Heart of the Beast
Adventure, Thriller (English)
After a harrowing plane crash, Special Forces officer James Belmont and his combat dog, Odin, find themselves stranded deep in the Alaskan wilderness. Together, they are forced into a brutal fight for survival against the elements. (more…)
Hunkkaar: The Roar
Crime, Drama (Hindi)
A victim takes a courageous stand against a powerful godman accused of misconduct in an intense courtroom drama centered on her fight for justice. (more…)
The Paradise
Action, Thriller, Drama (Telugu)
In 1980s Secunderabad, a marginalised tribe battles discrimination and fights for citizenship under an unexpected leader's guidance, challenging systemic oppression. (more…)
Shaque: Trust No One
Drama, Crime, Mystery (Hindi)
A mother receives yearly photos of her missing child. After nine years of searching, she discovers the truth about the abduction lies not far away, but hidden among her closest circle. (more…)
The Vvaan: Force of the Forest
Action, Adventure, Thriller (Hindi)
A rational urban man defies his ancestral forbidden forest and awakens a divine goddess, only to realise that not only do some powers exist beyond logic but he must rise as the village’s only saviour to protect his people from (more…)
Guild Reviews by Film
Village Rockstars 2
Music, Drama (Assamese)
Dhunu, now in her late teens, still climbs trees, swims, and most importantly, dreams of continuing her childhood life as a guitarist in her rock band. However, life does not unfold as Dhunu wishes. As she faces the bitter and sour moments of life, she stands on the threshold of leaving her once-happy childhood behind.
Cast:
Bhanita Das, Basanti Das, Manabendra Das, Boloram Das, Bhaskar Das, Junumoni Das, Junumoni Boro, Bishnu Kalita
Director:
Rima Das
Writer:
Rima Das
Mon, September 28 2026
If the 2017 original was a euphoric, barefoot sprint through childhood fantasies, this luminous sequel is a melancholic exhale of coming of age.
In contemporary Indian cinema, few voices capture the anguish and alchemy of rural survival quite like Rima Das. With Village Rockstars 2, the auteur returns to the flood-bitten plains of Assam, proving that lightning can indeed strike twice in the same muddy field. If the 2017 original was a euphoric, barefoot sprint through childhood fantasies, this luminous sequel is a melancholic exhale of coming of age. The cardboard guitars have given way to real strings. Her Apu’s melody is now weighted down by the weight of adulthood, but Dhunu isn’t the tragic sister left behind to fade away.
Hunkkaar: The Roar
Crime, Drama (Hindi)
A victim takes a courageous stand against a powerful godman accused of misconduct in an intense courtroom drama centered on her fight for justice.
Cast:
Aneet Padda, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Raghubir Yadav, Zoya Hussain, Ram Kapoor, Rajesh Sharma, Arjun Mathur, Charu Shankar, Veen Harsh
Director:
Karan Kapadia, Nitya Mehra, Heeraz Marfatia
Writer:
Heeraz Marfatia
Mon, September 28 2026
Aneet Padda stars in this limited series about a young woman who accuses a powerful godman of rape
A young woman and her parents are at a police station. They’re trying to file a complaint, but the officer they’re speaking to is distracted. Another cop comes by with a box of sweets, says they’re from Saburi, that Baapji makes them with his own hands. The family are offered these as well; the daughter is uncomfortable but is told it’s aashirvaad. She tells the officer again that she wants to report a crime done to her. Badsaluki, she says first, then corrects that to zabardasti. The perpetrator is Baapji. There’s a temple bell, a cry of ‘Baapji ki jai’, and we go into the opening credits.
Sat, September 26 2026
Fri, September 25 2026
Aneet Padda, Fatima Sana Shaikh remain largely convincing, and own the best moments of the six-episode show.
The rampage of dhongi babas, spellbound bhakts and shell-shocked victims continues apace. The fresh spate began in 2020 with Bobby Deol spreading his beatific smile and vile ways through the multi-season ‘Ashram’ . In 2023, we saw Manoj Bajpayee fighting a lone battle against a powerful self-styled godman, based on the real-life Asaram, in ‘Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai’. That was followed by Jaideep Ahlawat jumping into the role of the rapacious ‘Maharaj’ in a film of the same name in 2024. Now comes ‘Hunkkaar’, in which the excellent Raghubir Yadav plays Baapji, the all-seeing seer who preys upon young girls. While the casting seems, at first glance, to be inspired – I mean, the always likeable Yadav turning into a monster, can you imagine – not being able to overcome the utter familiarity of the subject never allows Hunkkaar to become its own beast.
