Shape of Momo
Drama, Family (Nepali)
Bishnu returns to her Himalayan village after quitting her job, only to face mounting family pressures and societal expectations. As tensions rise with her pregnant sister's arrival and a budding relationship with a "suitable" boy from her community, Bishnu must (more…)
Drishyam 3
Crime, Drama, Thriller (Malayalam)
To protect his family and their dark secret, Georgekutty faces an organized new threat. As walls close in and cracks widen, how much more is he willing to sacrifice ? (more…)
Chand Mera Dil
Romance, Drama (Hindi)
Aarav and Chandni's passionate college romance is struck by adulthood far too soon, forcing the two young lovers to balance their ambitions with responsibility and realize the evolved meaning of love. (more…)
Guild Reviews
The Mummy
Horror, Mystery (English)
The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace—eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.
Cast:
Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, Shylo Molina, Billie Roy, Veronica Falcón, Hayat Kamille, May Elghety, Emily Mitchell
Director:
Lee Cronin
Writer:
Lee Cronin
Sat, May 30 2026
எகிப்தின் கைரோவில் டிவி நிருபராக பணியாற்றுகிறார் சார்லி கேனன் (ஜேக் ரெய்னோர்). மனைவி லரிசா (லையா கோஸ்டா), மகள் மற்றும் மகனுடன் வாழ்ந்து வருகிறார். இதனிடையே ஒருநாள் வீட்டுத் தோட்டத்தில் விளையாடிக்கொண்டிருந்த மகள் கேட்டி காணாமல் போகிறாள். எங்குத் தேடியும் கிடைக்காத நிலையில், சார்லியின் குடும்பம் மெக்ஸிக்கோவுக்கு மாற்றலாகிறது. எட்டு வருடங்களுக்குப் பிறகு கேட்டி கிடைத்துவிட்டாள் என்ற செய்தி எகிப்திலிருந்து வருகிறது. ஆனால் இப்போதிருக்கும் கேட்டி சுயநினைவின்றி மனநலச் சிக்கலோடு இருக்கிறாள். உண்மையில் கேட்டிக்கு என்ன நடந்தது, அவளால் வரும் ஆபத்துகள் என்ன என்பதை ஹாரர் விருந்தாக முன்வைக்கிறது படம்.
Shape of Momo
Drama, Family (Nepali)
Bishnu returns to her Himalayan village after quitting her job, only to face mounting family pressures and societal expectations. As tensions rise with her pregnant sister's arrival and a budding relationship with a "suitable" boy from her community, Bishnu must choose between conforming to tradition or claiming her independence.
Cast:
Gaumaya Gurung, Pashupati Rai, Shyama Shree Sherpa, Rahul Nawach Mukhia, Janaki Kadayat, Sonam Bomzon, Bhanu Maya Rai
Director:
Tribeny Rai
Writer:
Kislay Kislay, Tribeny Rai
Sat, May 30 2026
The title of Tribeny Rai’s debut is a mild criticism. Bishnu (Gaumaya Gurung) can make momos, they even taste fine—but they look weird. It’s a running joke in the family. “No one would believe you’re from Sikkim,” her sister, Junu (Shyama Shree Sherpa), teases her. This doesn’t seem to bother Bishnu as much as what perfectly shaped momos symbolise for her—another annoying standard that women are supposed to live up to. As though in solidarity, the film around Bishnu is misshapen too. I don’t mean this in a negative sense. Most films aim for defined shapes of exposition, character motivation, narrative structure because it’s expected and safe. Shape of Momo has a looser, more introspective progression, which seems more representative of life in this quiet Sikkim village and the limbo Bishnu finds herself in.
Sat, May 30 2026
At one level, ‘Shape of Momo’ unfolds like a gentle love letter to one’s roots. Set in Sikkim, it unpeels the many layers equally. A festival favourite, with its world premiere at the 30th Busan International Film Festival in 2025, it won the Songwon Vision Award and the Taipei Film Commission Award. The narrative begins innocuously. Bishnu (Gaumaya Gurung), back in her home in a village in Sikkim, is reading what seems like a poem. Soon, we meet women representing three generations. In this home bereft of male presence, women nurse their own set of fears and anxieties and, above all, an urgency to conform. Only, Bishnu, fresh from experiences of the outside world, is not ready to accept things the way they are and has several run-ins with the men of her village.
