Vash Level 2
Thriller, Horror (Gujarati)
Twelve years after saving his daughter Arya from a dark force, Atharva learns it never left her. When strange events begin again, he must fight to save her once more. (more…)
Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas
Thriller (Hindi)
A seemingly simple case of a missing girl, Poonam, puts Inspector Vishwas Bhagwat on a chase to find the culprit behind a sinister trail of disappearing girls. What happens next? (more…)
Param Sundari
Romance, Drama, Comedy (Hindi)
In Kerala's picturesque backwaters, a North Indian and South Indian find unexpected love. Their cultural differences spark a hilarious and chaotic romance, full of twists and turns. (more…)
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat
Romance, Drama, Thriller (Hindi)
A musical love story with dark shades of love exploring obsession, heartbreak, and deep emotional conflict. (more…)
Guild Reviews
Avihitham
Comedy (Malayalam)
In a village full of men and gossip about affairs, the narrative reveals how society absurdly judges and monitors women's identities.
Cast:
Unni Raja, Renji Kankol, Rakesh Ushar, Dhanesh Koliyat, Vineeth Vasudevan, Vrindha Menon, Ajith Punnad, Unnikrishnan Parappa, Aneesh Chemmarathi, Vijisha Nileshwaram
Director:
Senna Hegde
Writer:
Senna Hegde, Ambareesh Kalathera
Wed, October 29 2025
Senna Hegde’s Avihitham opens with the tagline “Made in Kanhangad.” Where is Kanhangad? And what makes anything made there special, let alone a film? For those who discovered Malayalam cinema during the lockdown, the state might seem like a uniform patchwork of modern ideas and shared sensibilities. Avihitham, which examines adultery, is steeped in its local dialect, landscape, and cultural texture. It can very much amuse someone from Kerala’s Kottayam or Kollam despite never being a utopia. What remains universal here, though, is the social morality that thrives on exposing a “fallen woman,” teaching her a lesson, and eventually discarding her.
Sun, October 19 2025
Senna Hegde’s movie on adultery and what it does to a village is a wonderful masterclass on male ego, voyeurism and hypocrisy.
There are many things women in India are terrified of, and with good reason. Walking on a lonely road after dark, being a lone female traveller in a bus, checking and double checking the surroundings before opening one’s car door, checking the bathrooms in public places for hidden cameras, verifying if hotel rooms are safe, if trial rooms are safe, if online chats are safe… in every single place, a woman is reduced to her body, and her individuality erased. Senna Hegde’s delightful yet punch-to-the-gut Avihitham (translates into illicit) adds one more to the list — a male tailor proudly claims he can size up a woman’s chest, waist and hip just by seeing her. Thanks sir, one more thing to be very afraid about.
Sat, October 11 2025
Sans any big stars and propelled by the strength of its narrative, Hegde returns to his roots and sort of rediscovers his ‘indie’ mojo in ‘Avihitham’
The simplest of stories, even the seemingly unappealing ones, can turn into fairly engaging pieces of cinema once it gets into the right hands. In Avihitham, filmmaker Senna Hegde, who co-wrote the film with Ambareesh Kalathera, does not have an elaborate story to tell, but teases out several strands out of it to pull off something which keeps one engaged.
Param Sundari
Romance, Drama, Comedy (Hindi)
In Kerala's picturesque backwaters, a North Indian and South Indian find unexpected love. Their cultural differences spark a hilarious and chaotic romance, full of twists and turns.
Cast:
Sidharth Malhotra, Janhvi Kapoor, Manjot Singh, Sanjay Kapoor, Inayat Verma, Renji Panicker, Siddhartha Shankar, Anand Manmadhan
Director:
Tushar Jalota
Writer:
Gaurav Mishra, Aarsh Vora, Tushar Jalota
Tue, October 28 2025
Param Sundari, the new film starring Janhvi Kapoor and Sidharth Malhotra, seems to make things up as it goes along. We discuss the offensive cultural appropriation in every frame of the film, the odd motivations of its protagonists, and the film’s reliance on cultural stereotypes. We also talk about Janhvi Kapoor’s wardrobe, a potentially incendiary scene set inside a church, and how Bollywood filmmakers continue to fail upwards.