Heart of the Beast
Adventure, Thriller (English)
After a harrowing plane crash, Special Forces officer James Belmont and his combat dog, Odin, find themselves stranded deep in the Alaskan wilderness. Together, they are forced into a brutal fight for survival against the elements.
Cast:
Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, Anna Lambe
Director:
David Ayer
Writer:
Cameron Alexander
Mon, September 28 2026
‘Heart of the Beast’ uses the conventions of the survival genre, but the film’s sincerity is difficult to resist
There are movies that make you jump out of your seat, and then there are movies that make you sit very still, your shoulders slowly tightening, waiting for something terrible to happen. Heart of the Beast belongs to the latter category. Brad Pitt leads this affecting survival drama in which the bond between a retired soldier and his service dog becomes the heart of the story. Director David Ayer’s film is remarkably spare. There is very little dialogue, few characters and, for long stretches, just Brad Pitt and Odin, a German Shepherd, navigating an unforgiving wilderness. Yet the film rarely feels empty. Its silences become part of the storytelling, allowing the landscape, the sounds of the forest, Jared Michael Fry’s evocative score and the two central performances to carry the weight.
Sun, September 27 2026
A story about a man and a dog—that one line is enough for suckers like me to get excited about a film, and David Ayer’s Heart of the Beast doesn’t disappoint. Ayer is known for his action films (The Beekeeper, Fury, Suicide Squad), and even though the human protagonist is a retired army man, this film is really about the bond between him and his dog.
Fri, September 25 2026
My five minutes of joy — and, more importantly, of peace — are when I lay my head on my furry baby’s stomach and talk her through my day. The highs, the lows, the mundane and the momentous… I talk to her about everything. She responds with a few grunts (if I am lucky), but I am mostly greeted with an unstifled yawn. But her eyes tell me she understands. That she shares and cares. That alone is enough to help me power through yet another day.
Bandkhor
Drama (Marathi)
Six women from different backgrounds unite to challenge societal expectations. Bandkhor chronicles their journeys toward dignity and freedom as they reclaim their lives and forge their own paths through courage and determination.
Cast:
Nityashree Dnyanlaxmi, Priyadarshini Indalkar, Chhaya Kadam, Pooja Katurde, Mrinal Kulkarni, Mayur More, Titeeksha Tawde
Director:
Mahesh Manjrekar
Writer:
Irawati Karnik
Sun, September 27 2026
Directed by Mahesh Manjrekar, Bandkhor deals with the emancipation of women across generations. While it occasionally takes a sledgehammer approach to make its point, it never strays from its central theme—the main plot and subplots all revolve around women. As for the sledgehammer approach, given the state of affairs in society, some messages are perhaps best conveyed that way.
The Uprising
Action, History, Drama (English)
As war and plague devastate 14th-century England, a humble peasant ignites a rebellion, uniting an army of commoners to defy the King’s might in a desperate fight for justice and survival.
Cast:
Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman, Katherine Waterston, Stanley Townsend
Director:
Paul Greengrass
Writer:
Paul Greengrass
Sat, September 26 2026
Fri, September 18 2026
Shot in bleak greys offering little by way of colour, on the muddy grounds or the cloudy skies, or the person of its characters – who are dressed uniformly, but for the royals, in clothes made of worn, torn sack material – The Uprising is often hard to see or follow.
In a world where ever-new oligarchs, from oil to tech, run the world, who cares for a peasants’ revolt 700 years ago? So, doff hats to Paul Greengrass and Andrew Garfield for lending their weight to this film about the 1381 uprising, widely considered the first populist rebellion in England. But, uprising does not mean uplifting. Shot in bleak greys offering little by way of colour, on the muddy grounds or the cloudy skies, or the person of its characters – who are dressed uniformly, but for the royals, in clothes made of worn, torn sack material – The Uprising is often hard to see or follow.
Dhoomakethu
Comedy, Thriller (Malayalam)
On the morning of his wedding, 36 year old Kuttan wakes from a disturbing dream about his own death. As the day unfolds, familiar moments begin to repeat and reality becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish from memory. Realizing that something is terribly wrong, Kuttan races to uncover the truth before the day repeats itself again.