Fri, May 29 2026
Bishnu (Gaumaya Gurung) is a writer in her bones, which explains why we see her continuously grappling with the world. While those around Bishnu go through life with less fuss, we see her recording nearly all experiences from outside, trying to gauge the subtext of each and every conversation, the pauses, closely examining one’s train of thought, questioning it, and trying to understand why one bit leads to the other. An insider-outsider in her village in Sikkim, having returned after quitting a copywriting job in Delhi, she sees the town with a new set of eyes. Tribeny Rai’s Shape of Momo takes the idea of a ‘homecoming film’ – where characters are usually forced to visit home and resolve their friction with the place – and flips it.
The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagaman
Comedy, Family, Drama (Hindi)
Cast:
Jackie Shroff, Prateik Smita Patil, Bhagyashree, Mihir Godbole, Durgesh Kumar, Saharsh Kumar Shukla, Kumar Saurabh, Sharat Saxena, Tiger Shroff, Upendra Limaye
Director:
Manish Saini
Writer:
Manish Saini
All FCG reviews of The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagaman
Sat, May 30 2026
The greatest superpower of cinema is the ability to make us believe again. Jackie Shroff’s little summer adventure, The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagman doesn’t just ask us to believe in flying grandfathers or marauding aliens, it invites us to believe in something far more radical in these times of attention and trust deficit. The film tells us that a wrinkled, mischievous Dadaji can still be the mightiest hero in a child’s universe, and that childhood imagination isn’t childish — it’s the original superpower. Intelligent, imaginative, but lonely, young Dipu (Mihir Godbole is pitch-perfect) fabricates grand stories to win over new friends in new schools and new towns where his father gets transferred. In his script, his grandfather (Jackie Shroff) is a superhero who fights aliens. The tone is secretive, and Dipu limits the age group to under-18 because he perhaps knows his adventure will not pass the adult scrutiny.
Fri, May 29 2026
There’s a scene in The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagman where Jagdish alias Dadaji (Jackie Shroff) narrates what must be a superhero origin story. Dipu (Mihir Godbole), his grandson, is visibly appalled that the tale, however preposterous it may sound, contains no bombs, explosions, or gunfire. Of all things, it has orange candy. How ridiculous is that, asks the sharp kid, staring at his grandfather like a man completely out of touch with the times. The moment is amusing, but it also defines the spirit of Manish Saini’s film. In an era where children’s cinema has almost disappeared from theatres, replaced either by loud spectacle or violent and jingoistic content, The Great Grand Superhero arrives like a relic from another time. And yet, to call it “small” would be inaccurate.
Fri, May 29 2026
The Great Grand Superhero has one of the most charming setups in recent memory. The first half is funny, poignant, satirical and very inventive. It also has the best child actors since Stanley Ka Dabba, a film it shares an editor (Deepa Bhatia) and narrative spirit with. There’s a new mid-term admission in a small-town school; his name is Deepu (a pitch-perfect Mihir Godbole). Deepu is a clever student; he knows all the answers to all the teachers’ toughest questions. The other kids envy him and find him strange. He confesses to one of them that he’s “different” because his grandfather (Jackie Shroff) is — suspenseful drum beat — a superhero. It’s a secret, he says, that only kids below the age of 18 can know, otherwise the grand old man will lose his superpowers.
Kattalan
Action, Thriller (Malayalam)
Power-hungry forces clash in the Ivory cartel war-a fierce story of control, vengeance, and survival where compassion vanishes and only the ruthless endure.
Cast:
Antony Varghese, Sunil Varma, Dushara Vijayan, Jagadish, Kabir Duhan Singh, Parth Tiwari, Raj Tirandasu, Siddique, Anson Paul, Hanan Shaah
Director:
Paul George
Writer:
Paul George, Jero Jacob, Joby Varghese
Fri, May 29 2026
One can sit through something as intolerable as Kattalan only if one can invent some distraction. A possible diversion could be to keep a count of the humans and elephants killed during the film’s two-hour duration. But halfway through, you are bound to lose track as the killings are just too many, even in a single sequence, to get an accurate number. In the end, one realises that the biggest casualty of this relentless assault on the senses is neither humans nor elephants, but cinema itself. The dishonesty of it all is evident in how it treats its characters. To fill the emotional void at the centre of the film, one or two characters, like a physically challenged young girl, are introduced randomly and immediately turned into victims of some violent act, which would then set off some pathos-inducing background score. The writers are clearly not interested in these characters. They are deliberately using them for the film’s emotional impact and to underscore the need for revenge.
