Sanyukta Thakare

Inheritance directed by Neil Burger of Limitless, Divergent, The Marsh King’s Daughter, also brings the similar thrill to the 2025 release. Led by Phoebe Dynevor aka Daphne Bridgerton of the hit Netflix series, the film is a crime drama with thriller elements that manage to keep you hooked. But the film doesn’t bring anything new or extraordinary to its genre with its direction or writing. The camera work approach does change things up, but it doesn’t change the experience of the film or the story. The film follows a Maya Welsh after the death of her mother, who she had been caring for the last nine months, watching her die. Maya losses her way after the death of her mother, and while her sister is worried about her, Maya jumps at the first chance to reconnect with her estrange father. Sam Welsh is played by Rhys Ifans, best known for his recent Game Of Thrones prequel character Ser Otto Hightower, shows up at the funeral after being out of touch for years. On showing up the first he does is offers a job to his daughter as a real-estate agent in Egypt.

Bhool Chuk Maaf explores the time loop concept for the first time in Bollywood. The concept was rampant in Hollywood movies in early 2000s for chick flicks and made a comeback few years ago with comedy elements. However, Rajkummar Rao’s film gives its own spin to it. Still focusing on the social lesson behind it, the film brings along a comedy family entertainer about wedding which is just right for the season. Apart from good performances and comic relief the film’s music is also worth visiting theatres for. The film follows Ranjan and Titli’s love story and what the two go through to make sure they end up with each other. While Titli’s struggle is more based in reality and how women sacrifice in relationships, Ranjan’s struggle to win her over is more supernatural. Bhool Chuck Maaf begins with Ranjan and Titli running away from home to get married, but ending up in police station to get permission from their parents. Their wedding in fixed on one condition, Ranjan has to prove he is capable of taking care of Titli by landing a government job. The father-in-law asks for the condition to be met in mere one month, but Titli asking for some consideration lands Ranjan extra 30 days to land the job.

Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the franchise returns with a fresh perspective and many nostalgic moments. Titled Final Destination Bloodlines, the film brings forth exactly what it promises with the title and the trailer. The story is pretty simple and follows through with every other film in the franchise, but the direction and screenplay get a major upgrade. The film takes you from cheering for the characters, rooting for them to surive to cheering for death and fullfilling his own destiny by taking everyone out.

Maria Callas was an infamous opera singer known as one of the most renowned sopranos of the 20th century. Directed by Pablo Larrain of Spencer on Princess Diana and Jackie on Jacqueline Kennedy, this too does not disappoint with its storytelling and cinematography. Maria, is the third film by Pablo about an influential female public figure and it does not attempt to life the character or break it down. Instead we get a look into what little we know of the finale days of her life and career. The film follows the seven days before her death in Paris in 1977, as she reflects on her life and career.

The Bhootnii directed and written by Sidhaant Sachdev, explores the horror comedy genre with 2000s vibe focusing on a love story and a forgotten ghost. The plot of the film has a clear path but the execution takes longer than needed to come to a conclusion. The second half does well with its comic timing and few emotional moments but the horror elements are not good enough to compete with the genre pioneers in Bollywood like Stree franchise. The film begins with the story of a mysterious tree that’s been worshiped by college students for as long as they can remember. Everyone prays to the tree for true love and hopes that the wishes comes true. While everyone believes in the tree, there is more to the story. A group in the college is also protesting against it believing that the tree is haunted and it’s causing death of kids whose true love didn’t come true. Past cases have also been revealed about how by Holi celebration, some former students died by taking their own lives.

Thunderbolts* are the New Avengers, we like it or not, but the world is going to shit and as we know it, the Avengers are not coming to save the day. As Valentina de Fontaine said there are bad guys and there are worse guys, so here we are on another action filled journey. The film comes with a few pleasant surprises. But for now, some bad guys decide to stand up and fill in for the missing good guys. Marvel is making big changes for the new phase and the latest film takes an up-close and personal look at the world and the darkness taking over it. But the Thunderbolts* quite literally bring the light back to New York City and a bit in our hearts.

Directed by Raj Kumar Gupta of Raid and No One Killed Jessica, much was expected from the film, but it remains surface level. The twists and turns expected from the thriller atmosphere are missing mostly in second half. Like the previous film, this too is reportedly based on real incidents with fictional characters where an Income Tax Department officer uses every trick possible to track down white-collar criminal and bring him to justice. Led by Ajay Devgn as Amay Patnaik IRS, Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax and Riteish Deshmukh as Dada Manohar Bhai. Raid 2 begins with Ajay Devgn’s Amay Patnaik taking on a Raja with other government official. However, things don’t go as planned when the royal family refuses to cooperate and starts attacking the team. But Patnaik had ready for that too, he waits at the other end of the palace to make sure he finds the money when its being moved around. After confiscating everything he asks for Rs 2 crore as bribe to let go of the money, gold and the charges.

Another Simple Favour directed by Paul Feig is a sequel to A Simple Favor released in 2018. Both films are based on a book of the same name by Darcey Bell. The sequel is based on the characters written by Darcey Bell but does not explore the same tone or plotline as the previous film. We do get to see many characters return but the twists take wilder turns as the story moves forward. The 2018 film was known for take a deep dive into the thriller genre and exploring the stereotypes in it with two female characters but the sequels drops it all to explore something different. The film begins with Anna Kendrick’s Stephanie Smothers, who has turned into a celebrity and an author. While she is preparing to release her book based on Blake Lively’s Emily aka the allusive blonde in her life, Stephanie is also suffering from PTSD about her crime solving days. She decided to leave it behind after a man shot himself for being accused of sexual harassment and possibly abuse. However, as Miles’ mother she decides to move on with her life. But Emily isn’t done with her yet.