Babita Singh Reporting
Crime, Drama (Hindi)
People-pleasing cop Baby accepts a fake charge to get leave for her sister-in-law’s baby shower in Rewa. There, she reunites with her childhood friend Bansi, who is murdered that very night. Defying dismissive in-laws, an indifferent husband and an apathetic (more…)
Mirzapur the Movie
Crime, Thriller (Hindi)
The battle for Mirzapur's throne escalates as old enemies resurface and new threats emerge. Blood debts must be paid while power-hungry contenders fight to control the city's violent underworld. (more…)
Guild Reviews by Film
The City of the Living
Drama, Thriller (Italian)
Luca is twenty-three years old. He lives with an adoptive family who loves him. He moves between the suburbs and the city center with his friends and has a girlfriend with whom he shares a love that is young, yet significant for them both. Luca is searching for his path at an age when everything still feels possible and, at the same time, already lost; in this pursuit, he leads a double life. One night, after a seemingly chance encounter, the trajectory of Luca’s life is shattered, colliding with blind and senseless violence.
Cast:
Emanuele Maria Di Stefano, Valerio Mastandrea, Simona Senzacqua, Roberta Mattei, Gaia Merlonghi
Director:
Edoardo Gabbriellini
Writer:
Damiano D'Innocenzo, Fabio D'Innocenzo
Fri, September 11 2026
Venice Film Festival 2026 | Emanuele Maria Di Stefano powers this murky, sexually ambiguous Orizzonti title which retraces the 2016 murder of 23-year-old Luca Varani.
True-crime narratives trade in lurid shocks. They have this unseemly, grotesque fascination that inadvertently replaces human consideration. The rush for dramatic re-staging bleeds out any concern for the victim, what their fuller story preceding the tragedy might be. The event itself becomes the driving lens through which we view an entire life. Premiering in Orizzonti Competition at the Venice Film Festival, Edoardo Gabbriellini’s The City of The Living’s greatest triumph is that it wholly goes beyond this limiting approach, constantly finding the complex, fledgling humanity of the victim.
The Burning Giants
Drama (Thai)
Follows an environmental and Indigenous rights activist from the Karen group who is killed after protesting the forced eviction of his village from a protected forest.
Cast:
Awat Ratanapintha, Pakapol Srirongmuang, Waywiree Ittianunkul, Tanatwut Rodpai
Director:
Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
Fri, September 11 2026
Venice Film Festival 2026 | After Manta Ray, the Thai filmmaker returns to Orizzonti competition with a formally disruptive skewering of State-backed violence.
Phuttiphong Aroonpheng is among the most aesthetically committed, politically cogent filmmakers working today. The Thai filmmaker who broke out with Manta Ray (2018) is back at Venice Film Festival, competing in Orizzonti with The Burning Giants. A mysterious virus cloaks a population in fear and uncertainty. There have been forceful evacuation, disappearances and uprooting of a community from their homes. When the film opens, we are placed right in its peculiar setting. Smoke envelops. The forest is manned by officers who have cordoned off entire sections.
The Difficult Bride
Fantasy, Drama, Thriller, Horror (Bengali)
Zai, a bride-to-be in present-day Dhaka, is in love with her groom and dreams of a fairytale wedding, but secretly struggles with her body’s resistance to wedding rituals. As stress and emotional pain intensify, a mysterious woman with long hair begins appearing in Novera’s imagination.
Cast:
Zaineen Karim Chowdhury, Reekita Nondine Shimu, Sunerah Binte Kamal, Azmeri Haque Badhon, Dameer Khan, Saberi Alam, Shatabdi Wadud, Mohammad Bari
Director:
Rubaiyat Hossain
Fri, September 11 2026
Venice Film Festival 2026 | Trailing a bride-to-be’s uncanny visions and troubled sensations, Bangladesh’s first-ever Orizzonti selection comes undone in a lame, blunt screenplay that is sorely out of sync with Leonor Teles’ striking imagery.
