Jab Khuli Kitaab
Comedy, Drama, Family (Hindi)
When Anusuya confesses to her husband, Gopal, that she cheated on him with another man a few months into their five decade-long marriage, all hell breaks loose. Angry and hurt, Gopal decides to seek divorce while he struggles to keep (more…)
Guild Reviews
Jab Khuli Kitaab
Comedy, Drama, Family (Hindi)
When Anusuya confesses to her husband, Gopal, that she cheated on him with another man a few months into their five decade-long marriage, all hell breaks loose. Angry and hurt, Gopal decides to seek divorce while he struggles to keep the rest of the family oblivious to his and Anusuya’s blistering secret. What follows is an impassioned, often hilarious deep-dive into the lives of Gopal and Anusuya while they manoeuvre the rocky roads of their relationship, rediscovering the meaning of love and togetherness.
Cast:
Pankaj Kapur, Dimple Kapadia, Aparshakti Khurana, Manasi Parekh, Samir Soni, Nauheed Cyrusi, Sunil Palwal, Devyani Ratanpal, Abuli Mamaji, Kyra Kumar
Director:
Saurabh Shukla
Writer:
Saurabh Shukla
Sat, March 7 2026
Cracks in conjugality constitute a common conflict device in Hindi cinema. Usually, the male commits the bhool and expects forgiveness. Most fissures appear early, but what if a grandmother reveals a long-buried truth? Can the man accept it as easily as he expects forgiveness? Seasoned actor and theatre practitioner Saurabh Shukla gives new meaning to a prescribed book, making us both chuckle and reflect.
Sat, March 7 2026
Sat, March 7 2026
Gopal and Anasuya, a couple married for 50 years, suddenly announce they are getting a divorce. The news creates an immediate crisis for their grown children and extended family. As the legal process begins, Gopal’s stubbornness clashes with Anasuya’s need for independence. The home becomes a battlefield of old secrets and modern grievances, forcing everyone to question their equation.
Mrithyunjay
Thriller, Crime, Action (Telugu)
Cast:
Sree Vishnu, Reba Monica John, Nellore Sudharshan, Racha Ravi, Ayyappa P. Sharma, Sijju Menon, Nanda Gopal, Baladitya, Krishna Koushik, Mrinchi Madhavi
Director:
Hussain Sha Kiran
Writer:
Hussain Sha Kiran
Sat, March 7 2026
Some films try to punch above their weight while others play to the strengths of their core team and work within set limits. Mrithyunjay, the Telugu film written and directed by Hussain Sha Kiran and led by Sree Vishnu, falls into the latter category. Designed as an investigative thriller, it builds intrigue in parts. A few smart stretches, however, are undercut by convenient writing choices that keep the film from becoming fully engaging. On the positive side, Mrithyunjay stays focused on its core story and characters across its 122-minute runtime. It avoids needless frills. The comedy is situational and blends smoothly into the narrative, and the film resists forcing in a romantic track. Sree Vishnu plays Jay, an aspiring crime reporter, while Reba Monica John appears as Sita, a police officer. Their paths cross solely during the investigation. The story keeps her personal life out of the frame, while Jay’s past trauma is revealed only enough to lend the narrative emotional weight.
Fri, March 6 2026
Investigative thrillers have been done to death in cinema. They hit screens every week, follow familiar beats, and more often than not, blur into each other. The rare ones that stand apart share one quality — they never take the audience for granted. They treat viewers as intelligent, engaged participants in the puzzle rather than passive observers waiting to be told the answer. The question Mrithyunjay raises from the outset is a simple one: does it earn its place among those films?
Nukkad Naatak
Drama (Hindi)
After being caught robbing the college canteen, best friends Molshri and Shivang are expelled. To be reinstated, they must enroll five children from an impoverished slum into a local school.
Cast:
Molshri, Shivang Rajpal, Danish Husain, Nirmala Hajra, Lalit Saw, Monita Sinha, Mayank Shandilya, Kishore Kumar, Jay DeYonker
Director:
Tanmaya Shekhar
Writer:
Tanmaya Shekhar
Fri, March 6 2026
It’s quite a responsibility to be trusted to engage with a debutante’s fragile creation. Operating outside the ‘system’ with few resources, featuring yet-to-be-proven faces – a newbie ‘indie’ film crew might be among the purest underdogs out there. It can colour the judgement of most fiercely ‘objective’ critics. Despite how much one might be rooting for a film, the experience of it rarely lies. The good intentions are visible, the rawness of craft is rationalised, the obvious missteps grate the senses, and the naive sincerity can be disarming. You want to be mindful of the limitations of a production like this, but also will kid-gloving the undertaking breed a level of indolence in the crew’s next outing? Will there be a next outing, if one employs the brutal honesty extended to other films out there? Is it fair to measure all films by similar yardsticks?
