Fri, August 14 2026

Batwara 1947 is a timely reminder about the secular fabric of India. Set against the backdrop of partition, Rajkumar Santoshi's film delivers a sharp message on communal harmony and has Shabana Azmi delivering a class act.

India’s independence from British rule came at a price. As the British left India, they ravaged and divided the country - emotionally, based on religion and geographically. The happiness of independence was far less on 15 August 1947, as so many families were destroyed; people were separated from their loved ones, their homes, and their motherland. The Partition led to the birth of Pakistan but also to a great Hindu-Muslim divide, an enmity that continues to this day between the two countries. Bollywood has made innumerable stories on India’s Independence and the partition. Most have narrated stories of brutality and riots that preceded partition. Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi’s latest release, Batwara 1947, flips the narrative a bit- telling the story of a Muslim family in Lahore in the aftermath of partition. Santoshi teams up with Sunny Deol, with whom he has delivered iconic films like Damini, Ghatak and more. Deol and Santoshi collaborate after decades, making Batwara 1947 special. The film also features Shabana Azmi, marks Preity Zinta’s comeback to Bollywood after a long time and has Aamir Khan as the producer. With such impressive names attached to the project, expectations are bound to be high for Batwara 1947. So, does it deliver? Let’s find out.

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Fri, August 14 2026

Fri, August 14 2026

Like the Partition, there are two opposing points of view on the film that celebrates the reunion of Sunny Deol with director Rajkumar Santoshi. Preaching humanity over religious bigotry, Asghar Wajahat’s play Jis Lahore Nai Vekhya, O Jamya E Nai on which the film is based, emphasises that Islam is a religion of peace, wanton killing has no place in a true Muslim’s life. Apart from the Hindu-Muslim amity message which is relevant at all times, Sunny Deol cast as family man and printing press owner Sikander Mirza stands out for his fire and calm. Driven by circumstances to leave Meerut and settle down in Lahore, Deol brings power to the screen like Mirza was tailored for him. Soft with family which includes the elderly Hindu Mai (Shabana Azmi as Durga Devi) who stayed behind in the mansion allotted to the Mirzas. Ready with his dhai kilo ka haath to protect his loved ones, especially when provoked by Yakub Khan (Abhimanyu Singh), the politician with Islamic bigotry as his main card who targets the Hindu lady in the Mirza parivar.

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Fri, August 14 2026

There is something about watching Emraan Hashmi on the big screen. Whether he has short hair or long hair, the camera seems to love him, and he has that rare intensity that makes you want to keep watching. Awarapan 2 works largely because of him. The film begins with Shivam (Emraan Hashmi) finding an abandoned little girl in a graveyard. This leads him to fight a child trafficking racket in Bangkok. It’s a fairly straightforward action drama, and strangely, it feels like a film from the era when Awarapan originally released in 2007. But somehow, it works.

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Fri, August 14 2026

Where Mohit Suri, who directed the original Awarapan, saw Hashmi like nobody else, in the hands of Nitin Kakkar, who helms the sequel, Awarapan 2 becomes an overlong, unevenly paced melodrama.

Nearly two decades after dying quite unambiguously at the end of the 2007 release Awarapan — they even held a memorial for him (in Pakistan!) — the ‘selfless angel’ of a gangster Shivam Pandit (played by Emraan Hashmi) is back in Awarapan 2. The new movie is designed almost exclusively for Hashmi’s cult fanbase and the odd passer-by with nothing better to do at the multiplex. Remember, the first Awarapan was a flop; it gained a following thanks to multiple reruns on cable and Pritam’s evergreen music album. This time around, directing duties have been handed over to Nitin Kakkar, who simply doesn’t have the command over such material that original filmmaker Mohit Suri did.

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Fri, August 14 2026

Emraan Hashmi film sails along coasting on some eye-catching, snazzy sequences. We enjoy this outing with our brave anti-hero until the film falls into a long, dull third act.

Shivam Pandit, the straggly-haired shooter with a golden heart, is back. And it would seem, miraculously, that nothing much has changed between the 2007 Awarapan and this sequel, which doesn’t stray far from the thematic palette of the original, keeping the lead actor intact. It’s yesterday once more. Emraan Hashmi is clearly older. But his hair is as straggly. He is as much a wounded hero, a role Hashmi owns, as he was back in the day. And he is as lethal, which is a good thing because he is up against a new set of mobsters, gun-toting henchmen, helpless young women, as he goes about looking for a little girl in the clutches of a gang of human traffickers.

