Sat, June 20 2026

There is no delicate way to put this: Cocktail 2 boasts one of the most ludicrous stories I have encountered in recent memory. A spiritual sequel to Cocktail (2012), the film ostensibly wants to discuss modern relationships, commitment issues and the institution of marriage. Unfortunately, it takes such a circuitous route to get there that it makes a GPS with no signal look reliable.

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Sat, June 20 2026

Homi Adajania’s spiritual sequel stars Shahid Kapoor as a victimised hero, and belongs to writer-producer Luv Ranjan’s multiverse of male-ness

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the hit of the year, Curry Barker’s Obsession. The horror film revolves around a lonely young man named Bear whose desperate wish — that his pretty coworker Nikki falls for him — comes true with terrifying consequences. The predatory entitlement of his wish turns her into a monstrous and obsessive girlfriend who loves without autonomy. It’s a neat subversion of the date-movie template. But I kept wondering why the movie left me unaffected. Worse, I didn’t find the mutating Nikki so shocking or scary. While walking out, it struck me. I realised that mainstream Hindi cinema has normalised women (in love) written by men for decades. I see an agency-free Nikki on screen in a flashy Bollywood entertainer every other week. Except, they’re presented as sane and new-age women by Bear-coded makers without a hint of satire. In other words, Cocktail 2 ruined Obsession for me before it was even made.

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Sat, June 20 2026

The film portrays love more like a fleeting emotion, lacking depth

The very first scene establishes how our hero can charm birds out of the trees, ahem floor women. The fact that Kunal is none other than the dashing Shahid Kapoor only helps matters. But before we accuse him of playing yet another toxic lover, we learn that he is in a committed relationship with Diya (Rashmika Mandanna). The scene shifts to how men can be pathological cheaters, and while Diya is outraged, Kunal finds humour in his friend’s cheating ways. Will he too cheat when temptations comes knocking? Since ‘Cocktail 2’ is a spiritual sequel to Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and Diana Penty-starrer ‘Cocktail’ (both directed by Homi Adajania), it’s just a matter of time before the third angle in the love triangle surfaces.

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Sat, June 20 2026

Toy Story ranks among Hollywood’s longest-running animated franchises. More importantly, in an industry where sequels are often accused of existing primarily to generate revenue, the Toy Story films have consistently managed to be a few notches above the rest. The journey began in 1995 and, with its newest instalment, the franchise is still going strong. Crucially, it continues to keep itself relevant with changing times and audiences.

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Sat, June 20 2026

With little meat on it but a Taylor Swift song and a $250 million budget, is as good a story of excess as any.

Child’s play has always been serious business in the Toy Story franchise. Now, it’s just business. The fifth iteration of this profitable Pixar franchise is way past its game and, more importantly, has lost its sense of play. The central idea is that tech and tablets are replacing toys and imagination. By the end, the central takeaway is that the twain can co-exist happily. After all, says a wisened Jessie/Sheriff (Cusack), once much water has flown under the bridge, the sole mission on Earth for all of them — the ageing Woody (Hanks) to smitten Buzz (Allen) to new-plaything-on-the-block Lilypad — is to be there for the kids when they need them, at the right moment.

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Fri, June 19 2026

इंटरनेट और सोशल मीडिया के इस युग में बच्चों को मोबाइल या स्क्रीन से दूर रखना आज हर माता-पिता के लिए सबसे बड़ी चुनौती है। बच्चे खेल और खिलौने छोड़कर इंटरनेट की वर्चुअल दुनिया में गुम होते जा रहे हैं। इसी मौजू विषय को मनोरंजक अंदाज में दिखाती है ‘टॉय स्टोरी 5’, जो दुनियाभर के बच्चों की पसंदीदा एनिमेशन फिल्म है। करीब 30 साल पहले 1995 में शुरू हुई ‘टॉय स्टोरी’ ऐसी कामयाब फ्रेंचाइजी रही है, जो बच्चों के साथ उनके माता-पिता को भी लुभाती रही है। अब शुक्रवार 19 जून 2026 को ‘टॉय स्टोरी’ की पांचवी कड़ी सिनेमाघरों में रिलीज हुई है। हालांकि, यह पहले जैसा प्रभाव नहीं छोड़ती, लेकिन बच्चों को मनोरंजन के साथ अच्छा सबक जरूर देती है।

