Tue, June 9 2026

பல்வேறு அரசுப் பணிகளுக்கு முயன்ற பிறகு வேறு வழியில்லாமல் காவல்துறைக்கு வருகிறார் கோட்டை கருப்பசாமி (பிரசாந்த் பாண்டிராஜ்). காவல் நிலையத்தின் பரபரப்பான சூழல், அங்கிருக்கும் நடைமுறைகள் அவருக்குப் புதிதாக இருப்பதால், அதற்கேற்ப தன்னைத் தகவமைத்துக்கொள்வதிலும் அவருக்குச் சிக்கல் ஏற்படுகிறது. ஒரு தருணத்தில் பிடிபட்ட ஒரு திருடன், அவரைத் தாக்கிவிட்டுத் தப்பித்துவிடுகிறான். அதனால் பிரச்னைகளுடன் சேர்த்து கேலிகளையும் சந்திக்கிறார். அதன் பிறகு பழைய வழக்கு கோப்புகள் அவரிடம் ஒப்படைக்கப்பட்டு வாரண்ட்' டூட்டி போடப்படுகிறது. அந்த வழக்குகளில் சம்பந்தப்பட்டவர்களை அவர் கண்டுபிடித்தாரா, காவல் நிலையத்தில் கேலி செய்தவர்கள் முன்பு தன்னை நிரூபித்தாரா என்பதை எட்டு எபிசோடுகளில் சொல்கிறது இந்த `ஜீ5’ சீரீஸ்.

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Tue, June 9 2026

The David Dhawan universe of comedies delighted at least two generations, but the impact of those tried-and-tested funny games is fading

Varun Dhawan has made a decent living playing the man who refuses to grow up. Once again, his father David Dhawan, in what’s billed as his last directorial venture, gives the son a character that requires Varun to be in ‘Energiser Bunny’ mode throughout. Pause and thairaav are negligible words in the Dhawan universe of comedies that has delighted at least two generations of viewers. But the impact of those tried-and-tested funny games is fading. That’s best evident in Hai Jawaani Toh Ishq Hona Hai’s hero, who takes the cake in his ability to believe he’s beyond wrongdoing and in the sympathy he feels entitled to.

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Sat, June 6 2026

Call me a cynic, but a film with both Ishq and Jawani in its title had me wary from the outset—and unfortunately, my apprehensions proved well-founded. Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai is cringe-inducing with a capital C.

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Sat, June 6 2026

A classic David Dhawan escapist marital roller coaster that works overtime to make us submit to the rhythm of the ridiculous.

When in form, the infectious, chaotic energy of David Dhawan’s cinema can make even the most cynical critic melt. After a lull at the box office, the sultan of slapstick invokes a title from his inventory of playful songs and recreates the vibe of a period in Hindi cinema where logic politely steps aside to make way for a relentless cascade of laugh-out-loud misunderstandings. Dressed in a slick, contemporary cover, he partners with writers Yunus Sajawal and Farhad Samji to generate rapid-fire, rhyming situational humour that once defined the Govinda-Dhawan tempo. In his son Varun Dhawan, he has a performer who can deliver Govinda’s frantic spirit and channel the charm of a lovable rascal.

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Tue, June 9 2026

The film dives into the complex mother-daughter relationship, unexplored in mainstream Hindi cinema, with a distinct, quirky approach

“Daayan”. “Chudail”. “Vaishya”. “Chhichhori”. “Massage queen”. “Husband killer”. “Rekha ka dekha”. In Maa Behen, the list of slanders that Rekha (Madhur Dixit Nene) is subjected to is endless. There are multiple urban legends of her exploits in the locality—true or not is up for debate—but director Suresh Triveni and writer Pooja Tolani make one thing clear from the onset: Rekha is a single parent who has raised two daughters, Jaya (Triptii Dimri) and Sushma (Dharna Durga), on her own. That the daughters too believe some of these rumours around their mother is a source of laughs, not tension, in the film. Perhaps there’s no more complex relationship than mother-daughter. Surprisingly, it’s an unexplored dynamic in mainstream Hindi cinema, and Maa Behen dives into it with a distinct, quirky approach. There’s distrust, finger-pointing, screaming contests and constant reprimanding from both sides.

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Sun, June 7 2026

Promising premise, uneven execution, sharp performances, and missed opportunities for wickedly subversive humour.

