Last Man in Tower
Drama (Hindi)
Masterji is a retired schoolteacher whose refusal to go along with those around him places him in direct conflict with his own community. His act of quiet resistance ripples outward, throwing into relief the choices and compromises of neighbors – (more…)
The Revolutionaries
Drama (Hindi)
The Revolutionaries narrates the inspiring tale of brave young Indian freedom fighters who fought for ending British Raj with their unwavering spirit and ideology. (more…)
Guild Reviews by Film
Pradhama Dhrishtya Kuttakkar
Thriller, Drama (Malayalam)
Follows a woman constable who joins the police force through appointment after the death of her husband.
Cast:
Parvathy Thiruvothu, Vijayaraghavan, Unnimaya Prasad, Mathew Thomas, Sidharth Bharathan, Azees Nedumangad, Vinay Forrt, R. Parthiban, Balaji Sarma, Vrindha Menon
Director:
Shahad Nilambur
Writer:
Vijesh Thottingal, P. S. Subramanian
Sun, September 13 2026
How do we empathise with a force like the police? The last time I asked myself this, I was watching reels of police violence against Gen-Z protesters at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. That scepticism lasted about thirty minutes, right until I spotted a traffic cop drenched in sweat while I sat comfortably in an AC vehicle, wearing sunglasses and two layers of sunscreen. Humanising lower-rank police officers in India is an uncomfortable exercise. Director Shahad’s investigative thriller Pradhama Drishtya Kuttakkar takes up that challenge and builds a cat-and-mouse game around a group of cops hiding an accidental crime from a system that both empowers and oppresses them.
Fri, September 11 2026
Director Shahad crafts a compelling thriller about cops, crime, and a cover-up, with Parvathy and Vijayaraghavan in exemplary form
An accidental death occurs. The body has to be disposed of. Every trace of evidence has to be erased. The investigators have to be outsmarted. The truth has to be concealed forever. No, we are not talking about Drishyam here. But such has been the impact. It’s a benchmark in such thriller narratives, and lately there has been a surge in different iterations of this crime-cover-up trope in many languages. Maa Behen (Hindi), Kuttram Purindhavan and Blast (Tamil), Mohiniyattam (Malayalam)… On the surface, Pradhama Drishtya Kuttakkar (PDK) has a similar premise. Something ghastly happens, and this time around, the duel is between cops themselves. Four low-ranked ordinary cops vs a veteran officer with an unblemished track record. The result is a gripping police procedural thriller that’s cleverly written, packed with tension and twists, and never takes the audience for granted.
Ghamasaan
Thriller, Action (Hindi)
A cat-and-mouse tale set in the Hindi heartland, where male friendships and rivalries unveil homoerotic tensions. Men on both sides of the law traverse arid lands, creating a sense of place where unexplored histories reside.
Cast:
Pratik Gandhi, Arshad Warsi, Ishita Dutta, Rajpal Yadav, Jatin Goswami, Deepraj Rana, Pankaj Saraswat, Anurag Thakur, Paritosh Sand, Kumar Kanchan Ghosh
Director:
Tigmanshu Dhulia
Writer:
Ram Yash Singh, Piyush Singh
Sun, September 13 2026
मध्य भारत के डकैतों की बात होती है तो चंबल नदी के आसपास के बीहड़ वाले डाकू (ओह सॉरी, बीहड़ में बागी होत हैं, डकैत होत हैं पार्लामैंट में) ही याद आते हैं। यही कारण है कि किसी ज़माने में कुख्यात रहे डकैत ददुआ यानी शिव कुमार पटेल को भी चंबल से जोड़ लिया जाता है जबकि उसका इलाका उत्तर प्रदेश के चित्रकूट में माणिकपुर के आसपास का पाठा (पठारी) क्षेत्र था। कभी बीहड़ की फूलन देवी पर बनी कमाल की फिल्म ‘बैंडिट क्वीन’ से जुड़े रहे और वहीं के पान सिंह तोमर पर ‘पान सिंह तोमर’ नाम से एक उम्दा फिल्म दे चुके फिल्मकार तिग्मांशु धूलिया अब पाठा के ददुआ पर यह फिल्म ‘घमासान’ (Ghamasaan) लेकर आए हैं। मगर क्या यह फिल्म उन दो फिल्मों की तरह शानदार बन पाई है? आइए देखते हैं।
Sun, September 13 2026
Set in the Hindi heartland, Bundelkhand, Ghamasaan delves into the conflict between a powerful dacoit named Maharaj (Arshad Warsi) and a fearless officer, Aditya Singh (Pratik Gandhi). As Aditya tries to dismantle Maharaj’s reign, he needs to rise above deep corruption, taking stock of power struggles and the thin line between the law and the outlaws. Pratik Gandhi is decent as an approachable, earnest cop and gives it relatability. And, after a while, Arshad Warsi sheds his comedy image and brings an earthy flamboyance to a ruthless, proactive dacoit. Rajpal Yadav bags a unique role, and among the supporting cast, Deepraj Rana, Jatin Goswami and Ishita Dutta make a mark.