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Sat, June 20 2026

A painful ode to lost innocence and a boyhood that never was—a heartrending drama about a son's search for his mother, even when the film wanders a little too far from its core.

The Boy, directed by Chidambaram, calling it a painful ode to lost innocence and a boyhood that never was—a heartrending drama about a son’s search for his mother, even when the film wanders a little too far from its core. Vishal admires how unengineered the storytelling feels; rather than a constructed plot, it plays like someone recalling the most vivid memories that defined his childhood. He traces Indhu (Farzana), who gave birth to the titular Balan in prison, as she and her son move from city to city, terrain to terrain, even religion to religion, assuming fresh identities and back stories while she reminds herself to trust no one. Vishal lingers on the duo’s outlaw spirit, the recurring sense of the past catching up with them, and the moments—a shopkeeper’s request, a marriage proposal, a heart-shaped earring—that each become Indhu’s cue to flee.

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Sat, June 20 2026

“The tank is next to me.” “They are shooting at me.” “Come get me. I’m all on my own.” Few films begin with lines this freighted with irrevocability. The Voice of Hind Rajab confronts us with the real voice of a five-year-old girl whose fate is already known, stripping cinema of suspense and replacing it with something far more devastating: certainty. If urgency in the narrative holds it together as a piece of cinema, it is inevitability that makes director Kaouther Ben Hania’s docudrama an impossibly heartbreaking affair. The film is set inside the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s call centre in Ramallah on January 29, 2024. As the war between Israel and Palestine rages on, employees operate in a heightened emotional state, trained to respond to civilian SOS calls amid constant crisis. Omar (Motaz Malhees), Rana (Saja Kilani), Mahdi (Amer Hlehel), and Nisrine (Clara Khoury), the fictional leads, along with the late Hind Rajab’s real voice on a phone call, have guts of steel, but their hearts ache too, as do those of the viewers.

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Sat, June 20 2026

Kaouther Ben Hania's Oscar-nominated docudrama, built around a five-year-old's real phone calls from Gaza on the last day of her life, had failed to get a Central Board of Film Certification clearance earlier this year. The film, which releases in India today, makes the audience sit through the dread of knowing how it ends.

The most wrenching performance in The Voice of Hind Rajab was never performed. At the centre of Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s docudrama sits a real recording: the shaking voice of a five-year-old girl captured on the last afternoon of her life. Everything assembled around it is staged. The friction between the two — actors straining toward a child who is already beyond their reach — is what makes the film almost unbearable. The facts are a matter of record. On 29 January 2024, five-year-old Hind Rajab was trapped in a car in Gaza City, hemmed in by the bodies of her aunt, uncle and four cousins, after Israeli fire tore through the vehicle as the family tried to flee. She was the only one left alive. For hours, she stayed on the line with volunteers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society, asking, over and over, for someone to come for her. The ambulance that was finally dispatched never reached her; its two paramedics were killed, too. Hind was found dead days later. The recordings of those calls, released afterwards, went around the world. Ben Hania built her film around them.

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Sat, June 20 2026

Kaouther Ben Hania’s film is more effective than documentaries from the region, because it is factual and elicits an emotional reaction from the viewer

“Come get me. They’re shooting!”