Fri, May 29 2026
First-time director Paul George’s Kattalan is what one may call a graphic novel movie. Almost all of its dialogues can be fit into two sides of an A4-sized page, and the effort that’s gone into it is only to re-create a storyboard that was made as a part of the film’s “writing”. As a film that follows the hyper-violent Marco in the same cinematic universe, Kattalan is a film that feels like it was forced to be made into a pan-Indian title. Apart from a handful of leads, almost the entire supporting cast is imported from all the other film industries of the country. Dialogues switch between Malayalam, broken Malayalam, Tamil, and English, and none of them delivers the impact it is meant to. And when they are not conveying plot points or exposition, Kattalan becomes home to some of the most pompous punchlines in all of our cinema.
Blast
Action, Drama, Family (Tamil)
Follows a family trained to protect the powerless who become the most dangerous obstacle of all.
Cast:
Arjun Sarja, Abhirami, Preity Mukhundhan, Vivek Prasanna, John Kokken, Arjun Chidambaram, Pawan, Dhileban, Vinod Sagar, Bala Hasan
Director:
Subash K Raj
Writer:
Subash K Raj
Fri, May 29 2026
Subhash K Raj’s Blast is a movie that’s written for and around its high moments. It’s almost like Subhash knows how these moments will be received in the theatre, and he also understands the careful plotting and planning that’s required for them to land, once he allows them to. For this, he has figured out his own method to create a reasonably engaging action comedy around an idea that may have been too small, even for a short film.
Spider Noir
Action & Adventure, Crime, Mystery (English)
Ben Reilly, an aging and down on his luck private investigator in 1930s New York, is forced to grapple with his past life as the city's one and only superhero.
Cast:
Nicolas Cage, Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, Karen Rodriguez, Abraham Popoola, Jack Huston, Brendan Gleeson
Wed, May 27 2026
After voicing Spider-Man Noir in the Sony animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Nicolas Cage brings a version of the character to the small screen with Amazon Prime Video’s Spider-Noir. The Marvel and Sony co-production is part superhero saga and part classic noir. Interestingly, Spider Noir gives viewers the chance to see the show both in colour and black and white, which can also change perspective on the story. Developed by Oren Uziel, Spider Noir is a character portrait of a broken-down man named Ben Reilly who rises to the occasion when really required. The ongoing mystery woven in the narrative also keeps audiences engaged.
Drishyam 3
Crime, Drama, Thriller (Malayalam)
To protect his family and their dark secret, Georgekutty faces an organized new threat. As walls close in and cracks widen, how much more is he willing to sacrifice ?
Cast:
Mohanlal, Meena, Siddique, Asha Sarath, Murali Gopy, Ansiba Hassan, Esther Anil, Veena Nandakumar, K. B. Ganesh Kumar, Santhi Mayadevi
Director:
Jeethu Joseph
Mon, May 25 2026
“Everything is planned…” When Ajnabee had Bobby Deol exposing Akshay Kumar in a corny yet wildly entertaining climax, we watched with amusement while tapping our feet to an infectious Anu Malik tune. It was never meant to feel intelligent. The same planning by a sharp-minded person made the Malayalam film Drishyam a national sensation. Georgekutty (Mohanlal) put Malayalam cinema on the national movie map, perhaps for the first time in history. Shockingly enough, Drishyam 3, the sequel to Drishyam 2, finds its tension in spontaneity and unpredictability, not foolproof planning. The question is: are we ready for this version of Georgekutty?
Fri, May 22 2026
Fri, May 22 2026
System
Thriller (Hindi)
When Neha Rajvansh, a privileged public prosecutor, meets Sarika Rawat, a courtroom stenographer from a humble background, their lives are thrown into upheaval where power defines truth, blurring the system and raising a question of what justice truly means to them.