Fri, September 11 2026
Arshad Warsi as Maharaj didn’t make me believe all the way that he could be a cruel man with zero compassion. And there’s also Rajpal Yadav, in a striking supporting role, which leaves a mark.
The arena is Bundelkhand, not Chambal, but Timanshu Dhulia knows his terrain. And that familiarity makes Ghamasaan stand out from the series of films shot on locations created on sets, their artifice seeping into the story-telling: the best part of this conflict between cops-and-robbers is the authenticity of the place, and the people. Maharaj (Arshad Warsi) is Bundelkhand’s Bandit King, as opposed to Phoolan, Chambal’s Bandit Queen (in which Dhulia was casting director) , as well as Paan Singh Tomar (which Dhulia directed, turning it into one of his, and lead Irrfan’s, best collaborations) from the same area who famously gave us that line about ‘baaghis’ and ‘dakaaits’.
Panchanama
Crime, Mystery (Telugu)
Police officer Jai Ram refuses to accept his brother Aadi's death as an accident. His investigation leads him to reopen other suspicious death cases involving Aadi, Praveen and Joseph, eventually uncovering a much larger conspiracy connected to a medical syndicate.
Cast:
Bharath Srinivasan, Shivaji Raja, Medha Reddy, Charan Babu, V. S. Roopa Lakshmi
Director:
Mohan Srivatsa
Sun, September 13 2026
Cop Jai Ram’s life takes a drastic turn when his younger brother dies under mysterious circumstances. The local authorities and the officials quickly dismiss the tragedy as a mere accident. Refusing to buy it, he kickstarts an investigation to uncover what truly happened. Bharath fits the part of a hardened cop with a past and has the right composure and body language expected of a protagonist in a tight investigative thriller. Medha Reddy is decent in a role with limited scope. The show is particularly noteworthy for Roopa Lakshmi, who gets to do something substantial beyond her goody/emotional mother roles. Sivaji Raja does what’s expected of him, with no surprises there.
Haiwaan
Crime, Thriller (Hindi)
A retired judge faces difficulty keeping his daughter safe from a convict he imprisoned. Later, when he gets murdered, a man with visual impairment who was loyal to him tries to defend his daughter.
Cast:
Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Saiyami Kher, Rajpal Yadav, Sharib Hashmi, Rajesh Sharma, Manoj Joshi, Asrani
Director:
Priyadarshan
Sat, September 12 2026
Priyadarshan’s Haiwaan is a remake of his own Malayalam film Oppam (2016), which was a big hit a decade ago. After watching Haiwaan, I spent some time wondering why Priyadarshan chose to remake a successful film of his own. What value addition could he possibly bring to it? Alas, I couldn’t think of a satisfactory answer - except that commercial considerations must have warranted it.