Long after seeing The Voice of Hind Rajab, the five-year-old’s voice still echoed in my ears. It became impossible to unhear her confused, scared and desperate cry for help. Kaouther Ben Hania, who was compelled to direct the film after chancing upon Rajab’s voice while scrolling through social media, is standing on an ethical minefield here. A fictional film – which splices real-life recordings between the Red Crescent volunteers and Rajab into itself – it could’ve resulted in a jarring, self-conscious film. But to the makers’ credit the hybrid form of the film feels almost seamless while recreating the crushing disappointment of the war room – where a handful of volunteers spend an entire day trying to arrange an ambulance to rescue the child. This could have been a sentimental, exploitative film, but it’s, again, Ben Hania’s ability to hold back at the right time that made The Voice of Hind Rajab one of the most essential films of last year. The film is magical in the way it fuses truthfulness and creative license.

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Fri, June 19 2026

The action unfolds inside a massive office tower in the middle of a densely populated city, when a disgruntled scientist launches a bioterror attack during a seminar conducted by his former partner.

A sporadically clever but ultimately convoluted affair, Colony is somehow both underwritten and over-plotted. The Korean horror-thriller marks a long-awaited return to the zombie genre for director Yeon Sang-ho, who broke out internationally almost exactly a decade ago with the clutter-breaking horror hit Train to Busan. That film took a deceptively simple premise, injected it with some old-fashioned melodrama, and managed to appeal both to Western and Asian sensibilities. In the subsequent decade, Yeon has remained highly sought-after, having directed several movies and as many as three Netflix shows. With Colony, he returns to his roots, armed with a bigger budget, seemingly brighter ideas, and a significantly larger canvas to splatter with gore and other grimy fluids.

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Fri, June 19 2026

We’ve seen way too much amma sentiment in Tamil films for us to fall for it immediately. And yet, Nooru Sami, within ten minutes into its screentime, manages to do that. We don’t even know the characters well yet; all we realise is that two young children are being sent by their mother off to a hostel to pursue education, much against their wishes. The two throw tantrums, refuse to get on to the bus, and look teary-eyed at their mother, who just cannot look into their eyes to bid goodbye. She turns back, unable to process the look on their forlorn faces. She closes her eyes and clutches her chest, almost as if the entire world were resting on it. It’s a scene Selvi (Swasika) sells immediately. You almost wish the rest of the film had emotional heft like this. Alas, it doesn’t.

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Fri, June 19 2026

Created by Mark Protosevich, the Colin Farrell-led drama sees the actor as a mysterious private investigator who's hiding a big secret

After dropping the biggest shocker about its lead character, John Sugar (Colin Farrell), in the first season, Sugar moves back into being a moody neo-noir about a detective trying to track down a missing person. The original series by Apple TV puts the reveal of Sugar’s otherworldly secret aside and builds a story around corruption, betrayal and greed, all things that are alien to him (pun intended). The eight-part series continues with its homages to old Hollywood as the cinephile private detective attempts to reunite two boxer brothers. With some new faces in the second season, Farrell slips back into detective mode as the layered drama keeps viewers interested.

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Tue, June 16 2026

In the end, Imtiaz Ali, though sometimes full of feeling, seems full of sermonising.

In a scene during Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga, when Nirvair (Diljit Dosanjh) takes the stage at an open mic in London, I braced myself. In my head, Ali is notorious for dipping his toes in subcultures he considers ‘hip and trendy’ (like stand-up comedy here, fresco painting in 2009’s Love Aaj Kal) – including them as passing details in a film, never to be brought up again. Over here, it’s used to establish Nirvair as a young wastrel (from a wealthy family in Amritsar) coasting through life. He can’t stick to a job for more than two months, he can’t commit to his girlfriend, Kaveri (Banita Sandhu). His father (Rajat Kapoor) asks, “Why do you keep running?” – a narrative failsafe, lest the metaphor be lost on someone unfamiliar with an escapist Imtiaz Ali protagonist.