Tue, September 2 2025
Param Sundari's narrative, set in stereotyped Kerala, doesn't quite make hearts flicker; the Janhvi Kapoor-Sidharth Malhotra jodi isn't a fun opposites-attract story either
In the popular teen romance series Summer I Turned Pretty, adapted from Jenny Han’s books by the same name, leading lady Belly speaks of how she just can’t imagine marrying someone who doesn’t give her the “fireworks”“you know, like electric jolts, every time I see them”. In Tushar Jalota’s Param Sundari, Kerala’s most eligible girl Sundari (Janhvi Kapoor) finds herself in a similar conundrum when Punjabi munda Param (Sidharth Malhotra) strolls into her life (read homestay) believing she is his soulmate. Only unlike Belly’s karmic connection to Conrad, to whom the observation is made, Param and Sundari hardly exude MFEO (made for each other) vibes. And this despite having Sonu Nigam sing a pretty good romantic number in Pardesiya.
Sun, August 31 2025
North Meets South, Clichés Meet Screen
Param Sundari, directed by Tushar Jalota and starring Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor, attempts a North-meets-South romance but falls flat. Laden with clichés, forced chemistry, and predictable tropes, the film struggles despite Kerala’s beauty, sidekick humour, and forgettable music. At 136 minutes, this Bollywood rom-com offers visual delight but little substance, proving yet again that cross-cultural love stories need more than recycled stereotypes and surface spectacle. India’s diversity has long been the go-to spice rack for Bollywood romances, and our filmmakers haven’t missed a single masala. From Raanjhanaa to Two States and Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, we’ve seen lovers playing Romeo and Juliet across caste lines, language barriers, and angry elders wielding moral outrage like a family heirloom. So, it’s no surprise that Param Sundari joins the tradition—this time with a Punjabi munda and a Malayali miss, thrown together in a cross-cultural curry that aims to be spicy but ends up more sambhar-lite.
Chhath
(Hindi)
Govind, lives in a village with his mother and wife, Jyoti. The family is preparing for the four-day Chhath festival, but tensions emerge as family members gather after 25 years.
Cast:
Sneha Pallavi, Agast Anand, Sailfi Rayna, Shubham Shandilya, Shashie Vermaa
Director:
Nitin Chandra
Writer:
Nitin Chandra, Shatrughan Kumar
Tue, October 28 2025
बिहार का एक गांव। गोविंद जी का परिवार बहुत खुश हैं। इस बार छठ के अवसर पर 25 साल बाद उनके घर में पूरे परिवार का जुटान हो रहा है। तीन बहनें, जीजा, बच्चे और उनका सबसे प्यारा भतीजा मोहित व उसकी पत्नी जो अमेरिका से आ रहे हैं। सब मिलते हैं तो चुहलबाजियां होती हैं, हंसी-मज़ाक होता है, थोड़ी छींटाकशी भी होती है। लेकिन तभी आड़े आ जाती है एक ऐसी बात कि पूरे घर का माहौल बदल जाता है। एक छत के नीचे दो गुट बन जाते हैं। रिश्ते टूटने की नौबत आ जाती है। और फिर सामने आता है एक दबा हुआ सच। क्या सब सही हो पाता है या फिर…!
Regretting You
Romance, Drama (English)
Morgan Grant and her daughter Clara explore what's left behind after a devastating accident reveals a shocking betrayal and forces them to confront family secrets, redefine love, and rediscover each other.