Every actor of consequence harbours a desire to inhabit roles that foreground performance—particularly those that test their flair for comedy, that most elusive of arts requiring instinct, rhythm, and razor-sharp timing. While legends such as Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, alongside actors of formidable gravitas like Dilip Kumar and Irrfan Khan, have traversed the delicate line between the tragic and the comic with enviable ease, many have faltered in a genre that demands spontaneity and wit in equal measure. It is with such expectations that one approaches Maa Behen, a Netflix offering headlined by Madhuri Dixit. Directed by Suresh Triveni—who made a promising debut with the gently humorous Tumhari Sulu before veering into more sombre territory—the film attempts to mine a vein of humour that Hindi cinema seldom exploits with conviction: black comedy.

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Sat, June 6 2026

If you grew up in a colony in a village or small town, chances are there was that one household you were asked to stay away from. You aren’t allowed to play with the children over there. The reason is a woman – usually very beautiful – who is believed to be a femme fatale. It’s all fully based on hearsay, and we get colourful stories of the woman’s tantalizing ways, whereas the householder is blissfully unaware. In Suresh Triveni’s Netflix Original film Maa Behen, we get a woman of this kind. Attractive, coquettish, and the object of every man’s fantasy (and every woman’s disdain), Rekha (Madhuri Dixit) is a mom to two firebrand girls, Jaya (Triptii Dimri) and Sushma (Dharna Durga). Together, they headline a wild and supremely entertaining feminist rib-tickler that would force you to exclaim, “Why is this not a series?”

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Mon, June 8 2026

Directed by Ol Parker, the glossy rom-com features Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein as co-workers who fall for each other despite the odds.

It’s a plot straight out of a romance novel or maybe a K-drama. A CEO of an airline falls for the company lawyer, jeopardising their jobs and reputations. In the new Netflix rom-com, Office Romance, Jennifer Lopez plays the CEO of Air Cruz, who finds herself inexplicably falling for the new company lawyer from London. Will their secret office romance be exposed to all? Directed by Ol Parker, the opposites-attract comedy has a good dose of British humour, plenty of HR policies and some worthy scene-stealers. Jacqueline Cruz (Lopez) needs to get rid of a competitor’s lawsuit that is threatening her position as CEO of her father’s (Edward James Olmos) airline. The CEO has to make do with a replacement lawyer when their regular one, Peter Vance (Bradley Whitford), is out with an emergency. The new hire Daniel Blanchflower (Goldstein) is more than up to the task and ends up batting for Jackie in front of the board. It leads to Jackie and Daniel getting closer for the case and having a secret affair that risks both their careers. Will the odd couple make it work or call it quits?

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Mon, June 8 2026

Everything is random, proclaims Abhinav Sunder Nayak in his gutsy second feature, Mollywood Times. It is the story of a brilliant yet salty filmmaker, Vineeth Madhavan (Naslen), who simply can’t catch a break. The reason is never as simplistic as a talented filmmaker threatening the mediocrity around him. Nayak’s narrative tears apart the glossy dream of making it big in the film industry with talent alone. This very idea made me think of a street I walked down in Mumbai a decade ago. It was strangely full of young, glamorous people. They all looked hungry to be discovered in cafes or high-end gyms. “What is this lane?” I asked someone. “You don’t know? This is where all the strugglers live.”

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Sun, June 7 2026

Abhinav Sunder Nayak's Malayalam film, starring Naslen as an aspiring director, is hampered by its own sourness

Abhinav Sunder Nayak gravitates towards obsessive compulsive curmudgeons. He is only two films old but there is a pattern. If his debut film, Mukundan Unni Associates, is about a dogged, unshakeable lawyer who would stop at nothing—even murder—to accomplish his insurance scam, his sophomore film, Mollywood Times, is about another determined obstinate young man, Vineeth Madhavan (Naslen), an aspiring Malayalam filmmaker. There is a subtle but compelling difference in perception. The rigid and unnavigable world of cinema with its uncompromising characters, vicious businessmen and unforgiving mindsets make Nayak’s favorite traits almost desirable. There are more parallels between Mukundan and Vineeth. They both come from middle-class backgrounds with families that offer them nothing beyond education. It’s really their only privilege. A used car gives a young Vineeth a chance to get out on the road to take in Malayalam film posters for the first time. His father begins to trust his talents only after his short film puts his rationalist grandfather in a coma (this has a hilarious payoff in the third act). What is his reward? Not an expensive camera or budget but an offer to get him admission into a visual communications course. It’s the most a father dreaming of a doctor or an engineer son could do. This class position also determines the potency of their obsession—how far they would go or how rigid they can be in their march towards their goals.