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Mon, June 15 2026

At a time when the politics of hostility has engulfed the world and escalated it into senseless wars Main Vaapas Aaunga's unwavering belief in love is a testament to cinema's uplifting gifts

Survivors of Partition could never truly move on as the horrors it brought on continued to haunt their hearts for the rest of their days. So did the hope to see their home once in their lifetime. They never really believed they won’t be able to return ever again. I’ve heard of the displacement and a desire to revisit their home in stories of my grandparent-in-laws. They, like many others, on both sides of the border, died without getting their wish fulfilled. Scenes of burying their wealth in the backyard with hopes of reclaiming it on return, fleeing bloodthirsty foes on the other side with the help of friends from the same community or women wearing a vial of poison around their necks in the event of violent mob attacks, days and days of uncertainty spent in camps would become stories of staying alive. One that flocks of homeless and heartbroken refugees, like my relatives, would remember and remind generations to come.

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Mon, June 15 2026

A poignant Partition-era drama exploring memory, displacement, interfaith love, and inherited trauma through powerful performances, humanist storytelling, and a deeply emotional meditation on belonging.

Partition, in any form, is never merely a political event; it is an enduring human catastrophe. It leaves behind not only severed geographies but also ruptured hearts, fractured identities, and generations condemned to inherit memories of loss. Time, often celebrated as the great healer, may soften the sharp edges of grief, but it cannot erase the scars carved into the collective consciousness of those who lived through such devastation. Those wounds remain buried beneath the surface, dormant yet alive, capable of reopening with the slightest provocation, unleashing once again the sorrow of a world violently torn apart.

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Tue, June 16 2026

Even though Disclosure Day is far from his best work, in the age of frictionless perfection, there is something oddly reassuring about watching Spielberg get it wrong.

When Steven Spielberg made Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), extraterrestrial life forms were a dining-table conversation, shrouded in mystery and wonder. As his latest venture Disclosure Day releases, aliens, ‘unidentified flying objects’ (UFOs) and deep-state military complexes unfortunately appear more often in the message boards of alt-right conspiracy theorists – folks caricatured beyond redemption in popular culture. This is the first significant difference between the two Spielberg films, released 49 years apart, which might dictate the latter’s reception. Another thing working against Spielberg’s latest film is that it comes a decade after Arrival (2016), directed by Denis Villeneuve. The Amy Adams-starrer, based on humans making first contact with extraterrestrial beings, managed something rare: being both deeply philosophical about the human condition while also being a definitive anti-Spielberg film, with its devastating, open-ended climax prompting more questions than answers.

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Tue, June 16 2026

என்பதாக டிவி சேனலில் அரங்கேறும் அந்த இறுதி அத்தியாயம் அட்டகாசமான திரை அனுபவம்! இதைத்தான் ஹாலிவுட் கடந்த சில வருடங்களாக மிஸ் செய்ததோ?!

சயின்ஸ் பிக்ஷன் - ஏலியன்ஸ் காம்போவில் ஸ்டீவன் ஸ்பீல்பெர்க் படம் என்றாலே அதற்கு எனத் தனி ரசிகர் பட்டாளம் உண்டு. ஏலியன்கள் குறித்து அவர் எடுத்த ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, ‘E.T. (Extra Terrestrial), ‘War of the Worlds’ என அனைத்துமே இன்றுவரை கிளாசிக்காகக் கொண்டாடப்படுகின்றன. அப்படிப்பட்ட தன் ஃபேவரைட் ஜானருக்குள் மீண்டும் நுழைந்திருக்கிறார் ஸ்பீல்பெர்க்! உலகமே மூன்றாம் உலகப்போர் குறித்த அச்சத்திலிருக்க, ‘வார்டெக்ஸ்’ (Wartex) என்ற நிறுவனத்தின் ரகசிய, பாதுகாக்கப்பட்ட கோப்புகளையும், ஒரு மர்மமான கருவியையும் திருடிவிடுகிறார் அந்நிறுவனத்தின் சைபர் செக்யூரிட்டியில் பணியாற்றும் டேனியல் கெல்னர் (ஜாஷ் ஓ’கானர்). அவரை அந்நிறுவனத்தின் சிஇஓ (காலின் ஃபிர்த்), தன் படைகளுடன் துரத்த, தன் காதலியுடன் தப்பி ஓடுகிறார் கெல்னர்.