Cast:
Sonakshi Sinha, Jyothika, Ashutosh Gowariker, Adinath Kothare, Aashriya Mishra, Gaurav Pandey, Sayandeep Gupta, Preeti Agarwal Mehta, Vijayant Kohli, Diwanshu Gambhir
Director:
Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Writer:
Arun Sukumar, Harman Baweja, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Tasneem Lokhandwala
Sat, May 23 2026
I was trying to keep an open mind about Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s System when Neha (Sonakshi Sinha) says, “Uski vibe hamesha off thhi par woh murderer type kabhi nahi laga.” And that was that. I don’t expect every lawyer to speak in iambic pentameter or quote Thomas Cromwell. I do, however, feel it’s not unreasonable to have a protagonist in a legal drama—one who’s trying hard to prove she’s not a lightweight—speak like a professional and not some millennial at brunch. Neha is a public prosecutor, though she’d rather not be. She doesn’t like the sweaty courts, the desperate cases, the grind, her boss. She’s also not particularly competent. The first time we see her in court, the judge explains that she needs to prove the accused actually committed the crime, not that he might have—and she looks shocked. So when her famous lawyer father, Ravi Rajvansh (Ashutosh Gowariker), makes her a deal—win 10 cases in a row and join my practice—it feels like a little exercise in humility, or humiliation.
Sat, May 23 2026
Director Ashwini Iyer Tiwari has been making films for over a decade. And yet, nothing gives away her lack of assurance more than her choice of background score. Iyer Tiwari’s style is what I like to describe as having soap-opera coherence (my mother is a huge fan of these films, which are technically proficient, but ideologically axiomatic). If the choice was ever between thought-provoking and manipulating tears, she overwhelmingly leans towards the latter. Having made films with noble (sometimes, even sweet) through lines, like a mother re (Nil Battey Sannata), or a woman making a comeback to professional sports after a prolonged sabbatical (Panga) – Iyer Tiwari’s films often find its underdogs in women. But there’s also a lack of rigour in her ideas curdling the simple into gratingly simplistic.
Sat, May 23 2026
Another week, another commentary on uncomfortable societal truths packaged in the form of a mystery where solid performances and subtext are marred by predictable beats. At first glance, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s System masquerades as a legal thriller, but beneath its polished exterior, it promises to lay bare the facade of institutional neutrality. It positions the courtroom not as a temple of justice, but as a theatre of social stratification where truth is a manufactured commodity. The narrative (penned by Arun Sukumar, Harman Baweja, and Akshat Ghildial) forces a meta-textual collision. Neha Rajvansh (Sonakshi Sinha), a public prosecutor fighting the suffocating shadow of her iconic legal patriarch (Ashutosh Gowarikar), is subtly challenged from the margins by Sarika (Jyotika), a humble yet resilient stenographer who weaponises the very bureaucratic machinery designed to keep her invisible.
Chand Mera Dil
Romance, Drama (Hindi)
Aarav and Chandni's passionate college romance is struck by adulthood far too soon, forcing the two young lovers to balance their ambitions with responsibility and realize the evolved meaning of love.
Cast:
Ananya Panday, Lakshya Lalwani, Aastha Singh, Elvis Jose, Paresh Pahuja, Manish Chaudhary, Iravati Harshe, Charu Shankar, Atul Kumar, Akhil Kaimal
Director:
Vivek Soni
Sat, May 23 2026
Aarav (Lakshya) and his wife, Chandni (Ananya Panday), are cracking under the strain of caring for a newborn. Their frustrations boil over into an ugly yelling match. Aarav grabs her face. He’s motionless for a few seconds, then backs away, mortified. She runs into the other room and balls up in a corner, shaking in shock as he begs her to open the door. The moment when Aarav grabs Chandni is in the film’s trailer. I think it’s there because Dharma doesn’t mind giving the impression that this will be an ‘intense’ love story in the key of Sandeep Vanga or the Anand L Rai/Dhanush collaborations. Yet, Chand Mera Dil is nothing like those films, treating the brief physical contact with utter seriousness. Aarav is immediately contrite, but it doesn’t matter. The entire story turns on this moment. PSA films like Thappad are lauded for presenting characters who won’t stand for any kind of abuse, but Chand Mera Dil is equally steadfast without resorting to moral grandstanding.