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Fri, June 5 2026

Marketed as a “hate letter to cinema,” ‘Mollywood Times’ explores themes of ambition and disillusionment, but struggles with pacing and uneven writing that detract from its potential impact

A minor act of revolt can be your undoing in the film industry, where power centres are not very tolerant of those who do not fall in line. Vineeth Madhavan (Naslen), the filmmaker protagonist of Mollywood Times, goes the whole hog in his attempt to make his first film without any compromises, a film he wants to be remembered forever. In the process, we see his worldview transform from optimistic to cynical. Scene after scene seethes with the anger and frustration of someone who experiences his dream slipping away from grasp for no fault of his, so much so that one begins to wonder how much of the events in the film have been drawn from the life of its filmmaker, Abhinav Sunder Nayak. At least, much of the cynicism of his superb debut film, Mukundan Unni Associates, is very much visible here too.

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Mon, June 8 2026

'Bandar' rather daringly wants to draw comparisons between the horrors faced by a sexual assault victim and someone falsely accused of a rape case. Bobby Deol gives up every last bit of vanity to make Samar as douchey and reckless as possible.

Anurag Kashyap’s Bandar is set in a fascinating world. An out-of-work actor Samar Mehra (Bobby Deol), 50, a shadow of his ‘90s screen-self, has to perform his one-hit wonder at tacky weddings to pay the bills. When he exits the airport and sees his more famous colleagues (cameos by Sunny Leone and husband Daniel Weber) getting ‘papped’, he takes out his phone and takes a selfie of his tired face, to humble-brag on social media. He’s behind on his EMIs; his domestic help, Shiva, hasn’t been paid in four months. Even as he carries a constant back pain, Samar is unapologetic about his carnal desires, dabbling in problematic pornography and scrolling through profiles of significantly younger women, as if to suggest a sexual preference. He’s also petty and territorial, something we find out during a conversation with girlfriend, Khushi (Saba Azad), when he expresses displeasure after she went out with a group of friends the night before. All in all, where protagonists are usually air-brushed, Samar is a grimy, authentic everyman, comfortably placed in his contradictions, unserious world-view and profound vanity.

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Sun, June 7 2026

Sun, June 7 2026

Kashyap’s Bandar Rattles Loudly, Says Half Truths

If Anurag Kashyap had, by some cosmic clerical error, wandered into academia instead of cinema, he might well have become a tenured authority on the anthropology of crime—specifically, the sort that festers in dimly lit alleys and moral grey zones. His fascination with transgression is neither new nor unwelcome; after all, crime, in fiction as in life, offers a perverse kind of narrative seduction. One is drawn not merely to the act itself but to the elaborate theatre of law enforcement—those who prosecute, persecute, or, on less scrupulous days, politely protect the very rot they are sworn to excise. What grows wearisome, however, is Kashyap’s stubborn fidelity to the same old gangland grammar: interchangeable criminals, cut from identical cloth, trading smug one-liners like bored schoolboys passing notes in class. Variety, it seems, has been quietly smothered somewhere between the first act and the last cigarette.

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Sun, June 7 2026

Sat, June 6 2026

Peddi is a melodramatic sports film that tests your patience in the guise of telling an invigorating story of redemption; Jahnvi Kapoor exists purely as a plot device

Baahubali, KGF and Salaar’s success has set a trend: films increasingly become hype instruments for their heroes. The template is now painfully familiar: a stranger arrives in town, bewildered by the hero’s omnipresent worship. He then meets another archetype: the hypeman, clearly of the land, dispenses worldly wisdom like a street philosopher. The stranger, suitably elitist and condescending, serves as the audience surrogate. The hype rural man becomes the narrator. In Peddi, Boman Irani gets the thankless honour of the uber-cool stranger, dragged through a dense forest by the hypeman just to hear the legend of Peddi (Ram Charan).

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Sat, June 6 2026

Sun, June 7 2026

Abhinay Deo's procedural drama show gets by on the strength of its performances and the use of Kolkata as a setting

After Mentalhood in 2020, Karisma Kapoor returns to the OTT space with the seven-episode series Brown. As the titular Rita Brown, Kapoor steps firmly outside her comfort zone with this crime drama. Director Abhinay Deo, best known for bringing a slick visual style and muscular energy to thrillers and action films, makes an intriguing foray into neo-noir territory. Adapted from Abheek Barua’s novel City of Death, the show is set in Kolkata and uses the city’s unique character to tell a story that is part murder mystery, part police procedural and part examination of fractured relationships and unresolved trauma. Told through a mix of Hindi, Bengali and English, the series follows Rita Brown (Kapoor), a once-respected homicide detective whose life has unravelled since solving a notorious double murder years earlier. Now battling alcoholism and carrying the burden of a troubled past, she is pulled back into active duty and tasked with solving the murder of Ahana Jaiswal, the daughter of a wealthy and influential family. Assigned to work alongside her is Inspector Arjun Sinha (Surya Sharma), a sincere and committed officer carrying wounds of his own. Together, Rita and Arjun are drawn into an investigation that uncovers layers of deception, secrets and uncomfortable truths.

