Cast: Revathi, Simran, Nandita Das, Nandish Singh Sandhu, Umang Bhadana, Anupriya Caroli, Atiya Tara Nayak and Zaina Ali
(2.5/5)In times when dissent has a negative connotation and JNU is projected as the template for institutionalised felony, ‘Ziddi Girls’, with themes like freedom of expression and the power of collective resistance at its core, comes across as bold and...
Cast: Bobby Deol, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Aaditi Pohankar and Darshan Kumar
(2.5/5)Ever since ‘Aashram’ dropped in 2020, both the director, Prakash Jha, and Bobby Deol, who plays the devious Baba Nirala, captured our imagination. Indeed, the perils of a successful show are that it often gets extended into many seasons, elongated...
Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Vineet Kumar Singh, Shashank Arora, Anuj Singh Duhan and Riddhi Kumar
(3.5/5)Nothing is more heartwarming than aspirational stories of underdogs. Only, Reema Kagti’s cinematic recreation of small-town filmmaker Nasir Shaikh’s life is more than just a tale of a man dreaming the unthinkable, and realising it. As she takes us to...
It starts with someone calling 911 to report a case of domestic violence. The caller says he saw a man in a van slapping a woman. The place is Moab, Utah, and the date is August 12, 2021. What follows...
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Esther-Rose McGregor, Sophie Wilde, Vaughan Reilly, Victor Slezak and Leslie Silva
(3.5/5)A dark thriller about uncontrollable desire, ‘Babygirl’ follows a sexually repressed CEO who finds release through a torrid affair with an intern. Director Halina Reijn’s second English-language feature, after 2022’s ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’, follows the erotic-thriller format but it is...
Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar, Rakul Preet Singh, Kanwaljeet Singh, Shakti Kapoor, Dino Morea, Aditya Seal and Tiku Talsania
(2.5/5)A grieving Ankur Chadha (Arjun Kapoor) is haunted by the memories of his rocky marriage to Prabhleen Dhillon (Bhumi Pednekar) and the bitter divorce. When his friend Bunty’s bachelor party is not able to lift his mood, he heads to...
Cast: Saqib Saleem, Rahul Bhat, Rajesh Tailang, Danish Husain, Saba Azad and Sai Tamhankar
(3/5)The fine line between journalism and sensationalism is fast becoming wafer-thin. Even those not privy to the world of journalism are aware of the falsehoods the media propagates in search of truth. So, what can the showrunner of ‘Crime Beat’,...
Marco SonyLIV ‘Marco’ is a thriller that tests the limits of one man’s resilience, honour and love for his family. It explores violence, sparking thought-provoking discussions. Its technical brilliance shines through stylish cinematography, masterful slow-motion and sharp editing. The Witcher:...
The 23-minute short American-Hindi film ‘Anuja’is a tale of resilience, sisterhood and sacrifice. A gifted nine-year-old Anuja (Sajda Pathan), who works in a garment factory with her elder sister Palak (Ananya Shanbhag), gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study in a...
Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Harrison Ford, Shira Haas, Xosha Roquemore, Carl Lumbly, Giancarlo Esposito and Tim Blake Nelson
(2.5/5)Sam (Anthony Mackie), the new Captain America, meets with newly elected US President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford), and finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must unravel the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true...
Cast: Michele Laroque, Julien Frison, Rossy de Palma, Margot Bancilhon, Clara Joly and Esteban Ocon
(2.5/5)A sweet but an incredibly boring man is left at the altar by his fancy-free fiancee. This lovelorn man had taken a loan for the honeymoon to Mauritius. Since that’s non-refundable, the mother wants to tag along the grieving son...
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Rashmika Mandanna, Akshaye Khanna, Ashutosh Rana, Divya Dutta, Vineet Kumar Singh, Diana Penty, Santosh Juvekar, Neil Bhoopalam and Pradeep Rawat
(2.5/5)For the uninitiated, the glory of the Maratha kingdom ends with the great warrior Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. That his son, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, was an equally valiant, fearless and fierce ruler is a fact we are not fully privy to....
Anuja Netflix The Oscar-nominated 22-minute short film by philosopher-turned-filmmaker Adam J Graves is the compelling story of a brilliant nine-year-old girl working in a sweatshop. She faces a life-changing opportunity to attend school at the cost of making a tough...
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, Lucian Msamati, Carlos Diehz, Sergio Castellitto and Brían F O’Byrne
(3.5/5)This papal drama is a provocative and mildly funny take on the process involved in the appointment of a Pope. A Pope is appointed for life as head of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. His words are held as...
Cast: Ritik Ghanshani, Rajesh Tailang, Ayesha Kaduskar, Deepika Amin and Kanwaljit Singh
(3/5)Pandemic as a backdrop, ‘Bada Naam Karenge’ brings back the Rajshri magic, this time on OTT. With Sooraj Barjatya at the helm of affairs, it’s a sweet love story that charts the coming together of two families. The nine-episode series...