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Mon, June 15 2026

‘Disclosure Day’, starring Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor, is a solid chase film but a muddled whistleblower drama and extraterrestrial story

When his compatriots were making paranoid thrillers in the 1970s, Spielberg was busy perfecting a different kind of film, one so successful it hastened the end of the New American Cinema. Years later, he made an excellent film about whistleblowers and journalists, set in 1971, called The Post (2017). His new film—set in the present day—is also a kind of paranoid thriller, yet it lacks the dread and the shadowy possibilities of the best ones. This is a genre that’s most effective when allusive, and Disclosure Day is both vague and too literal. When his compatriots were making paranoid thrillers in the 1970s, Spielberg was busy perfecting a different kind of film, one so successful it hastened the end of the New American Cinema. Years later, he made an excellent film about whistleblowers and journalists, set in 1971, called The Post (2017). His new film—set in the present day—is also a kind of paranoid thriller, yet it lacks the dread and the shadowy possibilities of the best ones. This is a genre that’s most effective when allusive, and Disclosure Day is both vague and too literal.

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Tue, June 16 2026

The 94-year-old filmmaker’s dream project transforms a simple ecological message into an engaging musical experience and works as a clutter breaker in Telugu cinema

At a time when Telugu cinema seems trapped in the pursuit of pan-Indian ambitions, with big-budget productions often resting on weakly written stories, Sing Geetham is a refreshing departure. Directed by 94-year-old filmmaker Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, it serves as a timely reminder that the industry can still take leaps of faith and offer audiences something new. The story reflects on the futility of human greed while reinforcing the need to live in harmony with Nature. Its musical fantasy-drama format springs from childlike innocence and an audacity to defy stale box-office formulas. Bringing wings to Rao’s 40-year-old dream project is a talented cast and crew, with music composer Devi Sri Prasad serving as the film’s backbone.

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Tue, June 16 2026

The Night Courage Walked the Hospital Corridors

Terror and terrorism admit of only one character: brutality. As such, they are beyond justification and ought to remain beyond forgiveness. Yet the stories that emerge from acts of terror are often far more complex and, at times, profoundly heroic—not from the perspective of the perpetrators, but from that of the victims, survivors, and those who rise in defiance of violence. After a string of commercial disappointments, Kangana Ranaut returns to the big screen with Bharat Bhagya Vidhata, a 127-minute dramatization of the extraordinary events that unfolded at Mumbai’s Cama and Albless Hospital during the horrific 26/11 terrorist attacks. Drawing upon real incidents and inspired by the courage of healthcare workers such as nurse Anjali Kulthe, who helped save more than twenty pregnant women, the film seeks to illuminate a chapter of the tragedy that remains insufficiently remembered.

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Sat, June 13 2026

Cinematically, the first round of applause goes to Kangana Ranaut for not only playing Cama nurse Geeta Madhav Gandhare with professional efficiency but for also not overshadowing her colleagues Girija Oak, Smita Tambe and the others who play her fellow nurses. It is as an ensemble cast should be, screen time shared by all. In real life, a resounding round of applause has been long overdue for the feisty nurses of Cama who worked fearlessly and tirelessly on a night they were not trained for. Nobody was prepared for a terror attack on Mumbai where blood was splattered in restaurants, roads, railway stations, five-star hotels and a hospital.

