Udita Jhunjhunwala

Anubhav Sinha directs a script by Gaurav Solanki and himself, to craft a courtroom drama that approaches sexual violence through the lens of law, procedure and the domestic impact of violence. The film begins in the hard-hitting way it means to proceed, sparing no punches. Parima, the survivor, played by Kani Kusruti, is introduced as a working woman who lives independently and moves through the city on her own terms. She shares an easy relationship with her husband Vinay (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub). Parima travels alone at night in Delhi, something the film initially treats as completely normal, until she notices a car following her. The rape sequence that follows is intentionally hard to watch, with the glee of the men juxtaposed with the heartless, brutal violence against the woman. Only later, in the courtroom, does her decision to be out alone at night get quietly reframed as poor judgement, revealing how quickly a woman’s independence can be turned against her.

Directed by Bejoy Nambiar and adapted by Himanshu Sharma from the 2018 Thai thriller The Pool, directed by Ping Lumpraploeng, Tu Yaa Main is a curious addition to Hindi cinema’s sporadic engagement with the creature feature. The original was a compact, high-concept survival drama built around the simple premise of a man trapped in a drained swimming pool with a crocodile, trying to find a way out. Nambiar retains the skeletal premise but sets aside that minimalism, expanding the thriller framework into a 145-minute romantic drama inserted with class commentary and influencer satire. The result is an ambitious film intermittently exhausting itself instead of tightening its grip.

Daldal, adapted from Vish Dhamija’s novel Bhendi Bazaar, is a crime thriller created by Suresh Triveni, written with Sreekanth Agneeaswaran, Rohan D’Souza and Priya Saggi, and directed by Amrit Raj Gupta. The seven-episode series on Prime Video revolves around DCP Rita Ferreira (Bhumi Pednekkar), a Mumbai Police officer investigating a serial killer. Rita is introduced as brooding, humourless and emotionally sealed off. Violent when provoked, shaped by childhood trauma, Rita is also nursing the fallout of a broken engagement.

The History of Sound is a quiet, deliberately paced film about missed chances and unresolved lives. Directed by Oliver Hermanus and adapted by Ben Shattuck from his short stories The History of Sound and Origin Stories, the film traces one man’s journey through music, memory and emotional restraint. The story opens in rural Kentucky in 1910, where Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal) grows up on a farm dutifully following in his family’s commitment to physical labour, finding release through song. “It never occurred to me that music was only sound,” Lionel reflects, a line that establishes music as something far larger than art. It is also a means of survival, a repository of memory, and conduit for connection. When a local teacher recognises his singing ability and helps him secure a scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, the opportunity briefly lifts Lionel out of a dead-end life.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is an unsettling, often punishing sequel that connects directly and deliberately to Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later (2025), while escalating the franchise’s visual and thematic intensity. Where Boyle’s film found terror in suggestion and absence (screams heard but not seen, horror registered in the faces of those left behind) director Nia DaCosta brings that terror into full view. Violence is explicit, gore is confrontational and discomfort is sustained rather than fleeting.

Director Noah Baumbach joins forces with George Clooney to deliver a sharply observed, melancholic study of celebrity, memory and regret. Clooney plays Kelly, a Hollywood icon forced to shake off the stardust and confront the impact of his choices. As he drifts between denial and self-awareness, he confronts the fallout of decades lived at the centre of his own universe. What Baumbach attempts, and often pulls off (but not throughout) with considerable elegance, is a meta-fictional story of an ambitious man’s hubris. This is a film about Jay watching his own mythology crumble, only to realise and awaken to a truer, humbler version of himself.

Thode Door Thode Paas is a comedy drama that explores a modern family’s attempt to unplug and reconnect. Set in the lively Mehta household, the ZEE5 series follows Simran (Mona Singh), who runs a bridal wear boutique out of her garage, her husband Kunal (Kunaal Roy Kapur), an online numerologist, their 19-year-old daughter Avni (Ayesha Kaduskar) and school-going son Vivaan (Sartaaj Kakkar). Kunal has added four extra As to his son’s name to fix his fortunes, yet his report card doesn’t have even one A.

Edward Berger makes a dramatic and thematic shift from his previous movie Conclave with Ballad of a Small Player. Conclave was a taut, fictional feature about the secretive papal elections at the Vatican. Ballad of a Small Player, which is out on Netflix, is an occasionally tense, atmospheric and over-stylised character study set in Macau’s glittering gambling halls. Adapted by screenwriter Rowan Joffe from Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel, the film explores cycles of addiction and greed against a backdrop of ritual, superstition and neon decadence. Colin Farrell plays Lord Doyle, a British gambler with mounting debts and a troubled past.