Sat, September 12 2026
श्रीराम राघवन की फिल्म ‘अंधाधुन’ में एक अंधा पियानो प्लेयर एक खून होते हुए ‘देख’ लेता है। अब अंधा आदमी ‘देख’ कैसे सकता है? और यहीं से शुरू होती है छल, कपट और धोखे की एक अंधी दौड़ जिसमें कोई भी पाक-साफ नहीं है। प्रियदर्शन की इस फिल्म ‘हैवान’ में एक बिल्डिंग के अंधे मैंटेनेंस मैनेजर की जज साहब को मारने वाले एक खूनी से हाथापाई हुई है। वह उसे सूंघ कर पहचान लेता है लेकिन पुलिस उस अंधे को ही खूनी माने बैठी है। कैसे निकलेगा वह इस आरोप से? कैसे पकड़ा जाएगा वह खूनी? वह खून कर ही क्यों रहा है? क्यों वह ऐसा हैवान बना हुआ है जो अपने बदले की आग में मासूमों की जान लिए जा रहा है? सवाल कई हैं, जवाब यह फिल्म देती है। मगर क्या ये जवाब हज़म होने लायक हैं? आइए देखते हैं।
Sat, September 12 2026
Matching Mohanlal is a tough ask, but Saif makes the most of the opportunity that the unusual role presents
Transplanted from Kochi to Mumbai, a well-received Priyadarshan-helmed Malayalam crime drama that Mohanlal spearheaded a decade ago morphs in the same director’s hands into a Bollywood thriller with the Kerala superstar in a surprise cameo. Textually similar, texturally different and tonally entirely its own beast, Haiwaan, starring Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan, struggles to shrug off the shadow of Mohanlal and Oppam (2016). Comparisons here are not as odious as they usually are. They are, in fact, essential in understanding the trip that Haiwaan is on in the company of two Bollywood actors whose personas shape the film.
Gandhari
Action, Drama, Thriller (Hindi)
When a mother loses her eyesight and her daughter in a kidnapping, she takes matters into her own hands to hunt down those responsible.
Cast:
Taapsee Pannu, Ishwak Singh, Mita Vashisht, Swastika Mukherjee, Chhaya Kadam, Jatin Sarna, Prashant Narayanan, Chandan Roy, Vishwanath Chatterjee, Priti Shroff
Director:
Devashish Makhija
Writer:
Kanika Dhillon
Sat, September 12 2026
A land that worships the divine feminine yet treats its women poorly. This is a paradox that rings tragic and true both in reality and in the fictional world of Gandhari. The film is set in Joypurra, an unsettling place where the disappearance of young girls has been frighteningly normalized. The story opens by establishing a happy family of three. Taapsee Pannu and Ishwak Singh play a husband and wife and parents to a young girl Mishti. When Mishti suddenly goes missing the narrative dives straight into the conflict.
Sun, September 6 2026
Fri, September 4 2026
An incoherent ‘Gandhari’ stars Taapsee Pannu as a mother who pretends to be blind to search for her kidnapped daughter in a shady town
If I were younger and brasher, I’d start this review with something as direct as: Gandhari is one of the worst Hindi films of the year. I’d rant about how it creates a world record for the number of scenes in which characters speak off-screen so as to hide the clunky exposition and dialogue added in post-production; how lip-syncing is a mythical concept; how this is salvage-job filmmaking at its peak. I’d go on about how the movie treats feminism, motherhood, child trafficking, gender-based violence, trauma and breathing as a smug SoBo aesthetic; how the phrase “my culture is not your costume” was invented for screenplays like these. I’d balk at the Do Patti-coded twists, disorienting music and editing, disjointed acting and disingenuous metaphors. I’d be outraged by the film’s Haseen Dillruba-coded lens of toxic love, where the scene of a husband and wife literally clobbering each other is scored to a romantic ballad: such a ‘punchy’ love language. I’d be angry to the point of incoherence, much like the film in question.
The Revolutionaries
Drama (Hindi)
The Revolutionaries narrates the inspiring tale of brave young Indian freedom fighters who fought for ending British Raj with their unwavering spirit and ideology.
