Sat, October 31 2026

Body, a Hindi film, takes place after the COVID-19 pandemic and revolves around a group of friends, who are actors. These include Manoj (Manoj Sharma), Khushboo (Khushboo Upadhyay), Amol (Amol Deshmukh), Jatin (Jatin Negi) and Shivam (Shivam Parekh). Once the four men from the group are having a swim in a lake during their trip outside Mumbai. After the swim, Manoj’s clothes are snatched from him during an episode of drunken fun, headed by Amol, and he is left stark naked. The incident triggers such profound trauma in Manoj that he randomly starts getting fully naked at various public places. Khushboo, who is also Manoj’s girlfriend, Amol, Jatin and Shivam are deeply concerned about his state with their theatre performance being around the corner.

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Tue, December 17 2024

Abhijit Mazumdar’s troubled-actor drama is in the International Competition section of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK)

Once adulthood sets in, and once we’ve accumulated enough years, most of us have two types of recurring dreams (and nightmares). One revolves around the terror of remembering that the exam is tomorrow and we haven’t touched the school syllabus. The other is shaped by the horror of finding ourselves naked in routine situations, while being totally helpless about it. Both of these are trauma responses to our fraught relationship with society. Both feature a link between social conditioning and shame, but Abhijit Muzumdar’s Body confronts the steeper task of exploring the second dream. It’s a testing watch, but ultimately quite a rewarding one.

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Sat, October 31 2026

This over-the-top comedy about a sexist playboy who pretends to be a woman to aid his love story is a red flag pretending to be a green flag

Think of the hundred ways in which a story about the transformation of a small-town playboy can happen. Think of the hundred ways in which the sexist hero learns his lesson. Love? Heartbreak? Big city humbling? Grief? Falling for a feminist? Falling for a gangster? Falling for Ravi Kishan reels? Trust Bollywood, however, to find the 101st way. Trust mainstream Hindi cinema to come up with a gimmick that pretends to be entertaining and edgy and self-aware but is unwittingly creepy and regressive. Trust it to provide an answer to a question nobody asked: What if Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Dream Girl had a baby that grew up to become a Tanu Weds Manu fan stumbling out of the bar?

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Sat, October 31 2026

Dharamshala Film Festival 2026 | Roshan Mathew and Divya Prabha front a delightfully unbound drama shuttling through films, their makers and characters

Meta movies are tricky. The balance between sincerity and showiness is a constant negotiation. To what point can the filmmaker hold up to view the skeins of their work? When does this authorial mischief skid over into an unanchored experiment? Among India’s most consistently surprising, striking filmmakers working today, Don Palathara’s latest, Ekadesham (The Uncertainty Principle), is a vivid, scrambled drama, flitting between the folds of life, art, ambition, wishfulness and failure. Celebrating its Asia premiere at the Dharamshala Film Festival, the film doesn’t always stay grounded but remains curious, exploratory and eager to gauge its ruptures. Movies charged by a spirit to peck at their own edges are always an exciting proposition. Even their shortcomings reflect daring.

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Sat, October 31 2026

More than two centuries after Jane Austen’s novel appeared, the Dashwood sisters, now essayed by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles, remain the quintessential play of opposites—passion and reason

Jane Austen continues to speak vividly to our times. Her 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility met a brilliant, beloved match in Ang Lee’s 1995 benchmark adaptation with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. The challenge Georgia Oakley must have experienced while mounting her new adaptation is immense. But, for the most part, she conjures a drama of such freshness, buoyancy and emotional churn you can overlook the minor bumps, few jarring choices.

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Fri, October 30 2026

Georgia Oakley's Sense and Sensibility follows Elinor and Marianne Dashwood through love and loss. The adaptation finds fresh warmth in patient romance, familial bonds and Austen's humour.

In a world where dating apps, situationships and the dreaded “what are we?” conversation have become part of the romantic vocabulary, Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility feels like a gentle reminder that love can be beautiful when it takes its time. But this Jane Austen adaptation is not just about making yearning romantic again. It is also about sisterhood, the absurdities of society, the courage to feel deeply and the sheer joy of getting lost in a beautifully told story. Based on Austen’s beloved novel, the film follows Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esm Creed-Miles, two sisters who approach life and love rather differently. While Elinor keeps her emotions firmly in check, Marianne wears her heart on her sleeve. Their differences make for some amusing exchanges, but it is their bond that gives the story its warmth.

