One day while conducting Telephone surveillance in South Block, New Delhi, Major Jai Bakshi (Sidharth Malhotra), an officer in the classified special operations unit DSD (Data Systems Diagnostics), overhears a representative of Indian Arms lobby Lt.Gen Gurinder Singh (Retd) (Kumud Mishra), an ex Army officer, attempting to bribe the Army chief Pratap Malik (Vikram Gokhale), on behalf of a Czech firm, with a USD $2.5 Mn offer. Pratap flatly refuses and rebuffs the offer. This angers Gurinder, who in turn threatens to expose the DSD's existence to the general public. This makes Jai suspect a major scam involving the Indian Army. After 2 months of continuous surveillance, he goes rogue along with his girlfriend Sonia, a cyber-expert (Rakul Preet Singh), and escapes to London. Capt. Maya (Pooja Chopra) informs Colonel Abhay Singh (Manoj Bajpayee), their team leader and Jai's mentor, about Jai's going rogue and his stealing of highly sensitive data from the DSD Office. Abhay activates his intelligence network and launches a manhunt for Jai, eventually learning about Jai's escape along with Sonia. He raids Jai's house but finds nothing. All this while, a special investigating Army Officer Brig. K Srinivas, spies on Abhay's movements and keeps reporting them to Gurinder. Abhay however outsmarts Srinivas and successfully manages to escape, and the DSD shift their office to an undisclosed location. Seeing his plan of capturing Abhay fail, Gurinder contacts an influential journalist and provides her with sensitive information, exposing Army's secrets.

While all this is going on, Gen. Malik personally meets Abhay and informs about the termination of DSD, Foreign involvement in Indian Defence Deals and Lt.Gen Gurinder Singh's involvement with a powerful London based Arms dealer Mukesh Kapoor (Adil Hussain), who's the major culprit behind all this fiasco. Abhay promises to expose the perpetrators to protect the integrity of Indian Army. After the meeting, with Srinivas still tracking him, Abhay heads to the DSD office, where he informs his team that they have been disavowed, with Government denying their existence. Abhay and Maya alert all their sources and order them to keep a low profile, so as to avoid detection. Abhay flies off to London, in pursuit of Jai, while DSD members stay back in India.

In London, Jai calls and threatens Gurinder in renegotiating a deal, revealing that he has bugged Gurinder's house. A frightened Gurinder reluctantly agrees and transfers the money to Jai's account. Abhay arrives in London and with the help of Tariq Bhai (Anupam Kher), a London-based immigrant and a middle-man for Intelligence agents, attempts to locate Jai and Sonia, but fails and instead alerts Jai. A desperate Abhay meets Mukesh Kapoor and informs him about Jai possessing sensitive incriminating data harmful for his business and thus asks him to eliminate Jai, apart from revealing the capture of Gurinder by DSD. However, Abhay informs Sonia about the threat to Jai's life and orders her to lure him to an undisclosed location. Jai's fixed meeting with a few MI-6 officers ends up in a shootout killing two agents. A wounded Jai makes it to the place where Abhay and Sonia are waiting for him. Abhay severely beats Jai and derides him as a traitor. Jai however justifies his actions and calls the older generation responsible for the massive corruption in India. He further questions the legacy that the older generation plans to leave for the youth, thus forcing Abhay to agree with him.

Feeling cheated, Mukesh takes Tariq Bhai hostage and plans to execute him, but stops when Jai informs him that he will surrender all the sensitive information regarding Mukesh Kapoor's deals and requests for a personal meeting. Mukesh, realizing that Abhay still has Gurinder Singh, reluctantly agrees. Jai informs Abhay about a major Army housing scam in Mumbai, involving Gurinder Singh and the Defence Minister. He further tells that the only eyewitness to the entire scam, a watchman named Baburao Shastri (Naseeruddin Shah) is being hidden by Jai in a small hotel in Paharganj, Delhi. Abhay meets Baburao, records his confessions and gives them to the same influential journalist who earlier had met Gurinder Singh. She decides to run Abhay's story, thus deciding to expose the Army's housing scam.

Meanwhile, Brig. Srinivas finally captures all the DSD members and frees Gurinder, but in turn the DSD is absolved of all the crimes and Army's Housing scam gets exposed. Gurinder Singh, overcome with shame and guilt, shoots himself dead.

• Sidharth Malhotra as Major Jai Bakshi
• Manoj Bajpayee as Colonel Abhay Singh
• Rakul Preet Singh as Sonia Gupta
• Pooja Chopra as Captain Maya Semwal
• Adil Hussain as Retd. Colonel Mukesh Kapoor
• Kumud Mishra as Retd. Lt. General Gurinder Singh
• Naseeruddin Shah as Baburao Shastri
• Anupam Kher as Tariq Ali
• Kali Prasad Mukherjee as Bhima
• Patrick Clarke as Roger
• Vikram Gokhale as General Pratap Malik, COAS
• Rajesh Tailang as Brigadier K. Srinivas
• Juhi Babbar as wife of Colonel Abhay Singh
• Nivedita Bhattacharya as News reporter
• Maan Praveen Sirohi as Lt. Col. Aubin Mathew

The film was announced in April 2017. It was shot in Delhi, London, Kashmir, Cairo, Agra and more. Aiyaary is directed by Neeraj Pandey.

The music of the film is composed by Rochak Kohli and Ankit Tiwari while lyrics are penned by Manoj Muntashir. The background score is composed by Sanjoy Chowdhury. The songs featued in the film are sung by Sunidhi Chauhan, Palak Muchhal, Ankit Tiwari, Amit Mishra, Neha Bhasin and Rochak Kohli. The first song of the film, Lae Dooba which is sung by Sunidhi Chauhan was released on 29 December 2018. The second track of the film, Yaad Hai which is sung by Palak Muchhal and Ankit Tiwari was released on 17 January 2018. The third track of the film to be released was Shuru Kar which is sung by Amit Mishra, Neha Bhasin and Rochak Kohli and was released on 25 January 2018. The music album of the film includes 3 tracks and was released on 1 February 2018 at YouTube by Zee Music Company.

The film was originally scheduled to be released on 26 January 2018 but this was moved in order to avoid clash with Padmaavat. The film was then scheduled to be released worldwide on 9 February 2018^[14] but was later postponed to 16 February 2018.^[15]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rotten score of 40% based on 5 reviews with an average rating of 4.8/10.^[16] based on 14 reviews.

Alaka Sahani of Indian Express gave the film a rating of 2.5 stars out of 5 and said that "Even though the movie puts together an impressive ensemble cast comprising some of our best actors, it takes a lot of time to establish their characters. A veteran in Neeraj Pandey movies, Manoj Bajpayee carries the film on his shoulders."^[17] Bollywood Hungama gave the film a rating of 2 stars out of 5 and wrote "On the whole, AIYAARY misses the mark and is a huge letdown on the account of its flawed script and the lengthy runtime. At the box office, it will be a disappointing fare."^[18] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV criticized the film saying that, "Aiyaary, comatose and convoluted, is like a patient who's been wheeled in on a stretcher and declared dead on arrival. It never manages to get up on its feet and break into a saunter, let alone a sprint." and gave the film a rating of 1.5 stars out of 5.^[19] Rohit Vats of Hindustan Times gave the film a rating of 1 star out of 5 and said that, "Aiyaary is ske