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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

Image of scene from the film Jugnuma

Jugnuma (The Fable)

Drama (Hindi)

Raam Reddy's World Of Magical Realism Is Enchanting and Enigmatic

Sat, September 13 2025

Manoj Bajpayee works wonders with silences in Raam Reddy's stunning magical realism drama.

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.

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Image of scene from the film Songs of Forgotten Trees

Songs of Forgotten Trees

Drama (Hindi)

Anuparna Roy’s Debut Finds Tenderness Amid Hardship

Sun, September 7 2025

Presented by Anurag Kashyap, Anuparna Roy’s 'Songs of Forgotten Trees'—the only Indian title in Venice’s Orizzonti section—follows two migrant women in Mumbai as they navigate loneliness, survival, and fleeting moments of connection

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.

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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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