Cast:
Nikhila Vimal, Sajin Gopu, Ganapathi S. Poduval, Shine Tom Chacko, Sidharth Bharathan, Manju Pillai, Rajesh Pandian, Abel Twinkle, Adish Praveen
Director:
Sudhi Maddison
Writer:
Sonny, Manu
Sat, September 26 2026
The film’s repetition is deliberate, designed to evoke the claustrophobia of having no control over your day. But to break free from its own monotony, the answers to some questions needed to be far more shocking than what the film ultimately offers.
Writers Manu and Sonny seem to have stumbled upon a terrific premise for one of Malayalam’s first time-loop comedies (Sajin Gopu himself has starred in Lijo Jose Pellissery’s darker Churuli) with Dhoomakethu (comet). Not only is the setting obviously Malayali, with much of the film taking place in a typical small-town home as it gets wedding-ready, but there’s also the theme of jealousy that feels peculiarly Malayali in this joyous setting. This includes sneaky caterers wondering out loud about how a man as old and unappealing as Kuttan (Sajin Gopu) can score a wife like Sharmila (Nikhila Vimal). This includes nosy neighbours reminding each other of Sharmila’s ‘colourful past’ and of reasons why Kuttan has remained single for this long. Just as hilarious is one of Kuttan’s frenemies deciding to buy himself a new car exactly on the date of the wedding.
Fri, September 25 2026
For a part of the film’s runtime, a blend of the now familiar time loop trope with humour seems to work, until some of the hard work unravels due to weak writing of the background story
Any out of the world concept can lose its sheen when it becomes too commonplace and is overused. So it is with the time loop concept in cinema, the latest iteration of which is in Sudhi Maddison’s Dhoomakethu (comet). There is some irony in naming a film with a now commonplace concept with something as rare as a comet. Yet for a part of its runtime, the blend of this now familiar trope with humour seemed to work, until some of the hard work unravels due to weak writing of the background story.
Shaque: Trust No One
Drama, Crime, Mystery (Hindi)
A mother receives yearly photos of her missing child. After nine years of searching, she discovers the truth about the abduction lies not far away, but hidden among her closest circle.
Cast:
Parineeti Chopra, Jennifer Winget, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Anup Soni, Chaitannya Choudhry, Sumeet Vyas, Soni Razdan, Harleen Sethi
Director:
Renzil D'Silva
Fri, September 25 2026
Director-writer Rensil D’Silva weaves an interesting albeit clichéd storyline
Illusion meets reality… those of us who have watched Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’ with rapt attention know all too well what a fascinating blend it is. Of course, Netflix’s latest web series ‘Shaque: Trust No One’, which too marries phantasmagoric elements with truth, bears no similarity with the acclaimed film. Rather, on the surface, it bears an uncanny resemblance with another of Netflix’s new films, ‘Gandhari’. Yes, like the Taapsee Pannu starrer, ‘Shaque’, which marks the web-series debut of Parineeti Chopra, too, deals with a mother’s search for her daughter.
Fri, September 25 2026
The corny seven-episode series stars Parineeti Chopra as an unhinged mother who receives a photograph of her missing child every year
When I was little, my mother’s very North Indian family would clink glasses, raise voices and play card games on winter nights. As the only sober primate in the room (I wasn’t sure about the wayward dog), calling the adults’ bluff was a cinch, because their intoxicated minds and muscles kept failing them: they’d place the cards face-side up by mistake, coughed harder every time they tried to lie, or even forgot the name of the suits (“3 of Souls!”) before playing their hand. If they ever played poker, I thought, we’d end up homeless. Shaque: Trust No One is the cinematic equivalent of those nights: the harder it strives to be serious (or just convincing), the funnier it gets. Some might call that entertainment; I call it the comforting embrace of mediocrity. At times, I got excited at the prospect of those farcical, downright incompetent card games.
Fri, September 25 2026
एक मां के लिए इससे बड़ा सदमा क्या होगा कि उसकी नवजात बच्ची उससे दूर हो जाए? वो मां ना अपनी पहली संतान को भूल सकती है, ना ही उसे वापस पाने की उम्मीद चैन से जीने देती है। एक मां की ऐसी ही भावुक कहानी वाली वेब सीरीज ‘शक: ट्रस्ट नो वन’ से परिणीति चोपड़ा ने ओटीटी पर वेब सीरीज की दुनिया में अपनी पारी शुरू की है। हालांकि, मेकर्स ने मां-बेटी की इस भावनात्मक कहानी के इर्द-गिर्द शक और साजिशों के ढेर सारे जाले बुनकर इसका मजा थोड़ा किरकिरा कर दिया है।
The Vvaan: Force of the Forest
Action, Adventure, Thriller (Hindi)
A rational urban man defies his ancestral forbidden forest and awakens a divine goddess, only to realise that not only do some powers exist beyond logic but he must rise as the village’s only saviour to protect his people from annihilation.