Sat, May 23 2026
When the end is obvious with a title that gives away where the hero is headed, writer-director Vivek Soni’s screenplay should’ve been dramatically different, offering an unseen experience at every major turn. Let’s check how he goes about it. It’s one long predictable flashback to Hyderabad where Chandni (Ananya Panday) and Aarav (Lakshya) are engineering students, both brilliant. There’s a fresh touch to the attraction where they twin every day, wearing the same colour, without a word exchanged between them. Until Chandni takes the first step. So far, rather nice. The good is that there is definite chemistry between Chandni and Aarav, leading to relatable intimacy.
Sat, May 23 2026
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” said William Shakespeare. And in an average Hindi film, it often is too tortuous, if not torturous. ‘Chand Mera Dil’, the title, promises a film high on the gossamer shades of romance. Only, as the film opens, for a long time, the only shades you see are the matching colours of our hero and heroine’s outfits. Love-struck Aarav (Lakshya Lalwani) starts twinning with Chandni (Ananya Panday). Obviously, his outfit shade card — ranging from neon and fluorescent yellow to pinks — not only matches her clothes but catches her attention too.
The Man I Love
Drama, Romance (English)
In late 1980s New York, a theater artist living with AIDS takes on one possibly last great role.
Cast:
Rami Malek, Tom Sturridge, Luther Ford, Rebecca Hall, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Maisy Stella, Sasha Lane
Director:
Ira Sachs
Writer:
Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias
Fri, May 22 2026
he 80s in NYC was a scene, man. If you’re of a certain vintage, you may have actually heard this line — from the know-it-all seniors when you arrived in any liberal arts college in Delhi University as a newbie, those exalted beings who smoked Charminars and wore drainpipe jeans and floppy hair and big Beatles glasses who were, in hindsight, probably spouting received wisdom. There are no such gaps between perception and knowing in Ira Sachs’ marvellous re-creation of that very specific Reagan era in ‘The Man I Love’, which brings alive the sights and sounds of the city with the kind of pulsating energy that can come only from someone who has lived through it.
Fjord
Drama (Romanian)
After the deaths of Mihai’s parents, Mihai and Lisbeth Gheorghiu leave everything behind and move with their children to a remote village in Norway, hoping to rebuild their lives near Lisbeth’s family. There, they grow close to their neighbors, the Halbergs, whose warmth offers the promise of a fresh start. But the fragile peace begins to unravel when the Gheorghius’ young daughter, Elia, arrives at school covered in bruises.
Cast:
Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Lisa Carlehed, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Henrikke Lund Olsen, Vanessa Ceban, Giulia Nahmany, Ingvild Lien, Turid Vatne
Director:
Cristian Mungiu
Fri, May 22 2026
When a bunch of kids are greeted by a school principal saying jovially, no Draculas here, you are meant to surmise a few things. That the children have a connection with Romania, and that this remote Norwegian town with a fjord on one side and mountains on the other, is a new experience for them. Turns out that The Gheorghiu family, with a Romanian father and Norwegian mother, and their five children — two teenagers, two younger ones, and the fifth, a babe in arms, have relocated from Romania and come to live in Norway. Mihai (Sebastian Stan) is an IT expert, and Lisbet (Renate Reinsve) who works in medicine are here for fresh prospects and fresh air, both of which seems to be in ample supply in this snowy, windy place, which turns out to be not as welcoming, leaving the new entrants facing an uncertain future.
All of a Sudden
Drama (Japanese)
Marie-Lou Fontaine, director of a nursing home in the Paris suburbs, defies convention by adopting the 'Humanitude' method despite her team’s resistance. Her encounter with Mari Morisaki, a terminally ill Japanese playwright, transforms her life. Together, they turn the facility into a symbol of resistance and humanity against the system’s limits.
Cast:
Virginie Efira, Tao Okamoto, Gabriel Dahmani, Kyōzō Nagatsuka, Kodai Kurosaki, Jean-Charles Clichet, Marie Bunel, Jean-Louis Garçon, Evelyne Istria, Lazare Gousseau
Director:
Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Fri, May 22 2026
To say that Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘All Of A Sudden’ (Cannes competition) is a long film – it weighs in at a solid 3.15 hours – is stating the obvious. The Japanese auteur doesn’t do sudden – the title is a nice little touch of unintentional irony; a leisurely unfolding of events is much more his thing. In fact, he doesn’t do events either; capturing moments like no one’s looking is more like it. Here, his deeply observant style suits the central thrust of the film, which is mainly set in a home for the elderly, where the big themes accompanying end-of-life scenarios are a natural outcome.