Cast:
Mckenna Grace, Allison Williams, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Willa Fitzgerald, Scott Eastwood, Clancy Brown, Sam Morelos, Ethan Costanilla, Luke Pierre Roness
Director:
Josh Boone
Tue, October 28 2025
क्या हो जब आपको पता चले कि जिस पति, परिवार और अपनों के लिए आपने अपनी जिंदगी, सपनों, ख्वाहिशों को भुला दिया, जिन्हें खुद से हमेशा आगे रखा, वे ही आपको धोखा दे रहे हैं। रिश्तों की इस कश्मकश को दिखाती है, जोश बून निर्देशित फिल्म ‘रिग्रेटिंग यू’। अपनी चर्चित फिल्म ‘द फॉल्ट इन आवर स्टार्स’ में ‘लव ऐंड लॉस’ यानी प्यार को खोने की भावनाओं को बेहद खूबसूरती से दिखाने वाले जोश बून की यह फिल्म टीनेएज लव स्टोरी के साथ-साथ एक एडल्ट रिलेशनशिप की जटिलताओं को उकेरती है, मगर वैसा प्रभाव नहीं छोड़ पाती।
Fri, October 24 2025
The film never manages to shake off its TV drama-lite vibe, and despite the natural notes the characters strike amongst themselves coming off banal, its urgencies fleeting and constructed.
Given the mad popularity of Colleen Hoover’s novels featuring good-looking adults navigating complicated inter-personal lives, and all the hoo-ha around ‘It Ends With Us’, the first Hoover novel to be filmed, which managed to say something important about domestic violence despite the schmaltz, I had expectations of ‘Regretting You’. ut I should have been warned: just what exactly does ‘regretting you’ mean? In my head, it kept sitting around like ‘Forgetting You’, which is also what this film, based on a Hoover book of the same name, could very easily have been called.
Vash Level 2
Thriller, Horror (Gujarati)
Twelve years after saving his daughter Arya from a dark force, Atharva learns it never left her. When strange events begin again, he must fight to save her once more.
Cast:
Janki Bodiwala, Hiten Kumar, Hitu Kanodia, Monal Gajjar, Chetan Daiya
Director:
Krishnadev Yagnik
Writer:
Krishnadev Yagnik
Sun, October 26 2025
Vash: Level 2 literally hits the ground running — pun fully intended. The sequel to the 2023 Gujarati film Vash (which found its Hindi remake in last year’s Shaitaan, starring Janki Bodiwala from the original, along with Ajay Devgn, R. Madhavan and Jyothika) retains the deeply unsettling psychological horror vibe of the first film, all the while expanding its canvas in terms of plot and players.
Fri, October 24 2025
Sun, August 31 2025
Writer and director Krishnadev Yagnik’s Gujarati movie Vash (2023) turned out to be a thrilling saga of black magic. The film was later remade in Hindi as Shaitaan (2024). Sequels of horror films are always expected to overpower the first one but that doesn’t happen always. But Vash Level 2 actually goes up several notches as far as the vashikaran (casting a black magic spell) is concerned. Vash Level 2 continues 12 years from where Vash ended (hence, you need to watch the first film to understand the second one). Atharva (Hitu Kanodia) is leading a quiet life with his daughter Aarya (Janki Bodiwala), who is still under the black magic spell, after his son Ansh (Aaryan Sanghvi) and wife (Niilam Paanchal) are killed. But unknown to the world, inside a dark corner of his bungalow, he has kept hidden the black magic monster Pratap (Hiten Kumar), who is responsible for the tragedy in his and his family’s life, in the most inhuman condition possible. He doesn’t let him live, nor die.
Thamma
Comedy, Horror (Hindi)
A determined historian sifts through old manuscripts, seeking clues about the mysterious legends of vampires in Vijay Nagar.
Cast:
Ayushmann Khurrana, Rashmika Mandanna, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Paresh Rawal, Sathyaraj, Faisal Malik, Geeta Agrawal Sharma, Rachit Singh, Varun Dhawan, Vinay Pathak
Director:
Aditya Sarpotdar
Writer:
Niren Bhatt, Suresh Mathew, Arun Fulara
Sat, October 25 2025
The twist in the climax leaves you wanting more
The MHCU (Maddock Horror Comedy Universe) has gained much success for blending horror with comedy, delivering one superhit after another in the genre it almost reinvented with ‘Stree’. As yet another much-awaited outing of the indigenous franchise hit the screens, expectations were sky high. Not only does ‘Thamma’ come from the production house which lately can boast of hitting the bull’s eye each time, it also has an unusual pair worth rooting for.
