Resident Evil
Horror, Science Fiction, Adventure (English)
A hapless medical courier fights for his life amid an outbreak of a deadly mutagenic virus in an isolated mountain town. (more…)
Lust Stories 3
Romance, Drama (Hindi)
Through four bite-sized yet emotionally resonant films, the anthology once again explores lust, love, relationships, and repressed desire, offering fresh perspectives on intimacy, longing, and human connection in all their complexity. (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…)
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 Page 5 of 110
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.
Fri, September 25 2026
The film whimsically sways from one end to the other leaving yawning gaps in the process of transitioning.
The eponymous forest - it has been in existence since the 7th century, the audience is told in a rushed introduction - has a human voice. It emanates from a goddess carved in stone. The rock deity has eyes that glow in the dark like traffic lights. Only those who dare to venture into the forbidden, mystical woods at night witness the phenomenon but only a few survive to tell the tale. It is deep-rooted fear of the unknown that keeps people away from the forest after sunset. In the climax, a crowd divided by what they know or what they don’t congregates there. A protracted fracas erupts. The skirmish is of the sort that leaves one completely cold.
Vibe
Action, Comedy, Drama (Hindi)
Two inseparable friends' ordinary, unassuming lives spiral into an unpredictable, high-energy adventure that pushes their survival instincts and friendship to the limit.
Cast:
Preity Zinta, Kunal Kemmu, Sparsh Shrivastava, Vanshika Dhir, Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua, Yashpal Sharma, Sharmila Tagore, Aditya Kulshreshtha
Director:
Kunal Kemmu
Writer:
Kunal Kemmu
Tue, September 22 2026
Unlikely heroes, friendship, espionage, humour, chemistry, tonal balance, comic heroism, and contemporary Hindi cinema.
A film may possess an ingenious premise, an assured director and a cast brimming with talent, yet still lack the one intangible quality that can make or break a genre exercise: the right vibe. Not vibe in its loose, fashionable sense, but the precise tonal alchemy of mood, rhythm, atmosphere and attitude that tells us how seriously—or how gleefully—we are expected to take what unfolds on screen. For an action-comedy, that equilibrium is particularly precarious. Too much solemnity makes the jokes feel intrusive; too much frivolity diminishes the stakes. Vibe, for the most part, negotiates this tonal tightrope with considerable assurance.
Sun, September 20 2026
But director-actor Kunal Khemu overplays his hand and assumes that the audience does not get the joke.
Unfortunately, I’m not on team Kunal Khemu. I used to be, when I thought of him as an actor who didn’t get his due. However, his directorial debut, Madgaon Express (2024), changed that. Laced with typical “boys-will-be-boys” silliness, I found myself drifting off during many points of the inanity that was unfolding on screen. It needs a special kind of wit and sorcery to keep people invested in a film where nothing truly matters but the makers’ whimsy. Then I heard his views on pay parity, on his wife Soha Ali Khan’s podcast, and he didn’t seem all that wise. It’s futile to assume the above instances wouldn’t colour my perspective of his directorial venture, Vibe, a film he has also co-produced, and is starring in. But for the sake of fairness, I have to concede that there are few things more effortless in Hindi cinema than Khemu enacting a gag he wrote.
Sat, September 19 2026
Gondhal
(Marathi)
A suffocating young bride, Suman, uses her lover Sarjerao's obsession in Gondhal ritual and turns sacred tradition into a deadly chess match.
Cast:
Kishore Kadam, Ishita Deshmukh, Yogesh Sohoni, Nishad Bhoir, Anju Prabhu, Suresh Vishwakarma, Madhavi Juvekar, Aishwarya Shinde, Kailash Waghmare, Poonam Patil
Director:
Santosh Davakhar
Tue, September 22 2026
Santosh Davakhar's formally ambitious Marathi folk drama is India's official submission to the 99th Academy Awards
Gondhal begins with what is, roughly, a 25-minute single shot at night. It follows an old man, Bhivaba (Kishor Kadam), and his grandson Vishnu (Dhruv Thoke) walking towards the gondhal, a ritual folk celebration in the village for newlyweds, and on that long-ish walk, the old man meets other men, and gossip is exchanged under the guise of curiosity, resentments are expressed under the guise of conversation, and the child’s curiosity is mistaken for his personality—he only seems to ask questions: What is this? Why is that?