Cast:
Bhuvan Bam, Pratibha Ranta, Rohit Saraf, Gurfateh Pirzada, Jason Shah, Paoli Dam, Prosenjit Bhattacharya, Pallavi Chatterjee
Director:
Nikkhil Advani
Writer:
Sanyukta Shaikh Chawla, Akshita Wadhwana
Sat, September 12 2026
The Revolutionaries is a vivid document of the lesser-known armed resistance of India’s independence movement. Set in the early 20th century, it tells the stories of young, fearless freedom fighters, including Rash Behari Bose, Sachindranath Sanyal, and Bagha Jatin, as they risk everything to challenge the might of the British Empire. The series brings together several exciting talents that have made use of OTT as a talent showcase, including Bhuvan Bam, Rohit Saraf, Pratibha Ranta and Gurfateh Pirzada. Yet, they seem overwhelmed by the prospect of carrying the density of the theme. Bhuvan, Rohit and Pratibha get to shine in flashes, though nothing consistent enough to make it a poignant performance. Jason Shah, as General Dyer, is hardly intimidating.
Fri, September 11 2026
Fri, September 11 2026
Nikkhil Advani earlier floored us with ‘Freedom At Midnight’, which recounted the years that led to India’s freedom struggle
“Hum se pehle bhi kranti, hamare baad bhi kranti…” Yet many of us are not fully clued into the tale of armed resistance and revolutionaries who fought for the freedom of our country, not always successfully, but never in vain. Creator-writer Nikkhil Advani, who floored us with ‘Freedom At Midnight’, recounting the years that led to India’s freedom struggle in many sterling ways, is back again. This time, he digs further back into history — early 20th century. The heroes of his earlier series — Gandhi, Nehru, Patel — are household names. But Rash Behari Bose, Jatindranath Mukherjee aka Bagha Jatin and Sachindranath Sanyal urf Sachin are at best names which ring a bell, but only a few among us fully know or understand their tales of valour.
Termite
(Urdu)
Shaunak Sen’s follow-up to the Academy Award–nominated documentary All That Breathes is an evocative drama set in the vibrant neighbourhoods of Old Delhi, where the routined lives of two middle-aged termite exterminators are about to drastically change when one of them receives an unexpected marriage proposal.
Cast:
Faisal Malik, Vipin Sharma, Shilpa Shukla, Valavane Koumarane, Imran Khan
Director:
Shaunak Sen
Writer:
Shaunak Sen
Sat, September 12 2026
In competition at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the Oscar-nominated documentarian’s short returns to the bylanes of old Delhi.
Termite, a 30-minute short, is documentary maker Shaunak Sen’s first fiction film. But it’s hard to tell the difference. He treats life as the introverted ally of storytelling; his nonfiction often designs the truth of an invisibilised India. It finds a controlled language to present what already exists. While Cities of Sleep traced the gloomy lyricism of Delhi’s insurgent sleeper communities, the Oscar-nominated All That Breathes shadowed two Muslim brothers who run a bird clinic in old Delhi. The camera — steady, studied, often static — reframes the people as characters, spaces as settings, and ecological relationships as cultural metaphors. Termite looks like it’s ‘following’ two men in the capital, too. A Tamil migrant, Ajith (Valavane Koumarane), shares a rooftop room with his Muslim friend, Saud (Faisal Malik); they spend tired evenings drinking tea and passively watching television.
Fall 2
Thriller (English)
On a perilous climb across Thailand's Mount Kwan, two climbers become trapped thousands of feet above the ground, where vertigo-inducing heights, sheer exposure, and impossible odds turn every moment into a fight for survival.
Cast:
Harriet Slater, Arsema Thomas, Tom Brittney, Virginia Gardner, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Korakod Yensuk, Jordan Coleman, Maryna Bennett, Noen Perez, Nattapon Sukphiam
Director:
Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig
Writer:
Jonathan Frank, Scott Mann
Sat, September 12 2026
Sequel to 2022 original, Fall 2 is too grim for its own good. The film appears to believe that it is a meditation on grief and an inspiring fable about emotional emancipation, without actually tackling either idea with any depth.