Fri, October 24 2025
Maddock's successful scares-and-laughs formula struggles to deliver, and a drought of compelling moments further pulls down this Ayushmann Khurrana-Rashmika Mandanna starrer
The Maddock Horror Comedy Universe (MHCU) had to stumble sooner or later. With Thamma, the universe—with its creatures and legends—has got its first weakling. This is a surprise because the creative brains of MHCU are the same. There’s chief writer Niren Bhatt, in Thamma teaming up with Suresh Mathew and Arun Falara; Aditya Sarpotdar of Munjya fame in the director’s chair; and Dinesh Vijan and Amar Kaushik (the latter is director of both Stree films and Bhediya) as producers, alongside Sachin-Jigar as composers. But this time around, the combo of scares and laughs struggles to register.
Fri, October 24 2025
The fifth outing in Maddock Films' horror-comedy multiverse, Thamma is a remarkably unremarkable feature. The film's individualism is consistently sacrificed at the altar of crowd-pleasing humour.tha
Aditya Sarpotdar’s Thamma is a nothing film. It is so vacuous that had the review ended with one line, the remaining blank space could have passed off as method writing. It is so empty-coded that candy floss, in comparison, would be more weighted. It is so ineffective that the cautionary tobacco advertisements attached to theatrical releases prove to be more potent. And, it is so vacant that if the film were a piece of land, it would make for a lucrative real estate deal. My thoughts are getting garbled here, but then thinking about Thamma should not be a full-time job, yet here we are.
Nobody Wants This S02
Comedy, Drama (English)
An agnostic sex podcaster and a newly single rabbi fall in love, but can their relationship survive their wildly different lives and meddling families?
Cast:
Kristen Bell, Adam Brody, Justine Lupe, Timothy Simons, Jackie Tohn
Fri, October 24 2025
Created by Erin Foster, the comedy series returns with the happy couple in their so-called honeymoon phase in what begins to feel like deja vu.
A year after the world fell in love with agnostic podcast host Joanne (Kristen Bell) and hot rabbi Noah (Adam Brody), the Netflix series Nobody Wants This is back to check in on the couple. Erin Foster’s series about an interfaith couple struck a chord with audiences. With its new season, it’s time to see whether Joanne and Noah can make it work despite their differences. While the rom-com gets candid for several characters, it also keeps circling around the same issue for the main couple.
The Apprentice
History, Drama (English)
A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry scion of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé—someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.
Cast:
Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Patch Darragh, Stuart Hughes, Eoin Duffy, Chloe Madison
Director:
Ali Abbasi
Fri, October 24 2025
Director Ali Abbasi's origin story on businessman Donald Trump is a cautionary tale on the man who would go on to become president.
After Santosh, The Apprentice is the second film releasing on Lionsgate Play that didn’t receive a theatrical release in India because of censor issues. Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice is almost overshadowed by another man, Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn. Set in the 1970s, the drama follows young Donny’s journey into becoming Donald Trump, ably played by Sebastian Stan, who subtly gives glimpses of the businessman and future president used to cutting corners to get ahead.
Sat, October 19 2024
The Apprentice shows Trump (played stupendously well by Sebastian Stan) in his usual megalomaniac, ruthless avatar – an image that Trump has over the years created – painstakingly, if I may add so – but also humanises him to a certain extent.
Former United States president and presidential candidate Donald Trump went on a rant recently on filmmaker Ali Abbasi’s latest film The Apprentice, which narrates the Republican’s initial years as a real estate giant in New York and his relationship with attorney Roy Cohn. Perhaps, Trump’s reaction stems from information that is fed to him because had he watched the film, he may have only objected to certain aspects of Abbasi’s provocative film and not ranted about it in its entirety.