Mon, November 17 2025
Gondhal, which is written and directed by Santosh Davakhar, gets the viewers transported into the interiors of the village and the ceremony of Gondhal in a thoroughly impressive manner. It does that through a long one-take shot that not only follows different characters perform different tasks but also in presence of over 100 junior actors in a large open area. Veteran cinematographer Amalendu Chaudhary makes his presence felt in various other shots as well. No stone is left unturned when it comes to portraying the ceremony and its various aspects. One can find even minute detailing with regards to the rituals, costumes and production designing.
Resident Evil
Horror, Science Fiction, Adventure (English)
A hapless medical courier fights for his life amid an outbreak of a deadly mutagenic virus in an isolated mountain town.
Cast:
Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser, Johnno Wilson, Shaun W. Loeser, Zach Cregger, Emily Piggford, Will Merrick, Zoé Bellas
Director:
Zach Cregger
Writer:
Shay Hatten, Zach Cregger
Tue, September 22 2026
At 95 minutes, the film mirrors the design, efficiency and danger of a Samurai sword.
In Zach Cregger’s reboot of the Resident Evil franchise, a character appears capable of killing the zombies unleashed on Raccoon city. Appearing halfway into the film, I finally settled into my seat – taking comfort in the fact that the Milla Jovovich version of the film was about to begin. Designed as a shooting videogame in 1990s Japan, the film franchise gained notoriety for its genre thrills and Jovovich’s elaborate action set-pieces, which only got bigger, more intricate with the success of each film. But true to Cregger’s ability to pull the rug from underneath us, in the eighth film of the franchise, the action hero character unceremoniously disappears. Another well-known face, who you imagine will stick around for longer in the film, is taken out. In Zach Cregger’s apocalypse, there are no saviours.
Sun, September 20 2026
Based on the Japanese video game, the Resident Evil franchise had a good run at the box office from 2002 to 2017. And, like most films based on video games, all six films were quite mediocre. There was also the eminently forgettable Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City in 2021. Just when you thought the franchise was dead and buried, it has now resurrected itself-like the zombies in the film.
Fri, September 18 2026
A drive through icy desolation on the edges of Raccoon City boasts one of the year’s most arresting movie openings.
With Resident Evil, Zach Cregger builds one of the year’s most pin-sharp, nerve-rattling cinematic openings. It lurches between extremes amid an expert orchestration of unpredictability. Bryan (Austin Abrams) is a medical courier who’s having issues with his girlfriend, Michelle, over having kids. She wants an honest, direct conversation, but his deliveries keep coming in the way. He’s not sure if he’s ready for such a big change as parenthood. The film opens at a hospital. Amidst his efforts to get a delivery signed, he’s tapped to ferry a critical bag to Raccoon City. He’s cautioned that the location is far and the terrain snowy. But the pay is double. In just a beat, he agrees. However, shortly after, he realises things might be way harder than it seemed.
Enna Vilai
Drama, Thriller (Tamil)
A humble fisherman from Rameswaram lives a quiet life with his family until he finds a gold pendant washed ashore. What initially seems like a blessing soon turns into a nightmare when false accusations threaten his peace and dignity, forcing him to stand up against a powerful system.
Cast:
Nimisha Sajayan, Karunas, Vijayalakshmi Veeramani, Kamalesh Jegan, Chethan Cheenu, Mohan Raman, Kavithalayaa Krishnan, Swaminathan, Nizhalgal Ravi, Y. G. Mahendran
Director:
Sajeev Pazhoor
Writer:
Sajeev Pazhoor
Mon, September 21 2026
Fri, September 18 2026
A promising premise and a reliable Karunas are let down by clumsy staging and a bloated, repetitive courtroom drama
Sajeev Pazhoor, the first-time director of Enna Vilai, is no ordinary writer. He’s written the new-age Malayalam classic Thondimuthalum Drikshakshiyum and the directors who have worked on Sajeev’s scripts include Dileesh Pothan, G Prajith (the director of Oru Vadakkan Selfie) and the master Shaji N Karun. Sajeev has also made dozens of documentaries and short films before turning director with Enna Vilai, a Tamil drama set in Rameshwaram. What shines through, even at a premise level, is this writer’s mind and a short story-like quality that could have been made into a better film.
Daayra
Crime, Drama (Hindi)
Raman, who has had a shady record with staged encounters and police brutality, finds himself cornered as Ajooni challenges him on every step.