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Fri, August 14 2026

Gurvinder Singh’s tranquil picture of India’s most storied region had its world premiere in the main competition of the 79th Locarno Film Festival

It’s present-day Punjab but it could be Punjab 1995; it could be India 1984. The village of Gujjarwal bristles with unsaid questions and silent answers. Big Bollywood movies (like Dangal) have been shot in the region, but the place is haunted by its own fictions. Everyone’s story is interconnected, like desperate organs of a wounded body. A young man named Keshav is absent from one household; a young father named Balwinder is missing from another. The police go around camouflaging bloody encounters as separatist violence and communal unrest. They assure Keshav’s family that his Sikh killers will be brought to justice; they visit Balwinder’s family to keep an eye on their voices.

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Fri, August 14 2026

Rehmat is Gurvinder Singh’s idea of how he wants to see India: warm, thoughtful and neighbourly.

In Gurvinder Singh’s Rehmat, no guest is turned away. Whether it’s an alleged militant, or an out-of-state traveller, everyone is offered the respectful hospitality one associates with Punjab. Singh’s film opens with a prologue text noting the chapters of violence Punjab has witnessed during its many socio-political upheavals, and has left its scars. Especially the partition of 1947, and the insurgency of the 1980s. It might have contributed to the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for an entire generation, and yet it’s this dichotomy that seems to be at the heart of Singh’s film: a state full of traumatised civilians don’t let bitterness get in the way to greet an unannounced guest. It’s probably not a coincidence that the title of Singh’s film translates to ‘grace’.

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Fri, August 14 2026

Perhaps the most fun you’ll have watching dinosaurs go on a rampage since Jurassic Park (1993), the film is a silly, scary and surprisingly tender survival drama.

David Robert Mitchell’s Amblin-esque sci-fi survival thriller is a heartwarming, terrifying and thoroughly entertaining ode to Steven Spielberg and the magic of the ’80s. A frightening, unnatural event disrupts the slow, idyllic life of the Platt family. Without warning, their quiet suburban neighbourhood transforms into a dense forest inhabited by an army of deadly dinosaurs. Has time shifted their reality? And can they survive this bizarre catastrophe? Kids riding bikes, childhood spent outdoors with friends and neighbours instead of glued to gadgets, lazy afternoons on rooftops with books, families dining together and children believing they are safe as long as their parents are around — The End of Oak Street is a resounding ode to simpler times and the unconditional love of family. Its world is idyllic, dreamy and deliberately nostalgic.

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Thu, August 13 2026

Despite a clunky storyline and some half-baked treatment, the film proves that when it comes to unconditional love and loyalty, nobody can beat dogs

It’s not every day that comes a Hindi film where one sees dogs; it’s even rarer to see them upstage humans so effortlessly. What makes Amit Rai’s feature Ohh My Dog all the more special is that he has opted to shine a light on the local ‘indies’ rather than pedigreed breeds. This lends the film a certain rootedness, a sense of relatability and authenticity. One of the dogs happens to be Rai’s own pet Oscar, but the scene-stealer here is the professional Bruno, a year-and-a-half old who runs, barks and always has a look of purpose and determination. This isn’t a four-legged creature whose sole objective here is to make audiences go ‘Aww’ (that he naturally does), but more ‘Whoa’ at his physical prowess and olfactory powers.

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Mon, August 10 2026

A heartfelt canine mystery that blends childhood, loyalty, crime and courage, while finding warmth in its performances but unevenness in its lengthy, darker overall narrative approach.

There is something intrinsically disarming about dogs in cinema. Whether they are steadfast companions on perilous journeys, mischievous family pets, or silent witnesses to human joys and sorrows, dogs possess an emotional currency that few cinematic characters can match. Their loyalty is uncomplicated, their affection unconditional, and their ability to connect with children almost magical. Ohh My Dog, directed by Amit Rai, attempts to tap into precisely this potent emotional space—evoking the warm, uncomplicated pleasures of a time when Indian cinema could tell children stories that were entertaining, humane and morally resonant without talking down to them.

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Sat, August 8 2026

Driven by Bruno’s soulful gaze and Maahi Rai’s charming resilience, this timely family thriller breathes new life into the human-animal genre without sinking into tear-jerking tropes.

