.
| Feature | Details |
| Title | Student of the Year: After Dark |
| Format | Web Series (OTT) |
| Franchise | Spin-off of Student of the Year franchise |
| Genre | Teen Thriller / Mystery / Dark Drama |
| Director | Reema Maya |
| Producers | Karan Johar, Adar Poonawalla, Apoorva Mehta |
| Production Banner | Dharmatic Entertainment / Dharma Productions |
| Lead Cast | Shanaya Kapoor, Divik Sharma, Manya Grover |
| Streaming Platform | JioHotstar |
| Release Date | November 13, 2026 |
| Language | Hindi |
With anticipation rising around the deadly mystery, it will be exhilarating to see whether Aditi will be able to recognise what happened to Aayesha or put her in danger.