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Fri, October 30 2026

Director Georgia Oakley refuses to romanticise Regency era in this grounded, subdued take on Austen.

The new adaptation of Sense & Sensibility offers a gloomier, grimmer take on Jane Austen’s classic tale of two sisters, their contrasting perspectives on love and heartbreak, and their struggle to navigate life, financial uncertainty and rigid social hierarchies in 19th-century England. It is fascinating to see how two sisters perceive love in their own distinct ways. One believes in restraint, the other in revelation. “We have neither of us anything to tell; you, because you do not communicate, and I, because I conceal nothing.” The older Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and younger Marianne Dashwood (Esmé Creed-Miles) embody the central philosophical conflict between Sense (rationality and restraint) and Sensibility (emotion and openness). Their contrasting attitudes towards emotional reserve, understanding and the expression of love shape their individual journeys, their sisterly bond and Austen’s larger commentary on women’s survival in a society that leaves them with little agency.

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Sat, October 31 2026

This game of revenge might tantalise to begin with but is finally unsatisfying

It’s the usual game of cloak and dagger, blood and gore, only cloaked under the garb of a matrilineal society. In the very first episode, we go back to the history of these fictional places where women once ruled. In post-Independence India, they still call the shots, literally and metaphorically. Lineage runs from mother to daughter, marriage is forbidden and men are at best companions and at worst, wimps. On the face of it, what can be more progressive and delectable than women being hailed as Akka? Men here are no more than superfluous appendages. Keerthy Suresh is Bhavani, who straddles this world and your screens with indomitable strides of strength. For those who dare to cross her path, she does not squirm away from resorting to killing in a brutal fashion.

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Sat, October 31 2026

Sat, October 31 2026

In Akka's confused worldview, women are just as violent as men when consumed by power and pride. Glorifying their cruelty as code and dog-eat-dog politics as empowerment to promote the idea of how flawless the world would be if women ran it, is flawed in itself.

Two parts Wonder Woman’s feminist ethos, two parts Game of Thrones-inspired bloody, backstabbing fervour, a garnish of Milan Luthria’s school of retro kitsch in the vein of Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, The Dirty Picture and what have you, Akka, a five-part series by writer and director Dharamraj Shetty, chronicles the administrative chops of a matriarchal society standing up to the vendetta of a shunned sister after she enlists the aid of spiteful gangs and resentful tribes. Created under the YRF banner, Akka’s lavishly scaled, visually sumptuous yarn fetishes the idea of female leadership. But its wishy-washy feuding over matters of business and bloodline neither justifies its male loathing nor makes a strong case for women as superior leaders. On paper, a self-governed sisterhood’s patriarchy-smashing ideals carry immense weight. Reducing it to a cliched catfight mars its potential quite a bit. All the same, Akka isn’t without its attractive attributes.

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Sat, October 31 2026

Trivikram revisits familiar territory with a story built around Venkatesh’s family-man image, delivering entertaining twists before the narrative loses its way

In the Telugu film Aadarsha Kutumbam: House No. 47, the leading man (Venkatesh) acknowledges the age gap, in fact a generational gap, between him and his wife (Srinidhi Shetty). It is more than a passing reference, with several dialogues returning to the subject. Some of Venkatesh’s recent films have also acknowledged the age difference between him and his leading ladies, even if only in passing. What sets this film apart, marking his reunion with writer-director Trivikram Srinivas after more than two decades, is a later reveal that puts their relationship in context, explaining how the two characters crossed paths. It gives the audience just enough to draw their own conclusions while keeping them entertained with the comedy and suspense.

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Sat, October 31 2026

Meethe Mein Kya Hai's pursuit of happiness and finding joy in the little things exudes the emotionality of a greeting card, not life.

You know how the Hallmark holiday movies are designed to fill its target audience of sentimental fools with a warm fuzzy feeling? Meethe Mein Kya Hai is a bit like that. Set against the backdrop of Diwali, its slice-of-life enthusiasm aims for a low key charm. The problem is, only the low key bit registers. First-time director Radhika Bansal’s drama, centred around a family reunion, is about nothing in particular except follies and foibles of its folk unraveling against the festival of lights. Hosting this annual gathering at her sprawling Lucknow bungalow is the head of the Rastogi family (Rohini Hattangadi) even as her children, their partners and grandchildren lounge about devouring mathris with pickle, dissing pesky uncles and aunts while platters full of samosa, kachori and chai are slipped into the frames to lay bare its snack over storytelling momentum.