Leading Bangladeshi filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain is a fascinating voice with brave, brilliant ideas. Premiering in Orizzonti Competition, her new film, The Difficult Bride, comes with massive expectations. It’s billed as a historic selection, the first-ever Bangladeshi film to land a Venice film festival competitive slot. On top of that, Hossain has repeatedly described it as a passion project, an idea that has been with her for two decades. She has honed and shaped it over many years, taking it through notable labs and grabbing prestigious grants. So, it’s a real mystery to find the eventual shape the film has resulted in as so terribly undercooked, unconvincing and painfully strained.
Epic - First Semester
Romance, Drama (Telugu)
Rohan, a middle-class student studying abroad due to family expectations, explores romance, identity, and growing up with honesty and emotional depth.
Cast:
Anand Deverakonda, Vaishnavi Chaitanya, Sivaji Sontineni, Vasuki Anand, Master Rohan Roy
Director:
Aditya Hasan
Writer:
Aditya Hasan
Fri, September 11 2026
Aditya Haasan’s ‘Epic – First Semester’, starring Anand Deverakonda and Vaishnavi Chaitanya, follows two students in the UK as they navigate love, independence, financial pressures and uncertain futures
Epic – First Semester arrives with expectations, largely because of director Aditya Haasan and the reunion of Baby leads Anand Deverakonda and Vaishnavi Chaitanya. While this is Aditya’s feature directorial debut, the runaway success of his nostalgia-soaked web series 90s’: A Middle Class Biopic and his first production, Little Hearts, a breezy rom-com, has already established him as a promising new voice in Telugu cinema. With Epic, Aditya takes a leap of faith, holding back from pandering to familiar mainstream tropes. The tagline, ‘an unfinished story’, and the words ‘point of view’ following the director’s credit suggest an intent to push the boundaries of the coming-of-age story.
Mahendragiri Varahi
Fantasy, Thriller, Mystery (Telugu)
Siddharth, an atheist and skeptic, is drawn into a mysterious journey surrounding the ancient Varahi temple at Mahendragiri. As he uncovers secrets connected to the sacred site, he is forced to confront forces beyond his understanding, challenging his beliefs and changing his perception of faith, destiny, and the supernatural.
Cast:
Sumanth, Meenakshi Goswami, Aishwarya Rajesh, Malvika Nair, Manju Bhargavi, Brahmanandam, Rajeev Kanakala, Rajsekhar Aningi, Ali, Vennela Kishore
Director:
Santosh Jagarlapudi
Writer:
Naga Muralidhar Namala
Fri, September 11 2026
The film feels like an unintentional sequel to Sumanth and director Santhosh Jagarlapudi’s earlier collaboration, ‘Subrahmanyapuram’ and Nikhil Siddhartha’s ‘Karthikeya’
The problem with films aligning with a particular trend is that they are always playing catch-up. Filmmakers have to hope the trend does not reach saturation anytime soon. Mahendragiri Varahi, a Telugu supernatural thriller that has been in the making for a few years, feels stale for the same reason. Surprisingly, it proceeds along the same lines as Santhosh Jagarlapudi and Sumanth’s earlier collaboration, Subrahmanyapuram. Both Mahendragiri Varahi and Subrahmanyapuram are clearly inspired by Karthikeya, a trendsetter in this genre, where an atheist protagonist heads to a superstitious village and uncovers the mystery behind a few strange occurrences.
Sardar 2
Action, Thriller (Tamil)
When the mysterious Black Dagger threatens national security, Inspector Vijay embarks on his most dangerous mission yet. As the battle unfolds, the extraordinary origin of legendary spy Sardar is finally revealed, uncovering the sacrifices that forged a legend and the secrets that could shape the future.
Cast:
Karthi, S. J. Suryah, Malavika Mohanan, Rajisha Vijayan, Achyuth Kumar, Ashika Ranganath, Balaji Sakthivel, Yogi Babu, Master Keshav, Chinni Jayanth
Director:
P. S. Mithran
Fri, September 11 2026
PS Mithran's sequel to 'Sardar' loses momentum in the second half, sinking into generic territory with its overblown plotline
The first half of Sardar 2 may seem familiar, but at least it commits to the kind of spy thriller it wants to be. There’s a lofty idea in there about a Japanese-made bioweapon that’s being kept secret by the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and there’s a thrilling flashback that gives you the origins of how this weapon got to India in the first place. Set predominantly in the 1980s, the film sees Bose (Karthi), or Sardar, navigating the complexities of this international mission, and we also get a series of Mission: Impossible-style action set pieces that cover everything from the back of an airplane to the front of a Japanese bullet train.
