The Odyssey
Adventure, Action, Fantasy (English)
Odysseus, the legendary King of Ithaca, embarks on a long and perilous journey home following the Trojan War. Throughout his voyage, he is forced to confront the whims of gods, mythological monsters, and trials that stretch both his cunning and (more…)
Musafir Cafe
Drama (Hindi)
Chander feels an undeniable connection with Sudha. Years later, he builds a new life in the hills with Preeti, but memories of the past linger. (more…)
Jana Nayagan
Action, Drama, Science Fiction (Tamil)
A clash of ideologies. One stands for the people, the other feeds on control. Their paths collided once before. Years later, a child’s silent fear ignites the past, drawing a former police officer into a battle far bigger than personal (more…)
Guild Reviews by Film
Tera Yaar Hoon Main
Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance (Hindi)
Cast:
Aman Kumar, Aakansha Sharma, Paresh Rawal, Neha Khan, Johny Lever, Supriya Pilgaonkar, Mrinal Kulkarni, Pooja Katurde, Darshan Jariwala, Anand Acharya
Director:
Milap Zaveri
Fri, July 24 2026
Milap Zaveri’s latest romantic drama is unwatchable in so many ways that you wonder if it even wants to be a movie
There are bad movies, and then there are movies that make you cringe so hard that you can’t bear to look at the screen. So I grimaced and looked away during Milap Zaveri’s Tera Yaar Hoon Main, the way a squeamish viewer does when confronted with graphic violence and gore. But looking away from the screen meant that I had to make peace with the young couple making out in the row ahead. So I turned my face to the other side, but there was another couple enjoying the privacy of the matinee show. Lest they found my frantic head-turning creepy, I concluded that the safest thing was to look at the screen again. But for how long? The film continued to make direct eye contact with me. This became a circular loop of embarrassment and coyness for 145 minutes, and now I’m so dizzy that I should be seeing stars but I’m not (because 0 stars out of 5).
Musafir Cafe
Drama (Hindi)
Chander feels an undeniable connection with Sudha. Years later, he builds a new life in the hills with Preeti, but memories of the past linger.
Cast:
Vikrant Massey, Vedika Pinto, Mahima Makwana, Adil Hussain, Rajeev Siddhartha, Anubha Fatehpuria, Loveleen Mishra, Sadiya Siddiqui
Director:
Ruchir Arun
Writer:
Sharanya Rajgopal
Fri, July 24 2026
The 8-episode series stars Vikrant Massey, Vedika Pinto and Mahima Makwana as conflicted lovers who seem to have grown up on a staple diet of Imtiaz Ali movies
For most of its 8 episodes, Musafir Cafe has the aesthetic of streaming television from the 2015-16 days (also known as the Little Things age). This natural-artifice aesthetic thrived when YouTube was still the platform for millennial motifs wrapped in modest productions: relatable DIY ‘content,’ relationship-core characters, designer dialogue (“travelers don’t just change places, they travel within themselves”), a gooey soundtrack and title montages, pastel-coloured narratives and branded locations. As watchable as these shows were, they were almost indistinguishable from each other. Given the current onset of true-crime fatigue, this romantic drama might feel either dated or nostalgic — or both at once.
Fri, July 24 2026
Vikrant Massey, Vedika Pinto and Mahima Makwana are persuasive enough to hold ground even when their on screen actions leave you more flummoxed than fascinated, notes Sukanya Verma.
In Jab Tak Hai Jaan, Shah Rukh Khan tells Katrina Kaif, ‘Har ishq ka ek waqt hota hai’ to make sense of their estrangement. It’s as though all of showrunner Sharanya Rajgopal’s Musafir Cafe hinges on this line where two love stories run parallel and reveal the fickle face of modern-day love. An adaptation of Divya Prakash Dubey’s popular Hinglish novel of the same name, Musafir Cafe travels between now and then as the origins of Chander (Vikrant Massey) and Sudha’s (Vedika Pinto) lovey-dovey past loom over the polite affections between Chander and Preeti (Mahima Makwana) in the present. One was his love, another is his partner, a distinction observed rather impersonally in Musafir Cafe.
Fri, July 24 2026
The Netflix series stars Vikrant Massey, Vedika Pinto and Mahima Makwana.
Set between Bhopal and misty Mussoorie, the Netflix series Musafir Cafe follows three lives that become entwined through chance encounters and life-altering choices across time and distance. Software engineer Chander (Vikrant Massey) longs for a life that finally feels like his own, while the fiercely independent divorce lawyer Sudha (Vedika Pinto) is determined to shape her future on her terms. Completing the trio is Preeti (Mahima Makwana), whose wanderlust complements her quiet resilience. Created and written by Sharanya Rajgopal and directed by Ruchir Arun (Little Things, Ghar Waapsi), the series draws on characters from Divya Prakash Dubey’s Hindi novel of the same name. At times, Musafir Cafe feels like it could have been a breezy, crisp film.
Max, Min & Meowzaki
Family, Romance, Comedy (Hindi)
Max and Min are about to break up. They argue endlessly about dividing their possessions, including their cat, Meowzaki, whom they have named after their favorite artist Miyazaki Hayao. Max’s father Ramesh, who lost his wife and has since been suffering from insomnia, meets charming therapist Dhaara. Max’s grandfather Sridhar, secretly enjoys drinking with his new friend Jennifer at the nursing home.
