Wed, November 11 2026

हिमाचल का मनाली शहर। पांच दोस्त हैं, पक्के वाले, एकदम फैमिली के माफिक। सबने मिल कर एक कैफे खोला। एक दिन कोई उस कैफे में पांच करोड़ रुपए से भरा एक बैग रख गया और इनकी ज़िंदगी बदल गई। अब एक तरफ इनके पीछे एक गैंग्स्टर के लोग पड़े हैं तो दूसरी तरफ पुलिस। और दिक्कत यह कि, वह पैसा कहीं गायब हो चुका है और जिस पर शक था, वह दोस्त भी मर चुका है। तो अब…? इस किस्म की सस्पैंस, थ्रिलर के स्वाद वाली फिल्मों की लिखाई की बुनावट में जो कसावट होनी चाहिए, वह इस फिल्म ‘ब्लाइंड गेम’ (Blind Game) में सिरे से गायब है। ऐसी फिल्मों में घटनाओं की उलझन को सुलझाते समय जिस किस्म के तर्कपूर्ण सीन लिखे जाने चाहिएं, वे इसमें बहुत हल्के और कमज़ोर हैं। कहानी में आगे क्या होने वाला है, वह पहले ही रिसने लगता है। पटकथा के धागे कायदे से पकड़ में ही नहीं आते और संवाद इस कदर हल्के हैं कि उन पर ध्यान ही नहीं जाता।

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Wed, November 11 2026

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 is the show’s strongest season yet, embracing Tolkien’s spirit even when it strays from the lore. Here’s why its tighter storytelling, stronger character work, and compelling take on Sauron make it worth watching.

I like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. I like its third season more than the first two, which is saying something. Tolkien fanatics, I have decided make poor critics of adaptations. I say that as one. We fixate on the wrong things, like how faithful the show is to the source material in terms of plot points. But this show works because it grasps the text in spirit if not in body. Peter Jackson-directed trilogy, which went on to win gazillions of Oscars, also chose to discard material that did not fit into the story it was telling, and my fellow nerds tend to forget that. Of course, it adapted the closest thing geek culture has to a sacred text, the main tome.

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Mon, November 9 2026

The film is a huge technological leap and imposing in scale, but runs mostly like an adaptation busy ticking off the events than exploring the complexities at play

Tales of the battle between good and evil never get old, and in the case of the Ramayana, it is as old as it gets, and still quite resonant in Indian socio-politics. The characters are well-etched in the nation’s psyche, the turning points are all too familiar and the lessons learned ample. Namit Malhotra’s Ramayana: Part 1 is well too aware of what’s at stake while tackling a Hindu epic that inspires devotion as well as religious fervour. In scale and spectacle, too, there’s no stone unturned, for the film is as imposing as it gets.

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Sun, November 8 2026

Even though Valmiki’s Ramayana is one of the most revered epics, the question remains: does it really warrant a film, particularly after Adipurush (2023) turned out to be such a disappointment? Produced by Namit Malhotra and directed by Nitesh Tiwari (of Dangal fame), the film certainly goes all out in terms of scale. The budget runs into four figures in crores, although one wonders if all that expenditure was necessary. At its heart, the Ramayana is about the triumph of good over evil. While vanquishing evil is central to the story, the film could probably have done without the long, drawn-out battle sequences that often resemble a video game.

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Sun, November 8 2026

Sun, November 8 2026

Just like Ullas Chemban’s debut work Anchakkallakokkan, Disco too is strong in its technical department, but that is not enough to save a film which banks a little too much on stylistics

Everyday is Halloween in the ganglands of Ullas Chemban’s sophomore film Disco. In whatever grim situation they may be caught in, the mafia men in this film somehow find the adequate time and mood to dress up in matching colourful costumes before they carry out the hit. While the opening sequence has one gang dressed up in Santa Claus costumes, another sequence has yet another gang with goat head masks launching an attack on a police van. Going by how this keeps repeating for the entire length of Disco, its costume designer was probably working overtime. Or, the screenwriter also pitched in, since the film borrows much of its story from typical gangster films and hopes to get away with it using its stylish treatment. Just like Ullas Chemban’s debut work Anchakkallakokkan, Disco too is strong in its technical department, but that is not enough to save a film which banks a little too much on stylistics.