Fri, September 11 2026
Director PS Mithran's Sardar 2, starring Karthi, SJ Suryah and Malavika Mohanan, is a predictable sequel that is engaging in parts. However, the overstretched climax drags down the film.
Sardar, directed by PS Mithran, gave Tamil cinema a rooted spy character in 2022, well before Dhurandhar made the genre fashionable. Four years later, Sardar (Karthi) — who swears by the line, “Once a spy, always a spy” — returns with a shot at correcting a mistake that cost thousands of lives. The first film ended with Bose, aka Sardar, accepting his fate as a branded terrorist despite never committing espionage. His son Viji, inducted into RAW, has since been sidelined into a dummy unit handling no cases of consequence. Sardar 2 hands him a chance to prove himself — just as a bigger threat surfaces. What brings Sardar out of exile? Can father and son join forces against Black Dagger, a mercenary outfit endangering 140 crore people? The film spends a patient three hours answering these questions.
The Paper S02
Comedy (English)
The documentary crew that immortalized Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch is in search of a new subject when they discover a historic Toledo newspaper, The Truth Teller, and the eager publisher trying to revive it.
Cast:
Domhnall Gleeson, Sabrina Impacciatore, Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Edelman, Ramona Young, Tim Key, Oscar Nuñez, Eric Rahill
Fri, September 11 2026
Co-created by Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, the mockmentary-style spinoff proves that it's here to stay.
The 2001 British series The Office launched the mockumentary sitcom which many have tried to replicate. Its American remake was the most successful one; last year, it officially got a spinoff, The Paper, set in Toledo, Ohio. The first season, which introduced the characters, took some time to set up, but the second season is finally settling into its identity. Led by About Time’s Domhnall Gleeson and The White Lotus’ Sabrina Impacciatore, the comedy fully embraces its cringe storylines that find its characters at their most outrageous. The Paper is also about the dying field of print journalism; however, those B-plots are either a hit or a miss.
Mandaadi
Action, Drama (Tamil)
A fishing captain applies his maritime knowledge in a traditional boat race along Tamil Nadu's coast during a festival, leading a six-person team against other crews.
Cast:
Soori, Suhas, Mahima Nambiar, Sathyaraj, Mithun Jai Sankar, Ravindra Vijay, Balasaravanan, Stun Siva, Achyuth Kumar, Sachana Namidass
Director:
Mathimaran Pugazhendhi
Fri, September 11 2026
Director Mathimaran Pugazhendhi's Mandaadi, starring Soori, Suhas and Mahima Nambiar, is an interesting film centred on a sailboat race. The film tackles themes of friendship, mentorship, betrayal and second chances in life.
Actor Soori’s transformation from a comedian to a protagonist is a testament to his hard work, perseverance and resilience. If there’s one thing that deserves appreciation in this renewed journey, it’s his script choices. With Mandaadi, Soori has picked a story centred on a sailboat race, a sport rarely seen in films. The unusual setting gives the film a distinct identity from the outset. A young Maari (Mithun Jai Sankar), in the opening sequence of Mandaadi, almost kills antagonist Saatapuli (Suhas) and his son. A commotion at a local temple festival stops Maari from completing the murders. Saatapuli, an influential man who controls the sailboat business and racing team, is now hunting Maari. He escapes to Chennai and seeks help from Muthukaali (Soori), who works at a theme park in the city.
Chumbak
Comedy, Family (Hindi)
Five quirky families navigate life as neighbors in Chumbak Colony, where chaotic conflicts and hilarious antics turn each day into a new chapter.
Cast:
Deven Bhojani, Neena Gupta, Sumeet Vyas, Manasi Parekh, Sumeet Raghvan, Sandeepa Dhar, Anant Joshi, Amyra Dastur, Arjun Bijlani, Helly Shah
Director:
Aatish Kapadia
Writer:
Aatish Kapadia
Thu, September 10 2026
Five quirky families in Chumbak Colony deal with chaotic conflicts and hilarious antics as neighbours. An elderly couple, Rajni and Kuku, decide to divorce, creating ripples through the neighbourhood. From court agreements and secret affairs to unexpected runaways, their everyday life becomes a series of crises as the couples confront challenges in their relationships. Neena Gupta and Sumeet Vyas keep the tone of their performances in check amidst the chaos. They don’t try to oversell the characters or the writing and manage to hold fort. Anant Joshi’s flair for humour comes to the fore occasionally, while Sandeepa Dhar, Amyra Dastur and Arjun Bijilani pass muster. Manasi Parekh is strictly okay. Helly Shah, Sumeet Raghavan, Delnaaz Irani and Deven Bhojani go quite overboard in shallow roles.