Fri, February 27 2026
t’s bittersweet when you learn of an independent film releasing against all odds. The more inspirational the journey is, the more complicated it gets for film critics who must approach it objectively. What if it’s not good, despite the sincerity and courage? What if the inventive process of making it is the best part of its legacy? What if the craft is consumed by underdog hype and passion? What if the behind-the-scenes story is more interesting than the film’s story? What sort of euphemisms might one have to use to be kinder to gutsy ‘outsider’ art? The anxiety is more heightened with a film like Tanmaya Shekhar’s Nukkad Naatak: a crowd-funded, self-promoted and self-distributed indie whose guerrilla marketing campaign features a recent cross-country road trip in a rented caravan. It wears its defiance on its sleeve. The premise is even designed to be curious and socially expressive — a sign that commentary might be used to offset a lack of depth.
S Saraswathi
Crime, Drama (Telugu)
A devoted mother whose life is shattered when her 12-year-old daughter goes missing. Desperate for answers, she turns to the police for help, but as the investigation unfolds, unexpected twists begin to deepen the mystery.
Cast:
Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Prakash Raj, Priyamani, Kishore, Rao Ramesh, Murali Sharma, Radikaa Sarathkumar, Nassar, Tulasi, Saptagiri
Director:
Varalaxmi Sarathkumar
Writer:
Varalaxmi Sarathkumar
Fri, March 6 2026
It is not often that women-led mainstream films find their way into theatres in Telugu cinema. When they do, they are mostly directed by men and turn out to be cautionary statements about social ills women confront on a daily basis. Though this is understandable given the crime rate against women and children, it also indicates how such films become a limiting portrait of the lives of women and seldom tap into the essence of their lives beyond victimhood. S Saraswathi, which marks actress Varalaxmi Sarathkumar’s directorial debut and is produced by her sister Pooja Sarathkumar, falls prey to this very trope where a woman’s story is largely equated with her suffering. Charting the journey of Lakshmi (Varalaxmi), who works as a nurse in a metropolis, the film is a thriller drama with a non-linear screenplay and the story nearly makes a case for revenge as a necessity.
The Bride
Science Fiction, Horror, Comedy (English)
A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride is born. But what ensues is beyond what either of them imagined.
Cast:
Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Jake Gyllenhaal, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, Penélope Cruz, Jeannie Berlin, John Magaro, Julianne Hough, Louis Cancelmi
Director:
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Writer:
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Fri, March 6 2026
It’s the season of gothic romance and yet another Frankenstein’s Monster adaptation, but this one occupies a space closer to Joker: Folie à Deux. Like Joker and Harley Quinn, it centres on two damaged beings who find solace in each other as they take on the world with vengeance. While this film echoes the tempo of Joker, themes of deep-seated trauma, male loneliness, and the muzzling of the female voice within a patriarchal society lie at the heart of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s bold and provocative universe. Feminist, punk, gothic, and violent yet deeply empathetic, the Bride mirrors the Joker’s anarchic spirit but carries a sharper, more self-aware edge. While the Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga film leaned into shared madness through its operatic psychology, the Bride surpasses it in imaginative scope and theatrical boldness, embracing a more expansive, Broadway-infused narrative style.
Rooster
Comedy, Drama (English)
On a college campus, an author navigates a complicated relationship with his daughter.
Cast:
Steve Carell, Phil Dunster, Charly Clive, Danielle Deadwyler, John C. McGinley, Lauren Tsai
Fri, March 6 2026
After leaving The Office, Steve Carell has branched out as an actor with diverse projects such as Foxcatcher, The Morning Show, The Patient, and Four Seasons. His latest comedy series, Rooster, co-created by Shrinking and Ted Lasso’s Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses, features the faculty and students of Ludlow College behaving very badly indeed, much to the amusement of audiences. The cringeworthy comedy will remind fans of Michael Scott, though this current character is more endearing. The original HBO series centers around an author, Greg Russo (Carell), who comes back into his daughter Katie’s life during a difficult period.
Young Sherlock
Action & Adventure, Mystery (English)
Sherlock Holmes is a disgraced young man, raw and unfiltered, when he finds himself wrapped up in a murder case that threatens his liberty. His first ever case unravels a globe-trotting conspiracy that changes his life forever.