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat
Romance, Drama, Thriller (Hindi)
A musical love story with dark shades of love exploring obsession, heartbreak, and deep emotional conflict.
Cast:
Harshvardhan Rane, Sonam Bajwa, Shaad Randhawa, Sachin Khedekar, Ananth Narayan Mahadevan, Shailesh Korde, Rajesh Khera
Director:
Milap Zaveri
Writer:
Milap Zaveri
Fri, October 24 2025
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat is what happens when data drives filmmakers and reels inform filmmaking choices. It is what happens when content is baptised as storytelling.
Milap Zaveri’s Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat is the worst film of the year. I say this knowing that there are a few months left, that art is subjective, and the response it evokes is objective. I also say this because there is more strategy than heart involved in the making, and despite every tear and slo-mo being curated for cheers, Zaveri’s new work is gratuitous, concerning, and I will go out on a limb and say, is really terrible.
Wed, October 22 2025
Harshvardhan Rane and Sonam Bajwa star in the most casually offensive Hindi film of the year.
It’s a miracle that a movie named Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat exists. It’s like watching a 141-minute music video of tight reaction shots, slow-mo emotions, designer entry shots, personality twists and lone tear-drops. It’s also like watching an injured middle finger to a digital generation that equates love with consent, respect and dignity. If the movie were a person, it’d be a Sanam Teri Kasam stan who was once a Tere Naam devotee who became a Kabir Singh fan who became a MeToo apologist who then decided to explore wokeness within the realms of toxic masculinity. I’d be worried if this were a competently crafted film. Fortunately, it has the emotional intelligence of a soggy peanut. A visual transition early on hints at a self-cannibalising Bollywood story: coins thrown at a sultry single screen (because “mass” is the genre) match-cut to coins paid to a washerman by the humble siren from the screen. As the Scorsese meme goes: Absolute Cinema.
Wed, October 22 2025
Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas
Thriller (Hindi)
A seemingly simple case of a missing girl, Poonam, puts Inspector Vishwas Bhagwat on a chase to find the culprit behind a sinister trail of disappearing girls. What happens next?
Cast:
Arshad Warsi, Jitendra Kumar, Ayesha Kaduskar, Tara Alisha Berry
Director:
Akshay Shere
Fri, October 24 2025
Bhagwat might come across as a reiteration of familiar tropes in the digital space, but the film, within its finite runtime, treats them with care and proves to be no less effective than the rest.
Police Procedurals in Hindi films tend to follow a pattern. The gritty undersides of the crime are portrayed in alliance with the heroic arc of the law keeper. The more horrific the crime, the more elevated is the heroism of the officer. On paper, Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas is primed to be another reiteration. A troubled police officer is faced with an elusive killer as one case knots to another. Yet, Akshay Shere’s feature film sidesteps histrionics to unfold as a sobering depiction of society in tandem with the potency of law.
Sat, October 18 2025
Akshay Shere’s police procedural stays busy and sociopolitically alive to the India we live in today.
Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas starts like any Indian crime drama that wants the best of both worlds. The story is “inspired by true events,” but just about fictional and legally coy enough to stage itself as a franchise about a police officer who solves one case per film/season. It’s the Delhi Crime template. The ‘Chapter One’ in the title is a clue. As is the self-reverential opening slate: “To keep the truth alive, you must tell its story”. And a corny closing slate about courage that ends with an exclamation mark (!). In between these two quotes, however, Bhagwat defies its familiar status to stay humble, metrical and consistently watchable. Akshay Shere’s two-hour film has more in common with another well-crafted Hindi series. It shares its real-world source material with Dahaad (2023), the 8-episode thriller about a cop who gets drawn into a case of multiple missing girls and a potential serial killer. Like the show, the film does well to excavate the social fabric of a place that often serves as a portal between predator and prey.