At a time when man’s best friend is caught between systemic neglect and empty sentimentality, writer-director Amit Rai eschews melodrama to craft an absorbing thriller with a moral spine. Somewhere in Assam, young Apu’s attention-seeking dog, Momo (Oscar) goes missing. The local policeman, who looks well-meaning, tells him and his mother that their pet would have become a delicacy by now. Around the same time, deep in Bihar, Prince, a young construction worker, goes missing. There too, the ‘helpful’ custodian of law shows little interest in following the missing boy’s footprints. But the tech-savvy Apu doesn’t give up hope, nor does Oscar (Bruno), Prince’s street friend. In different timelines, as they launch their search-and-rescue missions, we get an engrossing tale with a message ensconced deep within.

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Wed, August 12 2026

The documentary series doesn't offer much fresh insight on the enigma that is José Mourinho, popularly known as 'The Special One'. For over two decades, the football manager and former player has remained one of the game’s most controversial figures and yet, there is something that draws you to him.

A colourful portrait of one of football’s most complicated characters, Netflix’s Mourinho finds “The Special One” in characteristically charismatic form. It portrays football manager and former player José Mourinho as somehow both psychologically opaque and emotionally transparent; he claims that he has never felt pressure, but he seems to thrive in it; he is capable of forming lifelong bonds with everyone except his own flesh and blood; Mourinho is an enigma, one that would take more than a Netflix series to crack.

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Wed, August 12 2026

The most watched series on Prime returns with a humdinger of a season and its invincible hero who is always the last man standing.

Reacher fans, rejoice. I’m delighted to report that Season 4 of the one and only Jack No Middle Name Reacher, which has him up against a formidable pair of enemies, is a humdinger. Based on ‘Gone Tomorrow’, Lee Child’s 13th novel featuring Reacher, it begins in a Philadelphia subway in which a woman kills herself. It catapults our hero, busy minding his business till someone makes it their business, into a breakneck adventure involving an assortment of characters, including bent cops, incompetent CIA agents, evasive US presidential candidates, and sundry others, all looking desperately for a missing pen-drive. What’s so important on that drive that it needs to be found at all costs? How is it connected to congressman John Samson (Marc Blucas) and his fiercely protective wife (Kathleen Robertson)? What is it that two women from Indonesia, the attractive Lila Hoth (Agnez Mo) and her mother, Amisha (Anggun) are searching for? Why are people being killed in the most ghastly manner, with dismembered corpses strewn all over the place?

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Wed, August 12 2026

Maaran, which is a Gujarati film, is based on the illegal business of flesh trade. The story takes place in a fictitious village called Vaadi. Supplying girls is the main business for Ratan (Yash Soni) but he keeps it in the shadows. For the world, he works as a security guard in a posh tower in the city outside the village. Ratan lives with Birwa (Deeksha Joshi), who he had abducted five years ago. The girl’s younger sister Purva (Tarjani Bhadla) has been searching relentlessly for her. Ratan and Birwa’s life goes through some change when the former’s friend and acquaintance Babu (Shruhad Goswami) abducts Urmi (Prachi Thaker), who turns out to be a tough girl. Meanwhile, Ratan eyes Tara (Druma Mehta), who stays in the tower he works at, as his next target.

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Mon, August 3 2026

Abhishek Jain’s National-award winning Gujarati thriller is a potent and well-performed examination of patriarchy and its psychological scars

One would imagine gender-based violence is the ‘safest’ way to be critical these days. It’s the most acceptable method to scrutinise a country without offending the world and its father(s). But some of the most potent takes on Indian patriarchy come from the voices shaping contemporary Gujarati cinema. It’s not as simple as “the region is full of repressed masculinity and casual sexism”. Given how tricky it is to be politically expressive in the state, there’s an overt sense that the patriarchy in these stories is not isolated from the society that breeds it. The genre itself is political. The characters and craft work harder to catch our eye because they stem from a culture where misogyny and moral policing are normalised as rhetoric by leaders and campaigns.

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Mon, August 10 2026

Sun, August 9 2026

‘DC’, starring Lokesh Kanagaraj and Wamiqa Gabbi, is part gangster melodrama, part pulpy grindhouse noir

Tamil cinema’s current epidemic is directors auditioning themselves as leads, and Lokesh Kanagaraj is its latest carrier. In Arun Matheswaran’s DC, Kanagaraj is Devadas, a wronged hero discarded by society. He beats, shoots, maims and kills, but doesn’t like to be called a rowdy or a gangster. There are no backstories in DC; Das and his gang are a strange mix of delinquents with revolutionary blood running inside them. They have a leader, Arasu (Thalaivasal Vijay), whose aims and ideologies are equally nebulous, but in the first few scenes in the film the gang accosts a police vehicle to steal a weapons consignment. An inadvertent act by a cop leads to the gang exacting revenge by savagely murdering him, which in turn launches a more stringent manhunt. The police officer giving orders to the team entrusted with this task signs off with two words: be brutal.