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Sun, June 7 2026

Abhinay Deo's ZEE5 series hands Karisma Kapoor a meaty role as a broken Kolkata detective, then traps her in a thriller that has been done to death.

Somewhere in the past five years, the Indian crime thriller stopped being a story and became a mood. We know the grammar by now. A cop with a dead spouse and a drinking problem. A city shot like it owes the cinematographer money. A murder that matters less than the grief piled on top of it. So much of streaming has settled into this groove that you can predict a whole show from its first frame of rain on a windshield. Brown, the seven-episode ZEE5 series directed by Abhinay Deo (Delhi Belly), speaks this grammar fluently. The trouble is that it doesn’t seem to know any other language. It belongs to a very particular wave, too. Call it the Mare of Easttown (2021 American crime drama series) effect. Ever since Kate Winslet trudged through a grey Pennsylvania town, Hindi storytellers have been busy assembling their own tired women with badges. Kareena Kapoor Khan did it in The Buckingham Murders. Raveena Tandon did it in Aranyak. Now Karisma Kapoor does it in Brown.

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Sat, June 6 2026

Abhinay Deo’s moody and middling seven-episode series stars Karisma Kapoor as the genre’s favourite child: a haunted cop with a case to solve.

If I had an Indian Rupee for every neo-noir crime drama that features a haunted-and-disgraced cop with a drinking problem, buried trauma, a grieving subordinate and a gloomy colour palette, I’d be wealthy enough to not care about the weak conversion rate when I buy currency for a foreign trip. The eponymous protagonist of Brown is so brooding that she’d give Dracula a pale-faced complex. Rita Brown (Karisma Kapoor) rolls her own cigarettes for good measure; every puff she takes is punctuated with loud crackles of burning and inhalation so that we hear the emptiness of her soul. She misses her dead husband (Shaan) and dead unborn child.

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Sat, June 6 2026

Given that neither Marvel nor DC has been doing particularly well with its films lately, Mattel appears to have misplaced its hopes in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The success of Barbie (2023) likely prompted the company’s executives to greenlight this project, hoping it would become the “men’s version of Barbie.” But somewhere along the way, they got the fundamentals wrong.

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Sat, June 6 2026

Starring Nicholas Galitzine, Jared Leto, Masters of the Universe is smart about playing up the contrasts.

It doesn’t do to go around dressed in a loincloth, wielding a shiny sword and declaring oneself “He-Man” these days – at least not in a big-bucks Hollywood film that is hoping not to cause any affront, to he, she, they, them, or it. So how do you tap into a character that was born as a Mattel toy and largely remembered only by an audience who first encountered him as an animated TV series in the 1980s, and is now into their middle age? Director Travis Knight and screenwriters Chris Butler and Adam and Aaron Nee (who have several award nominations between them) settle on a tone that is constantly mocking the whole concept while trying to kick off a successful franchise with it It is surprising how well they are able to do this when they do it well. It is as surprising how the film still manages to feel and look like a frenetic video game being played by a bunch of compulsive teenagers.

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Sat, June 6 2026

The fifth season of one of TVF’s most popular shows continues to revolve around a talkative middle-class family who strive to be relatable

As a wise antihero once said: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain”. Who knew Harvey Dent was referring to one of TVF’s flagship shows in its fifth and greediest season yet? Gullak has been critic-proof for years, in the sense that it’s built to be liked and ‘felt’ as the cinema of middle-class existence; as storytelling that thrives on nothingness. If it doesn’t work for you, you are accused of not knowing the real India. If it’s too boring for you, you are not wired to handle the mundane colours of everyday life. They will have you believe that the genre is shaped by sweet dullness: the invisible moments between the lofty landmarks of living, the unremarkable and forgotten days between the scenes that stories usually show.