Cast:
Sidharth Malhotra, Tamannaah Bhatia, Nimrat Kaur, Maniesh Paul, Sunil Grover, Shweta Tiwari, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Manu Rishi Chadha, Durgesh Kumar, Anup Soni
Director:
Deepak Kumar Mishra
Writer:
Arunabh Kumar
Fri, September 25 2026
Engineered to exploit the current devotional fervour at the box office, in this tale of divine retribution, both the plot and the message are ultimately buried beneath a high-pitched, artificial theme-park aesthetic.
What happens when the custodians of ecological preservation form a corrupt alliance with political forces in the name of progress? Arunabh Kumar and Ekta Kapoor combine to present the dialectic between ecological conservation and modernisation, wrapped in a glossy, high-pitched divine intervention, for a mass audience that, these days, looks South for grand mytho-mystical experiences. When Rishi (Sidharth Malhotra), a rational professional, returns to his ancestral village with his wife Mamta (Tamannaah Bhatia) to sell off his inherited land, he is sucked into a raging debate. Led by the double-faced Deepak (Sunil Grover), those aligned with the development agenda offer a better rate because they want to build a road through the forest to reduce travel time to city infrastructure. In contrast, the traditionalists, including his well-meaning brother Shashi (Anup Soni) and bitter sister-in-law (Shweta Tiwari), don’t want to upset the forest’s reigning deity and invite her curse. Because of a past incident, Rishi has lost faith in the goddess, but Mamta remains devoted. When Rishi ignores the sacred decree forbidding entry into the forest after sunset, fury breaks loose as we gradually discover that beneath the supernatural lies a timely message: reneging on a pact with nature can unleash self-seeking dark forces. Drawing from folklore, it reminds us that the ruler has a role to protect nature and what happens when the custodian goes corrupt.
Fri, September 25 2026
Some films are bad. Some are terrible. And some are pure torture. Sidharth Malhotra-Tamannaah's The Vvaan falls neatly into that third category.
Some films are bad. Some are terrible. And some are pure torture. The Vvaan falls neatly into that third category, in which I struggled to find a single redeeming feature, and failed spectacularly. When we first come upon a Mumbai-based engineer (Sidharth Malhotra) and his wife (Tamannaah Bhatia), childless but certainly not loveless, they are a) singing songs in a large sea-side bungalow, b) fetching up at a quack who hands out potency powders and c) participating in a hideous racist-colourist joke. The Vvaan never recovers from this early blow. Nor did I, as the film kept drawing me deeper into an off-colour, off-putting mix of so-called fantasy and folklore, of the kind that involves dark forests and their resident guardian devis, and evil spirits which devour those who dare walk into their domain after dark.
Fri, September 25 2026
The Paradise
Action, Thriller, Drama (Telugu)
In 1980s Secunderabad, a marginalised tribe battles discrimination and fights for citizenship under an unexpected leader's guidance, challenging systemic oppression.
Cast:
Nani, Mohan Babu, Kayadu Lohar, Sonali Kulkarni, Raghav Juyal, Sampoornesh Babu, Vishika, Tanikella Bharani, Priyadarshi Pullikonda, P. Vijay Kumar
Director:
Srikanth Odela
Fri, September 25 2026
Directed by Srikanth Odela and starring Nani, Mohan Babu, and Sonali Kulkarni, The Paradise is so fragmented that it struggles to establish cohesion and continuity and, most importantly, lacks a substantial story to hold it together.
Nani, the Natural Star and one of Telugu cinema’s most relatable, family-friendly heroes, has been steadily pivoting towards action-heavy films over the past few years. His latest outing, The Paradise, is his biggest yet in terms of scale and action. But does Nani’s second collaboration with director Srikanth Odela work as well as their first? Can The Paradise take the actor and filmmaker to the next league? What works, what doesn’t, and what really goes wrong? Let’s find out.