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Sat, November 7 2026

While Ullas Chemban's thriller has a handful of moments that hint at a more ambitious film, it relies a bit too heavily on swag to power over what it lacked in terms of real drama.

In an otherwise unwatchable thriller that prioritises swag over everything else, there’s a handful of moments with genuine spark which suggests a film with particularly idiosyncratic ambitions. One of these is an interrogation scene in which the character played by Gayathri Suresh negotiates with two nosy police officers. Just when you think of the need for this scene, the camera angle shifts downward to capture the top angle, drawing our attention to Gayathri’s naked legs. It’s staged awkwardly and one can make the case for it being her negotiation tactic. Linger a second longer and it’s just the film’s way to pay tribute to the infamous interrogation scene from Basic Instinct (1993) featuring Sharon Stone in similar predicament. After working overtime to build a world that’s part Guy Ritchie, part Latin American gang movie, it feels refreshing to see this hat-tip to classic 90’s Hollywood.

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Sun, November 8 2026

The 61-minute Netflix film breathes life into the Diwali genre of tender, tangy family dramas.

If those conveyor-belt, Hallmark-card-coded Christmas romcoms on Netflix starring versions of Lindsay Lohan are anything to go by every year, it’s normal to be wary of their Indian festive counterparts: the Cadbury-advert-coded Diwali family movie. Last week it was Meethe Mein Kya Hai; this week, it’s the 61-minute-long terribly-tiny-feature Dilwali Diwali. Both minor-key and glossy, both in and around ancestral houses, both sweeter than sugar — and both surprisingly disarming. These are the sort of streaming productions that used to be skit-like YouTube featurettes: a little bit of heart and soul posing as content.

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Sun, November 8 2026

t is like that random page-turner one buys before boarding a train. We might not put too much thought into it, but a few surprises here and there makes the ride worth it

Truth. Throughout our lives, well-meaning people tell us to stick to the truth and stand by what is right. But that pursuit is rarely pure and never simple. It gets even more complicated in legal cases, where the lines between objective and subjective truth blur. Probably why director Balaji Selvaraj’s ZEE5 series, Sattamum Needhiyum, is titled so. Between what is legal and what is just, many stories reside, and the second season tells the story of dirty cops, not-so-dirty lawyers, and what happens when the two worlds collide.

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Sun, November 8 2026

Love Always is a no-frills exploration of what it means to be in love, what it means to be married, and what happens when you get a chance to tame those completely different beasts

Regret. Indian arranged marriages are a concept that, on paper, should make absolutely no sense in a society. What do you mean when you say two strangers are suddenly asked to marry each other just because the elders in their respective families decided it was the right thing? How does “forever” make sense when you don’t even know your prospective partner’s favorite colour? Such is the system, and even today, our Indian society continues to swear by it because why repair something that isn’t broken? Yes, some arranged marriages seem like a dream come true, but there are enough examples that lay bare the broken, flawed, and limiting factors of the system. In director Madhumita’s Love Always, we see a marriage that looks dreamy from the outside and dilapidated from the inside. But what happens when life, and a lot of magic, lets you turn regret into restoration? Basically, Love Always understands that ‘love’ is special, but questions whether ‘always’ should be taken for granted.

