
Anupama Chopra
The Hollywood Reporter India and Chairperson FCG
Anupama Chopra is a film critic, national award-winning book author and journalist. She is the editor of The Hollywood Reporter India, founder of Film Companion Studios and chairperson of the Film Critics Guild. She has covered cinema since 1993 in multiple mediums – print, television and digital. She has worked with India Today, NDTV 24x7, Star World. She has also written about cinema for various international publications including The New York Times and Sight and Sound. Anupama has authored several books, including King of Bollywood - Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema, which was featured on the Editor’s Choice list of the New York Times Sunday book review and translated into German, Indonesian and Polish. Anupama received an M.A. in journalism from Northwestern University.
All reviews by Anupama Chopra

Jugnuma (The Fable)
Drama (Hindi)
Raam Reddy's World Of Magical Realism Is Enchanting and Enigmatic
Sat, September 13 2025
Jugnuma (The Fable) begins with a startling unbroken shot in which a seemingly ordinary morning turns extraordinary. Within a few minutes, writer and director Raam Reddy establishes the contours of this world and primes us to expect enchantment and mystery. The story is set in the spring of 1989 on a vast estate in the Himalayas. Men tend to beautiful, bountiful fruit orchards which spread over three mountains. But underneath the mundane – the owner Dev (played by Manoj Bajpayee) and his family, his manager Mohan (played by Deepak Dobriyal), the workers spraying pesticides to make the yield better – is a beguiling and wondrous world of fireflies, nomads who don’t speak but who exert some sort of benign power and a fable about fairies who live on earth because they don’t realise that this isn’t really their home.

Songs of Forgotten Trees
Drama (Hindi)
Anuparna Roy’s Debut Finds Tenderness Amid Hardship
Sun, September 7 2025
Songs of Forgotten Trees is a clear-eyed, restrained, moving story of two young women, lonely and bruised, finding solace in each other. Thooya and Swetha are migrants in Mumbai. Thooya, played by Naaz Shaikh, is an aspiring actress and part-time sex worker — it helps to pay the bills. Swetha, played by Sumi Baghel, is a call center employee, hoping to find a soulmate in the matrimonial market. Both are navigating an indifferent, manic city. Swetha, a new arrival, is still a little starry-eyed. She really wants to see the ‘samudra’ but Thooya tells her with the amused awareness of an old timer – itna bhi khubsoorat nahi hai. The film, presented by Anurag Kashyap, is the debut feature of Anuparna Roy and the only Indian film selected for the prestigious Orizzonti section of the 82nd Venice Film Festival (Karan Tejpal’s Stolen and Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court also premiered here). The scenario might remind you of Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, also about the bond between two migrant women in Mumbai. But Anuparna’s vision is far less lyrical. With stillness, long takes and an understated tone, she creates an anguished portrait of what it takes for women to survive. The heart of this film is a scene in which the two women are in two bathrooms next to each other — one is washing clothes in the bathing space, and the other is using the commode as a chair. What starts out as buoyant banter shifts seamlessly into grief and tears. The scene is beautifully staged and performed.
Bad Girl
Romance, Drama (Tamil)
A refreshingly honest portrait of a regular girl's messy, relatable journey
Sat, September 6 2025
Param Sundari
Romance, Drama, Comedy (Hindi)
A romantic, comedic entertainer with lessons about technology and soulmates that doesn't land effectively
Fri, August 29 2025
War 2
Action, Adventure, Thriller (Hindi)
Star-studded, glossy, and expensive production values fail to deliver the adrenaline high of its predecessor.
Thu, August 14 2025
Dhadak 2
Romance, Drama (Hindi)
Puts caste center stage, but much is lost in translation from the searing original'
Sat, August 2 2025
Ronth
Crime, Drama (Malayalam)
A devastating narrative of what it takes to be a policeman in India.
Sun, July 27 2025
Sarzameen
Drama, Thriller (Hindi)
The film had potential, but fails to deliver the sparkle and delight found in other recent releases.
Fri, July 25 2025
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