Released in 2022, Fall stood out as an uncommonly well-made survival thriller — it had a killer premise, excellent performances and surprising emotional depth. The genre has only become more popular in the years since. This year alone, we’ve seen the Netflix films Apex and The Last House and the Prime Video title The Devil’s Mouth. None of them were any good, although Apex featured a memorably unhinged performance by Taron Egerton. This week’s Fall 2: Deadpoint most definitely comes up short of its predecessor, but more disappointingly, it can’t quite match the camp qualities of this year’s three other survival thrillers either.
Last Man in Tower
Drama (Hindi)
Masterji is a retired schoolteacher whose refusal to go along with those around him places him in direct conflict with his own community. His act of quiet resistance ripples outward, throwing into relief the choices and compromises of neighbors – including Mrs. Puri – as an offer of change tests what each of them is willing to hold on to.
Cast:
Manoj Bajpayee, Divya Dutta, Boman Irani, Sukant Goel, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Ujjwal Chopra, Swaroopa Ghosh, Uday Chandra, Madhuri Bhatia, Shrikant Yadav
Director:
Ben Rekhi
Sat, September 12 2026
Directed by Ben Rekhi, Last Man in Tower is an adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s novel of the same name. The story revolves around a decrepit residential building in Mumbai and its residents, and how the lure of a better future changes ties when a builder arrives with an offer to acquire and reconstruct the property.
Directed by Ben Rekhi, Last Man in Tower is a perfectly pleasant adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s novel of the same name. But therein lies the problem; it is well-behaved when it should have been transgressive. At its core, this is a cautionary tale about the decaying morality of the Indian middle class, a satire about our collective lack of social trust. But filtered through Rekhi’s lens, the movie comes across as an ode to the undying spirit of Mumbaikars. The story revolves around a decrepit residential building in Vakola, Mumbai, an almost fantastical vessel where men and women of all ages, sexes, and social classes live in relative harmony. The building can be seen as a metaphor for India; a society we imagine existed before it was shredded to pieces by populist politicians. At its (moral) centre is a retired teacher affectionately known by everyone as ‘Masterji’. He’s played by Manoj Bajpayee in a terrific central performance that occasionally reveals the underlying rage that should have been more palpable in the film itself.
Fri, September 11 2026
Adapting Aravind Adiga’s acclaimed novel, Ben Rekhi builds a gripping moral battleground where a community chooses redevelopment to compromise its own foundation.
At the heart of Last Man in Tower lies Vishram Cooperative Housing Society, a decaying, close-knit enclave of middle-class Mumbai families. Their world is upended when a ruthless real estate tycoon, Dharmen Shah (Boman Irani), offers them a life-changing financial windfall to buy out the building for luxury redevelopment. The catch is that the payout is all or nothing, contingent on a unanimous vote. While his cash-strapped neighbours eagerly scramble for a ticket into the modern world, Yogesh Mishra (Manoj Bajpayee), a retired schoolteacher known as Masterji, stubbornly refuses to sign away the home that holds the memories of his deceased wife. What begins as a disagreement quickly degenerates into a psychological social pressure cooker, as the neighborhood’s collective desperation, led by the chirpy Sangeeta Puri (Divya Dutta), turns into targeted malice against the lone dissenter.
Fri, September 11 2026
Adapting Aravind Adiga’s 2011 novel, Sooni Taraporevala’s screenplay expunges much of its mordant humour and tips instead to a straight-faced comment on India’s redevelopment boom.
What does it take to plough on even in the face of overwhelming opposition? In Ben Rekhi’s Last Man In Tower, the retired schoolteacher, Yogesh Mishra/Masterji (Manoj Bajpayee), finds himself sanded into a corner. He had supporters but the small number dwindled. This adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s eponymous 2011 novel spins around Mumbai’s Vishram apartment block. It’s one of the many old buildings that real-estate hawks have their eyes on as redevelopment razes the country. Masterji is the polar opposite of the smarmy builder, Dharmen Shah (Boman Irani), who insists everything in Mumbai is for sale. There are still some who fight tooth and nail to preserve those places that are receptacles of their memories, a record of their lives’ intimate tapestries.