Babita Singh Reporting
Crime, Drama (Hindi)
People-pleasing cop Baby accepts a fake charge to get leave for her sister-in-law’s baby shower in Rewa. There, she reunites with her childhood friend Bansi, who is murdered that very night. Defying dismissive in-laws, an indifferent husband and an apathetic local police force, she secretly investigates the murder, uncovering family betrayals while finding her own voice, courage and place as a real cop.
Cast:
Nimisha Sajayan, Anshumaan Pushkar, Barun Sobti, Rajesh Kumar, Geetika Vidya, Muskan Arora, Priyanka Setia, Sunita Rajwar
Director:
Ambiecka Pandit
Writer:
Amita Vyas
Thu, September 10 2026
காவல் அதிகாரியாக இருக்கும் பபிதா சிங் (நிமிஷா சஜயன்) பணியிடத்தில் தன் நலனைப் பார்க்காமல், பிறருக்காகவே ஒவ்வொன்றையும் யோசிக்கிறார். இரண்டு வாரம் விடுமுறை கிடைத்தால், தன் கணவரின் சகோதரியின் வளைகாப்பு நிகழ்வுக்குச் சென்றுவிடலாம் எனத் திட்டமிடுகிறார். ஆனால், விடுப்பு கிடைப்பதிலும் சில சிக்கல்கள் எழுகின்றன. மற்றொரு காவல் அதிகாரி செய்த தவற்றைத் தன்னுடைய தவறென ஒப்புக்கொண்டு இரண்டு வாரம் சஸ்பெண்ட் ஆகிறார் பபிதா சிங். இந்த இடைவெளியில் கணவரின் சகோதரி வளைகாப்புக்காக ஊருக்குச் செல்கிறார் பபிதா சிங். ஆனால், அங்கு பபிதாவின் பள்ளிக்கால நெருங்கிய நண்பர் மர்மமான முறையில் மரணமடைகிறார். அவருடைய மரணத்துக்குப் பின்னிருக்கும் காரணங்களை பபிதா சிங் அலசுவதே இந்த பிரைம் வீடியோ படத்தின் கதை.
Wed, September 2 2026
Unrest begins at home in Ambiecka Pandit's small-town crime film that doubles as a bleak social drama
A young woman is visiting her in-laws for the first time. She’s eager to impress them. She cooks, cleans, runs the house. She’s hurt by their jibes but tries not to show it. Her husband is mild-mannered but thin-skinned; she has to apologise for pulling his leg. Their lovemaking is awkward. She puts her interests on hold, but it isn’t enough. Slowly, she comes to a boil. She’s played by Nimisha Sajayan. The film is The Great Indian Kitchen. Or is it Babita Singh Reporting? It’s a little strange to watch Sajayan, one of the best actors in India today, undergo similar trials and humiliations to ones she endured five years ago, in her most celebrated role. Ambiecka Pandit’s Hindi film is a world removed from Jeo Baby’s Malayalam drama. But Sajayan’s Babita is a close cousin to her unnamed wife in that film, a silent sufferer until all the silence is wrung out of her.
Mon, August 31 2026
Director Ambiecka Pandit mounts a small-town murder mystery which functions far more effectively as a breakdown of hypocrisy than as an unconventional procedural.
At a time when the diary of police procedurals is cluttered with gravity-defying cops and preachy social commentaries masquerading as investigative dramas, Babita Singh reports with a quiet yet telling subversion. The biting social critique tells us how our society tolerates a woman’s professional ambition only on the condition of absolute domestic continuity. Her career must remain invisible to the men of the house; it cannot cost them their hot meals or their sense of absolute supremacy. It captures how this cycle is policed not just by men, but by the matriarchs of the family, the mothers and sisters-in-law. Of course, there is a murder investigation as well, but it works as a narrative camouflage. The mystery lies in decoding the pervasive patriarchy.