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Fri, October 30 2026

दिवाली के त्योहार को केंद्र में रखकर बुनी यह हल्की-फुल्की फिल्म खोने के दर्द, अपनों के साथ और परिवार की अहमियत पर जोर देती है।

वो कहावत है न कि सुख-दुख में परिवार और अपने ही साथ देते हैं। लेखिका-निर्देशिका राधिका बंसल की डेब्यू फिल्म ‘मीठे में क्या है’ इसी एहसास को और पुख्ता करती है। दिवाली के त्योहार को केंद्र में रखकर बुनी यह हल्की-फुल्की फिल्म खोने के दर्द, अपनों के साथ और परिवार की अहमियत पर जोर देती है। कहानी जय (ऋ‍त्विक भौमिक) और उसकी हंसती-खेलती फैमिली की है। जय दो साल पहले गुजर चुकी पत्नी तारा (कनिका कपूर) को खोने के गम से उबर नहीं पा रहा है। वह सब कुछ बेचकर विदेश में बसने जा रहा है, पर तभी उसकी बहन सना (दलाई) बिना किसी को कुछ बताए करम (विक्रम बख्शी) से शादी कर लेती है। इसलिए, उसे दिवाली पर अपनी नानी (रोहिणी हट्टंगड़ी) के घर लखनऊ आना पड़ता है, जहां पूरा परिवार इकट्ठा है। अब दिवाली का त्‍योहार है। परिवार का री-यूनियन है। सना की शादी का सरप्राइज है। लेकिन बड़ा सवाल ये है कि पूरा घर इस पर कैसे रिएक्ट करता है? जय इन सबके बीच अपने दर्द से कैसे उबरता है? परिवार की इसी हल्की-फुल्की मस्ती, नोकझोंक, प्यार और अपनेपन को एकसाथ सजाकर परोसती है यह फिल्म।

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Sat, October 31 2026

While director Vinod Kapri evocatively captures the painful desolation of Uttarakhand’s ghost villages through raw, life-like performances, its cinematic grammar occasionally feels deliberately engineered for a global festival gaze

High in the Himalayas, where the wind murmurs through timber and stone, sits a village that time forgot and the world walked away from. This is the stage for Vinod Kapri’s Pyre(Chita), an elegy carved in the lines of timeworn faces and the vast, aching silence of mountains. It is a story born of memories from Uttarakhand’s ghost villages, where the young have shifted to the heartless cities, leaving only the old to watch over a crumbling community. At its heart, Pyre is a poem to the endurance of love. It follows an elderly couple bound by shared devotion and bickering, and the tenuous hope of their son’s return. With the patience of a documentary and the soul of a tragedy, Kapri creates a meditative piece of minimalist cinema where soaring peaks serve as both a majestic sanctuary and an indifferent prison.

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Fri, October 30 2026

Vinod Kapri's Pyre follows an elderly couple growing old in an emptying Uttarakhand village. Their tender bond exposes the isolation, migration and hardships shaping life in remote communities.

What does growing old look like when the world around you is slowly disappearing? When your children are too far away, your village is emptying out, and even visiting a doctor becomes a challenge? Vinod Kapri’s Pyre explores these realities through an elderly couple in the mountains of Uttarakhand. Beneath its story of loneliness, migration and old age lies a more intimate question: who will hold your hand when life gets difficult? If there is one thing this film makes you want, it is someone to grow old with.

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Fri, October 30 2026

पहाड़ों की खूबसूरती के कसीदे तो हम अक्सर पढ़ते हैं, पर क्या आपने कभी उसकी खामोशी सुनी है? उसका अकेलापन महसूस किया है? अगर नहीं, तो लेखक-निर्देशक विनोद कापड़ी की फिल्म 'पायर' देख लीजिए। Pyre का हिंदी अर्थ चिता है। यह फिल्म वीरान होते जा रहे पहाड़ों का वह रुदन है, जो आपका दिल चीरकर रख देगा।