Life of Jorge Luis Borges
Documentary (Spanish)
A biography of Jorge Luis Borges working from an exhaustive review of the papers he left, the books he read, the places he went to. And with this, an attempt to decipher a very peculiar life: someone who lived like a hidden, underground warrior, whose cause was literature, literature conceived as a kingdom and as a landscape. If Cold War spies fought from their desks or from an uninhabited house to defend their half of the world, Borges strove from a library to elevate and broaden the territories of his own tribe: the people for whom the most important part of the universe is books, plots and words. This film is devoted to that secret pilgrim (to borrow from Le Carré, the king of all spies).
Cast:
Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Montequín, Nicolás Helft, Laura Paredes, Milva Leonardi, Pablo Dacal
Director:
Mariano Llinás
Fri, September 11 2026
Venice Film Festival 2026 | The ultimate vagrants of contemporary cinema, Argentina’s El Pampero collective has produced another rambling, nearly six-hour adventure between life, fiction, fantasy and charming investigation.
Pioneering Argentine filmmaker Mariano Llinás is the truest inheritor of the Borgesian tradition with a vision of cinema that trumps settled notions. There are no limits or a stiffening of what cinema can be allowed to do. Llinás co-founded Argentina’s, a radical El Pampero Cine collective, a group that includes the other great filmmaker of our times, Laura Citarella. In his latest massive undertaking, Life of Jorge Luis Borges, Llinás sculpts a new form of the creative biography. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival in the Open – Non-Fiction section, this nearly six-hour saga flirts with the tether of creative possibility. An extensive foray into the life, work and politics of Jorges Luis Borges, who saw literature as a kingdom and books the only nation to believe in, the film achieves its mammoth scale through the smallest, most minute interventions. Llinás has no interest in a straightforward chronicle, a regular documentary’s beats. His probing builds through interruptions and flickering curiosities, stretching as far from the linear and conventional as possible.
The Colour of the Sun
Drama (Japanese)
During summer break on Okinawa's main island, Kamei and his friends face uncertain futures, until they meet Colin, a teenager from the American base in Naha, and everything changes.
Cast:
Naoto Shimajiri, West Mulholland, Ichiro Andre Castro
Director:
Xavier Tera
Writer:
Xavier Tera
Fri, September 11 2026
Venice Film Festival 2026| Towering over the Orizzonti competition, Xavier Tera’s debut is an intimately observed coming-of-age marvel, finding light amidst grief and teenage uncertainties.
Kamei (Naoto Shimajiri) has been silently grieving. His father’s recent death hangs over his thoughts. In Xavier Tera’s The Colour of the Sun, bereavement also turns a conduit for the inevitable exploration youthfulness catapults. There’s a lot of hurt, unprocessed emotion which has him darting in circles. Neither can he really open up to his mother. The closed line of dialogue, a stunted chance to vent, makes healing an incredibly lonely journey. Premiering in Orizzonti competition at the Venice Film Festival, Tera’s gently shaped drama zeroes in on fine emotional detail, accruing power through modest, nevertheless piercing suggestion.
Our Share of Sand
(English)
After years apart, 12 year-old Maya returns to India with her mother to reunite with her father - a sandmining business man. Immersed in a world where labour, legacy and extraction collide, she forms a fragile bond with Kiran, a young worker. After a tragic event, a police investigation turns Maya into a key witness, with her father relying on her to absolve him. Torn between loyalty and a growing unease she cannot name, Maya begins searching for the truth. As her mother quietly unravels, Maya uncovers a pattern of silence, exploitation and repeated harm forcing her to confront her father's deception and the family's complicity she must choose to break.
Cast:
Maya Mehta, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Ellora Torchia, Krish Raj More, Ravi Patel, Jyoti Dogra
Director:
Shalini Adnani
Writer:
Shalini Adnani