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Sun, November 8 2026

With Suriya in terrific form and stellar turns from Nazriya and Naslen, Jithu Madhavan gives the familiar a fabulous makeover in Scene

Vision. While it might not be the case now, there was a time when almost every interview inevitably had this question: Where do you see yourself in five years? Five years is a long time, right? If we are being interviewed, most of us would give some generic answer. If we are the ones doing the interview, we know how to see through the generic answers. Some people offer an answer so wild and audacious that you never ask that question the same way again. Jithu Madhavan’s Scene is one such answer to a question about what star films should look like in a few years’ time. Yes, star vehicles need to service the star, but if the star decides to serve the story, keeps their whims behind the camera, steps into the frame without a chip on their shoulder, and trusts the director’s vision to focus on the story first, the star will invariably be seen.

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Sun, November 8 2026

Sat, November 7 2026

Thanks to an in-form Suriya, Naslen and Nazriya, director Jithu Madhavan dares to venture into territory that might seem too risky for a film with such serious undertones

Jithu Madhavan is a Malayalam director (Romancham, Aavesham) making his first Tamil film. But if there’s one sequence that needs to be studied to understand a Malayali’s undying love for Tamil cinema, it’s the one in the second half of Scene. At first glance, it might seem like another Easter egg referencing one of the many films that made Suriya the superstar he is today. But dig a little deeper, and it brings together two aspects of Tamil cinema that are particularly important to every Malayali cinephile: legendary composer Ilaiyaraaja and the films that Suriya made in the early 2000s.

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Sat, November 7 2026

In the breathless action on screen, there are very few scenes that are truly moving, laugh-out-loud funny, or even those that evoke a smile.

It’s hard to believe that this is only the second feature-length film on the beloved Dr Seuss character, and the first animation. It also means that Warner Bros Pictures and directors Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja have to work doubly hard to make The Cat in the Hat stand out from the current deluge. The effort shows, with the film a dizzying cornucopia of action and colours, with little of the unworldliness of the book and all the worldliness of a studio-backed venture, which also lets it be known that it is hoping to spin at least one more movie out of a character.

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Sat, November 7 2026

Joe Barton's dark spy dramedy about a secret organisation trying to infiltrate the British government faces a new threat.

The first season of Netflix’s Black Doves introduced a pair of spies who become friends while trying to survive assignment given out by their secret organisation. Two years later, the British spy drama is back with a new crisis for the duo as they face their biggest threat yet. Black Doves is led by Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire, who become our anchors in this latest instalment as the entire organisation is targeted, leaving Knightley’s Helen and Whishaw’s Sam to make some risky moves. The six-part is a thrilling binge watch that sets up the next season nicely.

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Sat, November 7 2026

Created by Jason Keller, the sports comedy settles down by turning its attention on Owen Wilson's has-been golf hero and succeeds

In 2025, the Owen Wilson starrer Stick introduced an earnest sport series about a man redeeming himself by coaching a golf prodigy. As the Apple TV series returns for a second instalment, it smartly refocuses its attention on its smooth-talking hero, Pryce Cahill (Wilson), who finds a new purpose in his golfing journey. The result is a comedy series with renewed resolve to push its characters and the story. While the show does stick to usual tropes found in sports narratives, here in the series, it feels earned instead of clichéd. The addition of the winsome Emmy winner Rhea Seehorn and more screentime to Pryce’s old rival Clark Ross, played by Timothy Olyphant is another smart choice.

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Sat, November 7 2026

Director Sundar C's film, starring Nayanthara, Duniya Vijay and Regena Cassandrra, is an outdated devotional drama devoid of any emotion or devotion.

Growing up in the 90s, devotional films were a staple on television. Audiences were introduced to several different Ammans (mother goddess), but they all had one duty: to protect the innocent and destroy evil. As cinema evolved, these devotional dramas gradually became passe. In 2020, RJ Balaji revived the genre with Mookuthi Amman, giving it a contemporary spin through political satire. Six years later, veteran filmmaker Sundar C takes the franchise forward with Mookuthi Amman 2, turning that political satire into a full-fledged devotional drama. Did the gamble work? The answer is a resounding no.

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