Cast:
Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Dónal Finn, Zine Tseng, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone, Max Irons, Colin Firth
Fri, March 6 2026
After The Gentlemen and MobLand, Guy Ritchie turns his attention to Sherlock Holmes. The filmmaker has already directed two features on the Arthur Conan Doyle character with Robert Downey Jr as the Baker Street detective. Ritchie returns to Victorian England as the Amazon Prime Video series Young Sherlock looks at the origin story of Sherlock, with Hero Fiennes Tiffin playing the 19-year-old investigator. The web series is a mixture of Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes book series and the original Doyle detective. The result is an engaging, twisty mystery series about the young Sherlock that goes around the world to reveal how he got his start. The mostly British cast has a roaring good time, peeling back the layers of the murder at Oxford University, and viewers will have plenty of sleuthing to uncover as the series unveils some major shockers.
Hamnet
Drama, Romance, History (English)
The powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare's timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
Cast:
Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, Jacobi Jupe, Noah Jupe, Olivia Lynes, Justine Mitchell, David Wilmot, Louisa Harland
Director:
Chloé Zhao
Fri, March 6 2026
Most of us prefer to view great art as an act of magic: unexplainable, beyond the realms of reason, otherworldly, divine. We often speak of a landscape-altering movie or book like it’s conjured from nothing but fateful creativity and limitless vision. We perceive their creators as those who create; as those blessed with a little extra, almost as if they see worlds that we cannot. It’s not dissimilar from how we think of top athletes as supernatural beings. Terms like “gifted” and “immortal” are freely employed to describe record-breaking feats. Reframing talent as a cosmic value is the most traditional way of preserving the sanctity of ordinariness. We see them as extraordinary because it not only gives us something higher to trust in, it also absolves us from the complexities of being human. It’s easier to believe that they’re built superior so that we can reckon with our own regularity.
Tue, March 3 2026
I first heard it about 15 minutes into the film, when Agnes tells the village tutor whom she likes, and who’s crazy for her, that she can read landscapes on his hand. “You saw a landscape?” he asks with a smile. “Mm hmm,” she replies. Later on, the tutor tells Agnes, whom he’s now married and has three children with, that he’s acquiring a house in Stratford for them. To this also she says, “Mm hmm.” Hamnet wants Shakespeare as a hook to hang its tragic story on. It wants a few details of his life. It wants a smattering of the plays. But it wants nothing to do with the language. I don’t know if they said ‘mm hmm’ in 16th century England; for all I know they said ‘uh oh’ and ‘uh uh’. But it feels inadequate. It’s a strange impulse, to want to make a film about someone who changed the way people speak, yet have barely any of that speech coursing through it.
Sat, February 28 2026
Secret Stories: Roslin
Mystery, Drama (Malayalam)
A 17-year-old girl is plagued by nightmares of a green-eyed stalker, pulling her into a spiral of fear and despair.
Cast:
Sanjana Dipu, Meena, Vineeth Radhakrishnan, Sija Rose, Hakkim Shajahan, Nala Nabhan, T G Ravi, Shankar Ramakrishnan, Anishma Anilkumar, Sreeja Das
Director:
Sumesh Nandakumar
Writer:
Vinayak Sasikumar
Tue, March 3 2026
Upon completing Secret Stories: Roslin, it doesn’t require a genius to realise that this is a six-part series that was written backwards. The climax of the series is not only shocking; it’s the sort of twist that feels so inventive that everything about it, including characters, detours, and plot points, feels like it was in service of this ending. What’s not so shocking about this writing approach is that this is something you have come to expect from a piece of content that has the backing of a mind like Jeethu Joseph (he is the showrunner). For his fans, the twist at the end is arguably more important than anything that precedes it. At least, it has been this way ever since he wrote Drishyam (2013).
Sat, February 28 2026
Seventeen-year-old Roslin is haunted by recurring nightmares of a mysterious shadow. Reality blurs when Jerry, a charming but enigmatic paying guest, moves in, winning over her family despite Roslin’s growing dread. As Shobha uncovers unsettling truths, Jerry is forced to leave, briefly restoring peace. However, the terror is far from over, with Jerry returning for one final, dark confrontation.
Accused
Thriller, Mystery, Drama (Hindi)
When a celebrated queer doctor in London is accused of sexual misconduct, her life unravels. Now under a storm of suspicion and scrutiny, her marriage fractures and the truth blurs. Her wife must decide whether to walk away, or fight for the woman the world is turning against.