A familiar kitchen katha! Women chop, cook, serve and wait on the table to get their report cards. Men shout instructions — chutney should be hand-ground and not mixie-made, roti should be served straight from the tawa, biryani cooked in...
‘The child is father of the man…’ Whatever William Wordsworth may have meant by that poetic expression, sons and fathers are as inextricably linked as a mother’s umbilical connection binds her to her children. Yet, fathers and sons are always...
Pushpa 2 Netflix Nail-biting drama, action, romance, catchy songs and an icon called Pushpa Raj have just reached the shores of Netflix. ‘Pushpa 2’, the blockbuster sequel to the 2021 mega-hit ‘Pushpa: The Rise’, is now streaming in Telugu, Hindi,...
Cast: Sterling K Brown, Julianne Nicholson, Sarah Shahi, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Aliyah Mastin, Percy Daggs and James Marsden
(3/5)Paradise… is that even a place in this world? As the series by the same name takes you into its labyrinths, you actually realise it isn’t the same earth we are living in right now. Yet, it opens like a...
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Pooja Hegde, Pavail Gulati, Pravesh Rana, Girish Kulkarni, Kubbra Sait and Aditi Sandhya Sharma
(2/5)When the lead hero, Shahid Kapoor, talks of the relevance of ‘Deewar’, should we pay attention to the subtext? Indeed, ‘Deva’, like many of Amitabh Bachchan’s films as the angry young man, is about a man seething and bristling from...
Cast: Barbara Mori, Juan Pablo Medina, Danish Husain, Julian Tello, Samuel Perez, Paloma Alvamar
(3/5)“That day I didn’t know how to push. But since then, I have learned to cross seas and move mountains, and you have taught me that,” says the mother to her son, and that one statement sums up ‘Lucca’s World’....
Cast: Paresh Rawal, Adil Hussain, Revathy, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Jayesh More and Anindita Bose
(3.5/5)This is an experience closest to being hypnotised! The moment director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan transports us to the Calcutta of yore, the days of cassette players, ambassador cars and landline telephones, and puts us in Tarini Bandopadhyay’s (Paresh Rawal’s) world,...
Prime Video Picking up from the previous season’s cliffhanger, ‘Harlem’ focuses on friendship and changes in relationships of the four protagonists. The show deepens its exploration of the characters’ personal and professional lives, tackling the themes of motherhood, singlehood and...
Cast: R Madhavan, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Kirti Kulhari, Rashami Desai and Sukumar Tudu
(1/5)With a title like this, one expects the ‘hisaab’ to be a metaphor for some score to be settled between the hero and the villain. But as far as the lead character of ‘Hisaab Barabar’ is concerned, the word is...
Cast: Sharelle Rosado, Maranda Johnson, Ashley Wheeler, Lastonia Leviston, Alexis Welch Stoudemire, Porsha Berto, Sade Vanessa, Keeta Hill and Julz Goddard
(2/5)Riches, trophy spouses, a reality check and coloured women charting their own career paths — the eight-episode Netflix series offers a peek into the uber-rich world of Miami millionaires. Luxe homes, fancy yachts, champagne and caviar meals, swanky wheels to...
Think music composers of yesteryear and chances are that the name Roshan wouldn’t figure on the top of your mind. For the present generation and even a generation before that, the surname Roshan is but obviously a byword for superstar...
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Veer Pahariya, Sara Ali Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Sharad Kelkar, Manish Choudhary, Mohit Chauhan and Varun Badola
(2.5/5)A film releasing close to Republic Day and starring the new-age Bharat Kumar, the poster boy of patriotism Akshay Kumar, and you enter the cinema halls with a bit of dread. But you are pleasantly surprised both by the storyline...
Cast: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Gul Panag, Tillotama Shome, Anurag Arora, Nagesh Kukunoor, Jahnu Barua, Prashant Tamang, Merenla Imsong, LC Sekhose, Nikita Grover, Bodhisattva Sharma and Kenny Basumatary
(3.5/5)If ‘Paatal Lok’ has been one of your favourite series and you have been all agog waiting for its second season, which has dropped after a long wait of five years, first and foremost, drop the comparison meter. For, the...
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Mahima Chaudhry, Milind Soman, Shreyas Talpade and Vishak Nair
(1.5/5)This one might as well have been titled ‘All We Imagine As Indira’. Tilted head, facial twitches, quavering voice, shifty glances... in Kangana Ranaut’s ‘Emergency’, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi comes across as more of a nervous wreck than an...
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Aaman Devgan, Rasha Thadani, Piyush Mishra, Mohit Malik and Diana Penty
(2.5/5)Even though ‘Azaad’ marks the debut of two industry kids — Aaman Devgan (Ajay Devgn’s nephew) and Rasha Thadani (Raveena Tandon’s daughter), the film is actually about a horse. Not just that it’s titled after it, but the majestic stallion...