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Sat, August 8 2026

Sat, August 8 2026

By turning a colourful life lived on the ire of multiple governments into a flat, tiresome portrait, this biopic thrusts Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu into a second oblivion.

When storytellers say they have made a film to inspire people — red flag! Abort! For the kind of people who make movies to inspire others are, perhaps, those least capable of evoking inspiration — or worse, they feel like they are catering to a baseline stupidity. People aren’t inspired by formulas, or at least people with half a mind aren’t. At best, it can make them simper in theater halls, whacked over their heads with a background score that can even turn a dead man into a pound of goose flesh. But when you return to the thick materiality of your life, you forget that goosefleshing. To truly inspire people, you have to recognise that nothing moves mountains like honesty, like humanity. The best biopics — a genre we are facing a glut in, including Madhavan’s limp Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022) — know that ideas can never do the heavy lifting of a life well lived. At best, it can serve as a placeholder.

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Sat, August 8 2026

Madhavan delivers a compelling performance as inventor GD Naidu in an ambitious biopic that does not fully realise its emotional potential

Men and machines. It’s a love story that defies logic. The soulful 2024 Tamil film Meiyazhagan explored the relationship between the protagonist and his cycle, and what the vehicle really meant to him. “In a way, this cycle coming into our lives changed it completely,” a teary-eyed Karthi tells Arvind Swamy in the film. G.D.N kickstarts proceedings with this fascinating emotion. A young Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu (GDN) follows an Englishman around for two years — not because he wanted to be friends, but because he was besotted with the motorcycle that he was riding. A few minutes into the film, a star-stuck Dorai asks the Englishman (who he ironically also calls ‘Dorai’ which means ‘master’) if he can sell him the motorcycle.

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Fri, August 7 2026

Director Krishnakumar Ramakumar's G.D.N., starring Madhavan, Vinay Rai and Dushara Vijayan, is a biopic on Coimbatore's GD Naidu, one of the best innovators India has ever seen. The biopic is a glossy collection of his achievements sans emotional connect.

Did you know that India’s best innovator, Gopalaswamy Duraiswamy Naidu aka GD Naidu, hailing from Coimbatore was branded a lunatic, terrorist and tax dodger? G.D.N. opens with a group of teachers belonging to a textbook committee debating whether he deserves a chapter in the school syllabus. Director Krishnakumar Ramakumar’s G.D.N. then takes us on a journey to the early 1910s when GD Naidu discovered his passion for everything mechanical. It’s his love for motors that led him to manufacture the first electric motor in India, among his other discoveries in various sectors. But, innovators like him always face adversaries at every step. GD Naidu was no exception.

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Sat, August 8 2026

The film constantly breaks the fourth wall to make obvious statements, giving signs of being rewritten to make the film appear softer for the family audience

In the interviews leading up to the release of Vismaya Mohanlal’s Thudakkam, it’s writer-director Jude Anthany Joseph spoke about how the basic concept of the film had been in discussion, as far back as 2020. There’s been a whole host of similar films that have released since, but there’s no denying the film’s obvious lack of sheen because it has hit screens after all of those films have released. In terms of its messaging alone, Darshana Rajendran’s Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaye Hey comes to mind, with recent releases such as Blast in Tamil and Maa Inti Bangaaram adding to an unignorable feeling of déjà vu. In first viewing, Thudakkam also feels like the most dated of these films, relying on a gratingly obvious amount of self-seriousness, as though it’s the first ever film to say what it’s trying to.

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Sat, August 8 2026

Director Merlapaka Gandhi’s ‘Korean Kanakaraju’ offers a few laughs, but the Telugu horror-comedy struggles with an uneven screenplay

Telugu cinema has repeatedly turned to the horror-comedy genre to deliver crowd-pleasers. Often, a handful of genuinely funny stretches have been enough to carry narratives that are otherwise uneven. As long as the laughs land, audiences have been willing to overlook the rest. Director Merlapaka Gandhi returns to this familiar template, this time throwing K-dramas and K-pop into the mix in the hope of lending the genre a fresh twist. The premise of Korean Kanakaraju is intriguing. The ashes of a Korean man somehow end up in an unassuming bar in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district. Through a bizarre turn of events, Kanakaraju (Varun Tej) accidentally mixes alcohol with the ashes, drinks it and becomes possessed.

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