Cast:
Konkona Sen Sharma, Pratibha Ranta, Aditya Nanda, Sukant Goel, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, Anuj Sachdeva, Mashhoor Amrohi, Monica Mahendru, Kallirroi Tziafeta
Director:
Anubhuti Kashyap
Writer:
Sima Agarwal, Yash Keshwani
Mon, March 2 2026
Accused, the tone-deaf “feminist” film on Netflix, is the equivalent of Neha Dhupia going “It’s her choice” on Roadies. We discuss the film’s utterly misguided defence of a serial harasser, groomer, and all-around toxic human being, and its baffling attempts to pass her off as “ambitious”. We also question the film’s understanding of sexual harassment as a concept, and disapprove of anybody trying to make a movie about false allegations in a post-#MeToo world. Additionally, we poke holes in the film’s central mystery, the decision to have not one but two eccentric detectives, and an irrational villain reveal that disregards the laws of the genre.
Sun, March 1 2026
Days before Anubhuti Kashyap’s Accused dropped on Netflix, the director admitted that the film was made keeping in mind the audience and algorithm. Her words were a radical confession, one that freely used the “A” word and distilled an aesthetic that is increasingly becoming a norm in the streaming landscape. Algorithm filmmaking, bent on holding the audience’s attention hostage, has diverse symptoms, ranging from using stark colours, recurring expositions and, as Kashayap shared, the dire need to sustain tension (“I kept taking very specific notes and showing the film at different stages to different people — asking, were you feeling relaxed here? Were you getting out of the film at this point?” she told The Hollywood Reporter). Such interventions can result in assembly-line products, and Accused is the recent casualty.
Sun, March 1 2026
When I watched the teaser for Anubhuti Kashyap’s Accused about a week ago, my first reaction was that of excitement. But almost reflexively, I tempered my expectations. Decades of being let down by Hindi cinema can do this. The teaser reminded me of Todd Field’s Tár – starring Cate Blanchett, playing a renowned conductor, whose mythical brilliance on stage is punctured by her indiscretions. It makes sense that the actor tasked with conveying the moral ambiguities and unpleasantness of the subject is Konkona Sen Sharma. The farthest thing in physicality and style – the only thing overlapping Sen Sharma and Blanchett, is their fearlessness to look absolutely deplorable on screen without breaking a sweat. Also, I’d enjoyed Kashyap’s last venture, Doctor G (2023), pushing the Ayushmann Khurrana social dramedy in a new direction.
Masthishka Maranam
Comedy, Thriller, Science Fiction (Malayalam)
Centred on a grieving father who navigates a virtual reality memory game in an attempt to reconnect with his lost child.
Cast:
Rajisha Vijayan, Niranjan, Jagadish, Zhinz Shan, Nandhu, Suresh Krishna, Divya Prabha, Ann Saleem, Vishnu Agasthya, Rahul Rajagopal
Director:
Krishand
Writer:
Krishand
Mon, March 2 2026
The very thought of the future, in any given year, is frightening. If we are currently standing at the edge of AI taking over, our predecessors once witnessed the Y2K scare and the rise of machines replacing human labour, each threatening to upend human life. And they did, yet we found ways to slip through largely unscathed. In Krishand’s Masthishka Maranam, we encounter a dystopian future set in the not-so-distant year of 2046. In a world equally ruined by technology, advertising, and toxic habits, the film shows a society that has descended into an abyss of crime, grief, and economic disparity.
Psycho Saiyaan
Drama (Hindi)
Kartik Pandey, a poetic student in Ujjain, becomes obsessed with Charu, convinced she is his destiny. When she disappears, he learns she’s trapped by ruthless gangster-politician Huntry Chauhan. Infiltrating Huntry’s haveli, Kartik enters a violent world of manipulation where love turns toxic, obsession deepens, and sanity blurs into madness.
Cast:
Ravi Kishan, Tejasswi Prakash, Anud Singh Dhaka, Srishti Shrivastava, Vaarun Bhagat, Ashwini Kalsekar, Surbhi Chandna
Director:
Ajay Bhuyan
Sun, March 1 2026
Kartik, a man from Ujjain, falls obsessively in love with the mysterious Charu. When she suddenly vanishes, his life turns into a relentless search. He soon finds himself entangled in the dangerous world of a ruthless politician, Huntry Chauhan. As Kartik travels from India to Georgia to find the truth, he must navigate a web of deception, violence, and changing loyalties where love comes with a price. For the masala genre to click, besides writing and direction, you want the actors to submit to the world fully without chasing logic. The viewer can catch glimpses of it in Tejasswi Prakash and Anud Singh Dhaka’s performances. One hoped the writers invested the same thought in giving substantial characters for Srishti Shrivastava and Tejasswi as much as they did for Anud and Kishan’s parts.