Cast:
Kareena Kapoor Khan, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Kshitee Jog, Jitendra Joshi, Biswapati Sarkar, Sandesh Kulkarni
Director:
Meghna Gulzar
Writer:
Meghna Gulzar, Yash Keswani, Sima Agarwal
Sun, September 20 2026
Daayra poses an interesting question concerning the relationship between law and morality: if culprits are likely to get away with murder, is it acceptable to take the law into one’s own hands and deliver justice? And who gets to decide the quantum of punishment, assuming the accused are indeed guilty of a heinous crime? Are extrajudicial killings justified in such circumstances? Meghna Gulzar’s film raises several thorny questions. That is essentially the point of the story, though the film becomes somewhat heavy-handed in making it.
Sun, September 20 2026
Sun, September 20 2026
Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran star in Meghna Gulzar's film about cops doling out their own justice
Daayra opens with a city in celebration. It looks like a festival—the streets are teeming, sweets are distributed, fireworks set off. Eventually, the hero of the hour arrives: DCP Raman Kumar (Prithviraj Sukumaran), who led the team that shot and killed four men accused of rape. Officially, it was in self-defense, but no one, not the cops or the revelers, pretends it’s anything but an encounter killing. Meghna Gulzar’s film is loosely based on the 2019 Hyderabad rape case, in which the accused were killed in police custody and the cops widely praised afterwards. It offers the illusion of balance, but its heart is with the celebrating public. A week after the deaths, DCP Ajooni Kohli (Kareena Kapoor Khan) of the Special Investigative Team is tasked with looking into the case after human rights activists raise concerns. In contrast to Raman’s heroic introduction, we first meet Ajooni conducting a comic sting operation on an avocado-desiring inmate—a small clue to how the film sees their respective roles.
Lust Stories 3
Romance, Drama (Hindi)
Through four bite-sized yet emotionally resonant films, the anthology once again explores lust, love, relationships, and repressed desire, offering fresh perspectives on intimacy, longing, and human connection in all their complexity.
Cast:
Radhika Apte, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vijay Varma, Abhishek Banerjee, Ali Fazal, Radhikka Madan, Aditi Rao Hydari, Siddharth, Gurfateh Pirzada, Sana Thampi
Director:
Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra, Vishal Bhardwaj
Writer:
Kiran Rao, Tanaji Dasgupta, Avinash Sampath, Sumukhi Suresh, Shakun Batra, Sameeha Sabnis, Ashwathi Namboodiri, Nitesh Bhatia, Utkarshini Vashishtha, Vishal Bhardwaj
Sun, September 20 2026
Lust Stories 3 is the third instalment of the popular Netflix franchise, exploring various dimensions of human desire through four shorts helmed by Kiran Rao, Vikramaditya Motwane, Vishal Bhardwaj and Shakun Batra. Konkona Sen, Radhika Apte, Ali Fazal, Vijay Varma, Sana Thampi, Siddharth, Gurfateh Pirzada, Aditi Rao Hydari and others essay key roles. Desire comes in many shapes and sizes, something that Lust Stories on Netflix has addressed with the sensitivity it merits, removing the ‘shame’ angle from the discussion. Roping in big names, both actors and directors, has given the franchise a widespread reach across both seasons, making it a conversation starter.
Sat, September 19 2026
A mirror to modern relationships, the franchise’s third instalment sheds its past shock value for the disturbing terrain of emotional isolation
If the birth of Lust Stories was a shout for liberation, a tearing down of the velvet curtains that long hid Indian intimacy, then the third iteration is the echo. Helmed by a new set of original voices — Shakun Batra, Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, and Vishal Bhardwaj — and bolstered by an ensemble of actors who translate subtext through the vocabulary of body language, it does not seek to shock, nor does it carry the heavy burden of breaking taboos. It treats desire not as a provocative statement, but as a messy mirror. The four-part anthology shows how physical proximity often masks isolation in modern relationships. It shows how lust is weaponised, bargained with, or surrendered to. In the earlier films of the franchise, the stories followed a clear arc of liberation, a character realising their worth or claiming their pleasure. Here, within the recognisable OTT beats, the liberation is rarely external. In three segments, intimacy is readily available, but real emotional safety is scarce.
Sat, September 19 2026
Lust Stories 3 sticks to the format of the previous films in the franchise, keeping female desire at the core of all the films. The anthology film has four distinctive stories which are propelled by great performances.
Lust Stories, right from the beginning, when the first part was released in 2020, raised eyebrows. Since then, several other similar films and series have come up on OTT- all exploring female sexual desires- some landed, some did not, but the charm of Lust Stories and subsequently of Lust Stories 2 has had a different effect on the audience. How many mainstream filmmakers have attempted to explore what women want and ultimately got it right? In Lust Stories 3, filmmakers Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vishal Bhardwaj speak of Lust, an emotion that often brings out the best and worst in any human being.