Udita Jhunjhunwala

The second season of Special Ops returns to JioHotstar five years after creator Neeraj Pandey first introduced Research and Analysis Wing agent Himmat Singh (Kay Kay Menon). In 2021, Pandey presented Himmat’s origin story in Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story. Special Ops 2.0 – a true sequel – picks up the story of the senior operative and his hand-picked team of spies as they find themselves caught up in a complex issue that threatens national security. Directed by Pandey and Shivam Nair, Special Ops 2.0 moves away from traditional field operations towards the unseen battleground of cyberwarfare. The new season turns its focus to digital threats, artificial intelligence conspiracies, financial fraud and the murky web of political-corporate collusion. Episode one is a sprawling one-hour introduction that sets up the kidnapping of Bhargava (Arif Zakaria), a tech entrepreneur tied to a classified government project. At the same time, a RAW officer (Tota Roy Chowdhury) who was monitoring Bhargava’s movements at a summit in Budapest is attacked in Delhi. While this premise has potential, Bhargava never leverages his supposed genius to contribute meaningfully to the narrative, remaining strangely passive for someone with the nation’s future in his hands.

In Aap Jaisa Koi, director Vivek Soni takes on the delicate subjects of late-blooming romance, masculine vulnerability, modern love, and old-fashioned chauvinism. The film, now streaming on Netflix, stars R. Madhavan and Fatima Sana Shaikh as two professionals navigating a hesitant, imperfect courtship. R. Madhavan plays Shrirenu “Shri” Tripathi, a 42-year-old Sanskrit professor from Jamshedpur whose gentle, brooding nature hides years of emotional repression, social awkwardness, and societal taunts—including from his brother and best friend. He finds an outlet through an app aimed at lonely hearts called ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’. Fatima Sana Shaikh portrays Madhu Bose, a French teacher from Kolkata. She’s confident and open-minded, but carries her own emotional history. Madhu and Shri become an unlikely match, introduced by a kindly intermediary. She is everything Shri is not, and her interest in him makes him suspicious. In the company of Madhu, 42-year-old Shri, for the first time in his life, experiences female attention and intimacy.

Four Years Later is a sympathetically crafted and emotionally dense Indo-Australian show that explores the fragility of love stretched across distance and time. Created by Mithila Gupta, who co-directs with Mohini Herse and Fadia Abboud, the Lionsgate Play series follows a long-distance marriage that quietly frays under the pressures of migration and cultural displacement. The English-Hindi language show centres on Sridevi (Shahana Goswami) and Yash (Akshay Ajit Singh). Their story begins in Jaipur. A traditional arranged marriage introduction develops into mutual attraction. Almost immediately after the wedding, Yash departs for Sydney to pursue a medical traineeship, leaving Sri behind to live with his conservative family.

Heads of State is exactly what it promises: a fast-paced, action-packed buddy comedy that leans into its absurdity with style, big laughs and big action set pieces. Ilya Naishuller directs a script by Harrison Query, John Applebaum and Andre Nemec, which clearly understands the assignment—pair two mismatched but magnetic leads, toss them into a high-stakes international mess, and let the chemistry and chaos unfold. John Cena and Idris Elba headline the action-comedy as two political powerhouses. Cena plays Will Derringer, a former action movie star whose latest job is as President of the United States, while Idris Elba plays Sam Clarke, the current Prime Minister of the UK. The latter’s calm, calculating exterior hides a former life in the British special armed forces, whereas Derringer relies on his celebrity to skate through his tenure. When a diplomatic visit to England almost goes off the rails (over a plate of fish and chips, among things), a little diplomatic engineering provides the perfect photo-op to change the narrative surrounding their public discord. Derringer and Clarke travel on Air Force One together, but things go sideways while they are en route to a NATO meeting in Italy.

More than 30 years ago, Steven Spielberg directed the action adventure Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton’s novel about genetic modification, paleontology and the dangers of man meddling with nature. Jurassic Park, the movie, in which velociraptors first darted across our screens and into our nightmares, premiered in 1993, and was a blockbuster. Crichton wrote another novel and Spielberg directed its adaptation. The Lost World: Jurassic Park released in 1997. Neither did Crichton write any more Jurassic Park novels, nor did Spielberg direct further sequels though though he remained on as executive producer for the franchise’s subsequent films—five of them, including the latest instalment: Jurassic World Rebirth.

Danny Boyle’s 2002 film 28 Days Later is widely considered one of the most influential entries in the zombie genre. By stripping out the supernatural and replacing it with a scientifically plausible viral outbreak, Boyle gave the genre a visceral realism. Now, in 28 Years Later (2025), Boyle reengages the genre with his trademark jittery digital aesthetic, matched by Alex Garland’s bleak yet poetic screenplay. (28 Weeks Later, the 2007 sequel was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, but this new instalment brings the original team back into play.) 28 Years Later isn’t just a sequel; it’s a resurrection—a smart, stylish, and often brutal return to a world that reshaped zombie cinema back in 2002. The post-apocalyptic UK remains in indefinite quarantine, its landscape overrun by the infected. Small uninfected communities survive in isolation. One such pocket is a tiny island off the coast of Scotland, cut off from the mainland and clinging to normalcy. Garland’s script focuses on one family: Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his ailing wife Isla (Jodie Comer), and their 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams).

Writer-director Subhadra Mahajan demonstrates remarkable confidence in her debut feature—a lyrical film that explores grief, loss and healing in the spiritual setting of a hill town, characterised by silence and stillness. Set in the Pir Panjal mountains of Himachal Pradesh during winter, the film follows 25-year-old Nia (Dheera Johnson), who takes refuge in her family’s remote summer home after experiencing personal loss. This escape from family, city, and a painful reality offers Nia the opportunity to work through her turmoil and emerge from the darkness. Rather than surrounding Nia with noise or heavy backstory, Mahajan distils the narrative down to essentials. Nia lives alone in the cosy house, blanketing herself from the cold and her own pain, until she begins to forge an unlikely bond with the caretaker Bhemi (Thakri Devi) and her playful grandson Sunny (Kanav Thakur). In spite of class differences, three generations coexist and build human connection through small chores, simple joys, and wordless understanding—spurred by rustic cricket games, local delicacies, and a cute kitten.

The second season of Rana Naidu is more emotional and well-rounded than the first. After a couple of choppy early episodes, the Netflix show offers fuller character arcs that offset the sweeping brutality and heavy use of profanity. The Indian adaptation of the American series Ray Donovan stars Rana Daggubati as a fixer for celebrities, politicians and businessmen. Venkatesh Daggubati is Rana’s chaotic and untamed father Naga. Surveen Chawla plays Naina, who is in a strained marriage with Rana. Sushant Singh and Abhishek Banerjee play Rana’s brothers Tej and Jaffa, respectively. Created by Karan Anshuman for India, the eight-part season is helmed by Anshuman, Suparn S Varma and Abhay Chopra. The new instalment is elevated by the menacing antagonist Rauf, played by Arjun Rampal, who brings a compelling mix of villainy and impenetrability. Rauf is a formidable adversary to Rana, always a few steps ahead and unflinchingly violent.