Fri, September 25 2026
Nani’s physical transformation in this Srikanth Odela-directed film is striking, but it cannot make up for a narrative that struggles to establish its characters or conflict
The Paradise begins by paying tribute to some of the Indian cinema legends we have lost in recent times. It also remembers revolutionary Telangana poet Gummadi Vittal Rao, better known as Gaddar. It is director Srikanth Odela’s way of tipping his hat to his Telangana roots and the region’s textured history. In his debut, Dasara, also starring Nani, Srikanth explored caste hierarchies around Telangana’s coal mines during the era of prohibition, weaving a tale of friendship, loss and revenge. It wasn’t a perfect film, but it established its emotional conflicts well.
Thu, September 24 2026
It is an opportunity lost, especially for a director who proved his mettle beyond doubt with his very first film. His second, scattered and uneven, is no patch on Dasara
Excessive violence and predictable storytelling suck the air out of The Paradise and reduce it to a limp, messy heap despite all the technical wizardry and visual vim and vigour that director Srikanth Odela packs into it end to end. A Telugu mass movie that pulls out the stops, The Paradise homes in on a man who takes up cudgels on behalf of his mother and his marginalised tribe to avenge the brutal oppression that a feudal lord has subjected them to for many years. Lead actor Nani, reuniting with Odela three years after the super-successful Dasara, plays Jadal, a seething rebel with a cause who returns to his people after serving a long prison sentence. He sets out to settle scores with the viciously exploitative Malik (Mohan Babu).
Brothers
Comedy (English)
Hollywood actors Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have been best friends for years, but a shocking family secret suggests their connection might be closer.
Cast:
Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Natalie Martinez, Brittany Ishibashi, Nolan Almeida, Ella Grace Helton, Noah Carganilla, Highdee Kuan, Oona Yaffe, Holland Taylor
Fri, September 25 2026
The Hollywood stars act as fictionalised versions of themselves in this far-out comedy that imagines the two as brothers after a real-life rumour.
Actors Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have been good friends since they met on the film Edtv (1999) and went on to collaborate on HBO’s award-winning series True Detective (2014). In recent years, a rumour about the two keeps surfacing from an interview with Matthew’s mother Kay revealing that she ‘knew’ Woody’s father, Charles, a felon, in her past. While it was suggested that the two actors could be brothers, a DNA test was never taken. In the new Apple TV series, Brothers, created by the two stars, David West Read and Lee Eisenberg, the outlandish series imagines a fictional scenario in which this plays out. The cheeky, wink-wink narrative works best when it remains on the actors, as it gets way too sitcom-ish when applied to their extended families.
Mobland S02
Crime, Drama (English)
Two mob families clash in a war that threatens to topple empires and lives.
Cast:
Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Mandeep Dhillon, Jasmine Jobson, Teddie Allen, Emmett J. Scanlan
Fri, September 25 2026
The British crime thriller returns to London as the Harrigan family finds themselves in the middle of another turf war.
The first half of MobLand Season 1 moved around at a slow pace, introducing characters and setting up the chaotic world of the Harrigan crime family. Returning for its second season, the series, created by Top Boy’s Ronan Bennett, wastes no time in setting up another threat for the Harrigans, who find themselves in the midst of a civil war. Directed by Guy Ritchie, the Paramount+ show has been in the news for its on-set drama, with reports of discord between the leads. However, the show is back with gusto on Season 2 that quickly establishes the stakes and the players. It remains to be seen if it can stick the landing with what lies ahead.
The Love Hypothesis
Romance, Comedy (English)
Olive Smith, a biology PhD candidate, and Dr. Adam Carlsen, a hotshot professor and well-known tyrant, enter into a fake relationship, seeing each of their carefully calculated theories on love get thrown into chaos.
Cast:
Lili Reinhart, Tom Bateman, Rachel Marsh, Jaboukie Young-White, Nicholas Duvernay, Arty Froushan, Jeananne Goossen, Aladeen Tawfeek, Kenny Wong, Daniel Brochu
Director:
Claire Scanlon
Fri, September 25 2026
Tom Bateman is tall and handsome, but like all good love stories, he must also be cussed and stuck-up, and it seems too contrived.
Writer Ali Hazelwood is a romantic novelist and a neuroscientist, a kind of bond that is hardly organic. The Love Hypothesis, the film based on her bestselling novel by the same name, mixes together the same chemicals. The couple in question, and the people in their lives, walk the rarefied corridors of Stanford. She is a PhD student, he is a professor, and they do top-of-the-line work such as detecting pancreatic cancer. However, barring the lab coats, some mice, a few beakers and mentions of molecules, chemicals and controlled experiments, this could be a love story from anywhere, any time — though, because Hazelwood knows this territory, the science part looks and sounds genuine.