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Fri, June 12 2026

ड्यूटी फर्स्ट…! बस यह कहा और निकल गई काम पर। बीमार बच्चे को छोड़, अधूरा खाना छोड़, आधी नींद छोड़, फुनफुनाती सास को छोड़, भुनभुनाते पति को छोड़, खुद अपनी खराब तबियत को पीछे छोड़ वह पहुंची अस्पताल और यूनिफॉर्म पहनते ही उसके भीतर आ गई सुपर पॉवर। जी हां, यह होती है नर्स। ऐसी ही एक सुपर नर्स अंजलि कुल्थे और उन जैसे कई कर्मठ कर्मियों के साहस को सलाम करने आई है यह फिल्म जो न सिर्फ पूछती है बल्कि बताती भी है कि कौन हैं हमारे असली ‘भारत भाग्य विधाता’। 26 नवंबर, 2008 की उस मनहूस रात मुंबई की छाती को ज़ख्मी करने आए दस पाकिस्तानी आतंकियों में से दो इस्माइल खान व अजमल कसाब कामा अस्पताल में भी जा घुसे थे। तब महिलाओं और बच्चों के इस अस्पताल के स्टाफ ने साहस का परिचय देते हुए सारे मरीजों को यहां-वहां छुपा कर वार्ड के ताले व बत्तियां बंद कर उन्हें बचाया था। इसी स्टाफ में थीं नर्स अंजलि कुल्थे जिन्होंने उस रात न सिर्फ 20 गर्भवती महिलाओं को बचाया बल्कि बाद में ज़िंदा पकड़े गए एकमात्र आतंकी अजमल कसाब को पहचानने में पुलिस की मदद भी की थी। इस फिल्म की नर्स गीता का किरदार उन्हीं अंजलि से प्रेरित है।

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Tue, June 16 2026

Bajpayee Shines, Cinema Suffers as History is Recast to Fit a Narrative

We inhabit an age in which the credibility of almost every belief we hold has become increasingly uncertain. The relentless proliferation of digital media has not merely expanded access to information; it has also enabled the systematic reshaping of opinions, perceptions, and even philosophical convictions to serve competing ideological agendas. Whether the subject concerns scientific evidence, historical memory, matters of faith, or political events, public understanding is increasingly shaped less by rigorous inquiry than by carefully curated narratives. In such an environment, political history—with all its complexity, nuance, and contested interpretations—becomes particularly vulnerable to distortion. Bias is repackaged as truth, and selective representation masquerades as historical interpretation.

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Sat, June 13 2026

A revisionist manifesto disguised as history, director Chinmay Mandlekar reduces a multi-layered institutional rescue to a one-man army myth

An economic thriller that utilises the textures of India’s Balance of Payments crisis of 1991 to deliver a message on state power, centralised authority, and the perceived liabilities of democratic noise, Governor: The Silent Saviour is yet another example of how history is being instrumentalised on screen today. It is not just looking back to understand the crippling economic impact of the Gulf War in 1991; it is looking back to legitimise the governance model of 2026. The timing of the film’s release feels remarkably prescient because India is once again navigating severe macroeconomic tremors triggered directly by a West Asian crisis, with petrol prices soaring, and rumours of depleting gold reserves floating in the air again.

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Fri, June 12 2026

It could’ve turned into a documentary. But mercifully, director Chinmay Mandlekar and his array of co-writers (Ravi Asrani, Saurabh Bharat, Subhendu Bhattacharya, Vipul Amrutlal Shah) use brief touches of humour and bring human, familial elements into the storytelling, to make it an interesting watch. Outside, the financial condition is dire with spiralling prices. Inside, new RBI Governor A Ramanan (Manoj Bajpayee) is bemused by the celebrations to welcome him. There is a lightness in the office atmosphere (like the lift scene) that keep the telling easy and a tough topic like an economic crisis is put across simply, making it comprehensible to the layman. Add to it, the human inspirations that surround Ramanan. Wife Vandita (Madhoo Shah) with her pujas, prayers and positivity, the Deputy Governor (Noushad Mohammed Kunju) who inspires his senior with the line, ‘Fathers don’t quit’ to pull him out of a low mood, an office peon whose borrowings help Ramanan think out of the box.

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