पहाड़ों की खूबसूरती के कसीदे तो हम अक्सर पढ़ते हैं, पर क्या आपने कभी उसकी खामोशी सुनी है? उसका अकेलापन महसूस किया है? अगर नहीं, तो लेखक-निर्देशक विनोद कापड़ी की फिल्म ‘पायर’ देख लीजिए। Pyre का हिंदी अर्थ चिता है। यह फिल्म वीरान होते जा रहे पहाड़ों का वह रुदन है, जो आपका दिल चीरकर रख देगा। फिल्म का आगाज दूर तक फैले उत्तराखंड के उन्हीं खूबसूरत पहाड़ों से होता है, जहां एक 80 साल का बूढ़ा पदम सिंह (पदम सिंह कापड़ी) अपनी बूढ़ी बीवी तुलसी (हीरा देवी) को साथ लेकर कूदने जाता है। यह पहला सीन कहानी की मार्मिक विसंगति को स्थापित कर देता है। होता यूं है कि पलायन का दंश झेल रहे इस इलाके में उंगलियों पर गिनने लायक लोग ही बचे हैं। पदम सिंह का खुद का बेटा हरिया 28 साल पहले शहर कमाने गया था, जो दोबारा नहीं लौटा। बूढ़े पदम सिंह के लिए अपनी बीमार पत्नी तुलसी को ऊबड़-खाबड़ पहाड़ी रास्ते से शहर ले जाने के लिए लक्ष्मण (सुभाष चंद्रा) और जीवन (शुभम चौधरी) का ही आसरा है। अब इनमें से भी एक की नौकरी लग गई और दूसरे का परिवार गांव छोड़कर जाने वाला है। लिहाजा पदम सिंह को पत्नी समेत इन्हीं पहाड़ों से कूद जाने के अलावा कोई और रास्ता नहीं सूझता। हालांकि, कहानी आगे इससे भी कहीं ज्यादा दर्दनाक मोड़ लेती है, जो आपको झकझोर देता है।

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Fri, October 30 2026

Netflix's three-part documentary retraces Matthew Perry's life through family, friends and colleagues. Their memories reveal the private struggles behind his celebrated portrayal of Chandler Bing.

There is something particularly cruel about being remembered for making people laugh when your own life is anything but funny. Matthew Perry knew that contradiction all too well. For 10 years, as Chandler Bing on Friends, he made awkwardness charming, sarcasm endearing and vulnerability funny. Behind the character we continue to adore, however, was a man battling demons that fame, fortune and the love of millions could not defeat.

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Fri, October 30 2026

As The Fix labours on for an inexplicable length of 142 minutes, you can’t help but feel it has lost the plot – not unlike the lay of the land in real life.

It doesn’t matter if it ain’t broken, trust good red-blooded Americans to try fix it. If it is in the larger direction of the Middle East, don’t bother keeping them away. Here, Tucker (Zachary Levi) and his gang (Wes Chatham, Jake Choi, Augusto Aguilera, Quincy Isaiah) fly into the embers of a US intervention gone south in, first, Afghanistan, and then Iran. In Kabul, it is 2021, as America is making a hasty retreat in the face of a resurgent Taliban. In Iran, in a lucky or unlucky (depending on your geographical location) break for the film, the war is still not on the horizon. However, the Revolutionary Guards are villainous enough to justify Tucker’s excursion.

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Fri, October 30 2026

Alexander Skarsgaard plays the Wickerman softly, gently, but never lets us forget that he is also a manly man, with all his bits in perfect working order.

Once upon a medieval time, in a village populated largely by an assortment of dislikeable types, there lived a Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman). Sick of being bullied, accused of stench arising from her string of tench (a kind of fish), she goes off to the resident Weaver (Peter Dinklage), and requests him to ‘make’ her a husband. Behold the Wickerman, duly created in the image of the ideal man, who has almost ceased to exist, if he ever did. That he is a veritable green forest makes sense not only because he is made of wicker, but also because he is incapable of a single evil thought. When you find one of those, let me know.

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Thu, October 29 2026

For all its political urgency, Shashank Walia’s film, too often, mistakes solemnity for substance.

There’s a particular kind of independent film from India that has permeated the festival circuit in the last few years. They hint at the recent political turmoil, the social inequities and taboos of an increasingly rigid society. The sound design is decidedly sober, the camera is mostly still, the characters speak soft and slow. The titles are usually long English phrases or sentences (more frequently in the aftermath of Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light). It’s a hard trick to pull because a ‘meditative’ film can easily tip over into a ‘self-conscious’ one. Shashank Walia’s Birds in the Dark (Punjabi title: Hanere de Panchhi), which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival, lands somewhere in the middle of its fine intention and self-serious form.

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