Sat, October 18 2025
Arshad Warsi and Jitendra Kumar star in this thriller that doesn't do anything new or interesting with a story we've already seen
OTT lighting. Killer of scenes. Destroyer of aesthetic. The flat, boring, unengaged style that says, we know this looks terrible but no one expects better anymore.
The Lost Bus
Drama, Mystery, Thriller (English)
A determined father risks everything to rescue a dedicated teacher and her students from a raging wildfire.
Cast:
Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson, Kimberli Flores, Levi McConaughey, Kay McConaughey, John Messina, Kate Wharton, Danny McCarthy
Director:
Paul Greengrass
Thu, October 23 2025
Rumour has it that if Brad Pitt hadn’t thrown his weight behind F1 (read: put his movie star foot down), then the film would have bypassed the big screen and been a straight-to-streaming release. The high-octane film fittingly found a release in theatres in June, made pots of money and will arrive on Apple TV only in December. No such luck, however, for another Apple TV-backed project. After a limited release in theatres in the US, The Lost Bus found its way to the streaming service earlier this month.
Fri, October 3 2025
Directed by Paul Greengrass, the survival drama is based on real events where 22 schoolchildren were trapped on on a bus.
Matthew McConaughey plays a down-on-his-luck bus driver who becomes a reluctant hero after evacuting schoolchildren in The Lost Bus. The Paul Greengrass film takes its time to establish McConaughey’s character and the growing disaster. Once the fire grows in the small town, the drama gets to the heart of the story as two individuals fight against the odds to make it. The tension is heightened in the second half to the right temperature as the odds become slim. The leads’ teamsmanship carries the film over the line.
Good Fortune
Comedy, Drama, Fantasy (English)
A well-meaning but rather inept angel named Gabriel meddles in the lives of a struggling gig worker and a wealthy capitalist.
Cast:
Keanu Reeves, Aziz Ansari, Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh, Sherry Cola, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Blanca Araceli, Joe Mande, Aditya Geddada
Director:
Aziz Ansari
Writer:
Aziz Ansari
Wed, October 22 2025
It still feels like a balm for our cynical times
A lot of one’s experience of Aziz Ansari’s feature directorial debut, Good Fortune, might rest on what they think of him as a storyteller. A stand-up comedian/actor/writer/director for nearly two decades now, Ansari turned to direction with the Netflix series, Master of None, a semi-autobiographical take on his experience as a brown actor in America, as he goes through the typical ups and downs on both personal and professional fronts. Co-created with Alan Yang, Master of None, in my opinion, is a sublime meditation on modern American society, as we see it through the eyes of Dev (a fictitious version of Ansari himself), and its commentary on immigrant parents, dating culture, and thorny issues like sexual harassment on public transport or at the workplace – but they’re dealt with his customary light touch. Like most comedians working, Ansari has this tendency to bleed out the theatrics of the most unsettling moments in life – stressing on how most life-changing moments can seem mundane in real life. This gentle rebuke as a storytelling choice is instantly recognisable as something from Ansari’s canon.
Sat, October 18 2025
Good Fortune is fun when Keanu Reeves turns earnestness and bad writing into an art form. But as a Barbie-styled comment on modern American society, it comes across as performative and dishonest.
Good Fortune plays out a bit like a smart-alecky Aziz Ansari comedy sketch. A skit-like one-liner — what if a well-meaning but incompetent “budget angel” body-swaps a wealthy white guy and a miserable brown guy? — is pan-fried with a series of thematic keywords: gig economy, American dream, immigrant struggle, racial biases, capitalist greed. It’s a deadpan spoof that counts on looking like a deadpan spoof; even the sincerity is supposed to sound designed and clunky. It has the narrative scale of a gag, too. As a film, it doesn’t know where to go after the social gimmick wears off; it just fizzles into the sort of artificial resolution that, if I didn’t know any better, passes off as image-renovating and self-righteous tripe. The film is fun when Keanu Reeves turns earnestness and bad writing into an art form. But as a Barbie-styled comment on modern American society, it comes across as performative and dishonest. Look Ma, (no) Wings!