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Sat, June 6 2026

ओवर द टॉप कॉन्टेंट का दावा करने वाले OTT पर ‘गुल्लक’ एक ऐसी खास सीरीज रही है, जिसने छोटे शहर के आम मिडिल क्लास परिवार के सीधे-सच्चे, खट्ठे-मीठे किस्से सुनाकर दर्शकों के दिलों में परमानेंट निवास बना लिया। अपने पांचवें सीजन में भी यह सीरीज आपको मिश्रा परिवार की जिंदगी के उन्हीं रोजमर्रा के छोटे-छोटे पलों, बदलावों और चुनौतियों से सहज तरीके से रूबरू करवाती है। इस बार 30-30 मिनट के 7 एपिसोड हैं। यह सीजन वेब सीरीज की दुनिया में फैंस के इस दुलारे शो के लिए इसलिए भी खास है कि कास्‍ट में बड़ा बदलाव है। मिश्रा जी के बड़े बेटे अन्‍नू के रोल में अनंत वी. जोशी की एंट्री हुई है, उन्‍होंने वैभव राज गुप्ता को रिप्‍लेस किया है। शो के सबसे पॉपुलर और मुख्‍य किरदार में इस तरह का बदलाव अब से पहले देखने को नहीं मिला था। जाहिर है अनंत के हिस्‍से एक बड़ी चुनौती है।

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Fri, June 5 2026

The Viral Fever show, created by Shreyansh Pandey, takes viewers back to the Mishra family.

A supersized version of Gullak has arrived for its fifth season. We’ve watched the Mishras grow in their humble abode all these years. In the latest season, the family makes some instrumental decisions that will affect everyone. But while The Viral Fever (TVF) has an emotional end, the show takes some amusing and meaningful detours. It also adds to the lore of the Gullak universe; if you’ve been a fan since the beginning, there are welcome rewards ahead for viewers. Overall, the comfort series continues to delight and make you want to know more about this loyal, caring clan.

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Fri, June 5 2026

Despite a terrific cast and an intriguing premise, this sluggish family mystery struggles to keep up the suspense and spirits

Circumstance. When a family is facing a particularly distressing period in their lives, what really matters is their response to the circumstances. Over the years, cinema has often told stories of families that stick together to face whatever comes their way. We have seen the Drishyams, the Koodi Vaazhndhaal Kodi Nanmais, the Kolamaavu Kokilas, the Doctors, and even last week’s release, Blast. Families finding themselves painted into a corner, and doing everything possible to get out of it, is a time-tested template, and yet… director Pandiraaj’s latest, Parimala and Co, does the one thing you shouldn’t do when it comes to making a whodunnit family drama. He makes things… boring.

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Fri, June 5 2026

Rai's film is an authentic portrait of a young woman who refuses to let her standing and opinions be defined and restrained by gender

All Bishnu wants is to show she can do it all. Lift a gas cylinder. Ensure the family in the orange orchard pays up. Get her elder sister to finish her graduation. Get into a relationship. And not care ‘ki log kya kahenge’. But patriarchy lurks like a dark shadow in the village to which she has returned after a stint in New Delhi. And women have made peace with their roles and gender dynamics. So when Bishnu behaves like the man of the house, there are clashes with her mother and sister. For Bishnu’s mom, asserting independence is a way of disbanding from the community; for Bishnu, it is just the natural way to be. For her pregnant sister, there are regrets; for Bishnu, it’s never too late to do what you want. “I’ll see what kind of a husband a judgemental person likes you gets,” remarks her sister while her mother has had it with her temper and irritable behaviour.

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Sun, May 31 2026

Why would anyone name a cat Azaadi? Perhaps every time you call your companion animal by that name, you give voice to an ache to break free. At the heart of the Nepali-language film Shape of Momo is Bishnu’s (Gaumaya Gurung) tabby cat, named exactly that. Aazadi isn’t an animal protagonist so much as a metaphor for the film’s politics of gender. The family rues that they should have liked a tomcat instead because a female cat would keep having litters. While it’s a perfectly practical concern in a domestic setting, Tribeny Rai’s debut feature is also about a generational belief that a family is somehow incomplete without a son.

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Sun, May 31 2026

A nuanced exploration of womanhood, belonging, identity, and resistance within the confines of a traditional Sikkimese society.

Shape of Momo (Nepali title: Chhora Jastai), directed by Tribeny Rai, emerges as one of the most compelling independent films of the year. Set in the picturesque landscapes of Sikkim, this intimate coming-of-age drama explores themes of womanhood, identity, migration, family expectations, and personal freedom. In this review, critic Saibal Chatterjee examines how Rai crafts a powerful narrative about a young woman’s struggle to reconcile her evolving sense of self with the expectations of the community she once called home. First-time director Tribeny Rai’s Nepali-language Shape of Momo starts with a poem that the protagonist, a young woman who has quit her job in Delhi and retreated to her family home in Sikkim, recites, intoning each word with intent and clarity.

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