Mirzapur the Movie
Crime, Thriller (Hindi)
The battle for Mirzapur's throne escalates as old enemies resurface and new threats emerge. Blood debts must be paid while power-hungry contenders fight to control the city's violent underworld.
Cast:
Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Divyendu Sharma, Jitendra Kumar, Ravi Kishan, Abhishek Banerjee, Rasika Dugal, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Shweta Tripathi Sharma, Harshita Gaur
Director:
Gurmmeet Singh
Wed, September 9 2026
Divyenndu's Munna makes a comeback to hog the limelight as Puneet Krishna's dialogues retain potential for yet again inspiring many a meme
If there was one show that was asking for a big screen treatment, it was Mirzapur. The desi hinterland iteration of The Godfather, with politics, violence, foul language, turf wars and dialogues that spread like wildfire on social media, drew an instant following. Season three was the weakest of the lot, so the makers knew what needed to be done to lure fans back. Cue: bring back Munna (Divyenndu). Set in 2018, in what would still be the first season, a chunk of Mirzapur: The Movie is devoted to establishing the characters and indulging in some world building for those unfamiliar with dirty politicking in Purvanchal Uttar Pradesh. But the movie invariably is a reminder as to how Munna is the lynchpin, with much of the limited winning, funny moments all belonging to Divyenndu.
Tue, September 8 2026
Examining its ambitious leap from streaming to cinema, Pankaj Tripathi’s commanding performance, Rajasthan’s striking visual scale, and whether the franchise deserves a lasting theatrical future.
Few commodities have proved as bankable on celluloid as crime, and the enduring appetite for bloodshed, betrayal and underworld intrigue shows little sign of abating. It is perhaps no great surprise, then, that after three seasons of mayhem and moral disintegration on Prime Video, Mirzapur should make the leap from the streaming screen to the big screen. Mirzapur: The Movie reaches back to the world established in the first season in 2018, when Akhandanand Tripathi, better known as Kaleen Bhaiya (Pankaj Tripathi), presides over Mirzapur like its self-appointed monarch, controlling an intricate empire built on the twin pillars of drugs and firearms. Yet his seemingly impregnable dominion is already beginning to show fissures, as challenges emerge from within his family as well as from increasingly formidable adversaries beyond it.
Mon, September 7 2026
‘Mirzapur: The Movie’ is both cinema and marketing, designed to reward those who love the show, but also a feature film with a story to tell
Mirzapur: The Movie has the peculiar challenge of starting in the middle of a story, a set of relationships and a world that its audience already knows intimately. There are no introductions, no explanations, no time wasted telling us who these people are, what they want and what they mean to each other. They arrive on the big screen with histories, grudges, loyalties and complicated equations that audiences have watched unfold over three seasons of Mirzapur. During the movie’s 197-minute running time, writer Puneet Krishna’s screenplay begins to introduce a new plot and new players, and what initially seems like an elaborate exercise in fan service gradually finds a life of its own.
Fauda S05
Drama, Action & Adventure, War & Politics (Hebrew)
A top Israeli agent comes out of retirement to hunt for a Palestinian militant he thought he'd killed, setting a chaotic chain of events into motion.
Cast:
Lior Raz, Netta Garti, Doron Ben-David, Rona-Lee Shimon, Itzik Cohen, Yaakov Zada-Daniel, Dan Kadosh
Wed, September 9 2026
It is unlikely to send you into raptures even if you manage to sit through it without taking anything resembling a breather.
Irrespective of one’s stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the least you expect from Fauda, the Netflix series co-created by and starring former IDF soldier Lior Raz, are dramatic flair, technical finesse and solid performances. Season 5 of the Israeli series delivers all these in ample measure. But no matter what it throws into its “Shin Bet agents fighting Hamas terror masterminds” construct, the show struggles to ward off a degree of been-there-done-that kind of fatigue. “To hell with this world,” says one female operative in Marseille, France, where she is close to busting a terror module. The lady has reason to be peeved. Three rogue agents have embarked on an unapproved personal revenge mission that threatens to scuttle her plans.