Cast:
Adil Hussain, Mandira Bedi, Nassar, Nafisa Ali, Medha Shankr, Vidhatri Bandi, Gitanjali Rao, Sameksha Oswal, Rupak Saluja, Siddharth Menon
Director:
Narasimhamurthy Padmakumar
Writer:
Narasimhamurthy Padmakumar
Fri, July 24 2026
This overlong indie stars Siddharth Menon as a newly single man with a drowsy cat, an estranged father, a sick grandfather and a new friend
It’s tempting to like a movie like Max, Min & Meowzaki for its many progressive ingredients. The title refers to a young couple and their cat. Or more specifically: a young interfaith couple (‘Max’ is a Tamil-Brahmin named Mahesh and Min is a Muslim named Minara) going through a breakup; they debate the custody of their cat named after iconic Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. The film opens with their ending. Production designer Min (Medha Shankar) is already in a relationship with an older Bengali director she works for. Ad-jingles composer Max (Siddharth Menon) goes on a date with an influencer-coded girl who parrots the language of WhatsApp-university forwards (“there is no such thing as Hindu extremists, okay?”) and right-wing algorithms.
Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya
Drama, Comedy (Hindi)
A relaxed principal tries to reform a failing public school, triggering a messy transformation as misfit teachers work to repair the system one lesson at a time.
Cast:
Archana Puran Singh, Naveen Kasturia, Abhimanyu Singh, Deven Bhojani, Aryan Prajapati, Kay Kay Menon
Director:
Himank Gaur
Writer:
Biswapati Sarkar, Akshay Asthana, Nupur Pai, Tatsat Pandey, Meghna Srivastava
Fri, July 24 2026
The dry 7-episode dramedy is centered on a Delhi government school full of misfits who must transform to cure a broken system
Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya revolves around a ramshackle public school and its many colourful faces. It may not directly belong to the ‘Rural Cinematic Universe,’ but you can tell that it comes from the house of former TVF collaborators (you can take the makers out of a streaming brand, but you can’t take the streaming brand out of the makers). It’s the same shtick of Panchayat (ramshackle village office), Gram Chikitsalay (ramshackle government clinic) and Maamla Legal Hai (ramshackled district court): slice-of-life dramedies where everyone is a ‘sample’ character, every crisis is lighthearted, every episode has a centrist moral stance, and every monologue belongs to the Rajkumar Hirani school of happy problem-solving. The genre fatigue is real. The language is faded, like a gravy-stained page of a book that’s worn out from overuse.
Fri, July 24 2026
Created by Sameer Saxena and Biswapati Sarkar, the satirical-drama scores best when the jokes subside
Why should one go to school? If you ask the students of Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, they might answer: to play cricket with their headmaster, or to enjoy kheer in the midday meal. For girl students, it means a 5k deposit in their parents’ bank accounts, a government incentive for women empowerment (the money is then used by parents to pay for the girl’s dowry). But then one of the female students states she doesn’t want to study anymore. She would rather marry her hip-hop dancer boyfriend. When a teacher tries to convince the girl, she declares: It’s my choice. It’s an amusing conundrum. What is actually the real purpose of education? It’s a question that the Prime Video series Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, from the house of Posham Pa Pictures (Kaala Paani, Maamla Legal Hai), keeps circling back to. Is it for these kids–most of them who come from marginalised backgrounds–to make money and pull their families out of poverty? Because that they can do by network marketing or working at a local tobacco factory. What can really a school provide them? When the boyfriend doesn’t come to pick her up, the above-mentioned girl takes up a cycle and rides on her own. She doesn’t have to wait for anybody anymore. Education gives independence.
Fri, July 24 2026
The premise is solid, and in between all the preachiness, there’s an attempt to showcase the difficulties faced by over-burdened and underfunded sarkari institutions.
This seven part series reminds me a little of Maamla Legal Hai, the show set in a lower Delhi court in a part of the national Capital far away from the swag and smoothness of Central Delhi. Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya functions in the same mould: this is a sarkari school in the fictional mohalla of Tinki Toli, whose students come from a certain section of society, with parents working low rung jobs, whose only way out of the rut is education.
Jana Nayagan
Action, Drama, Science Fiction (Tamil)
A clash of ideologies. One stands for the people, the other feeds on control. Their paths collided once before. Years later, a child’s silent fear ignites the past, drawing a former police officer into a battle far bigger than personal revenge.
Cast:
Vijay, Mamitha Baiju, Bobby Deol, Pooja Hegde, Priyamani, Prakash Raj, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Narain, Nassar, Sunil Varma
Director:
H. Vinoth
Fri, July 24 2026
Director H Vinoth's film, starring Vijay, Mamitha Baiju and Bobby Deol, wants to be both a commercial entertainer and a TVK manifesto, and ends up doing justice to neither.
Crores of people are flocking to theatres across the globe to watch Jana Nayagan and bid farewell to the man who entertained them for over three decades. Every cheer, every whistle and every celebration is for one person. Thalapathy Vijay. No, strike that. It’s Chief Minister Vijay now. Is Jana Nayagan an emotional goodbye to an actor or a rousing welcome to the Chief Minister? Neither, as it turns out — it’s mostly just a film that can’t decide what it wants to be.
Fri, July 24 2026
‘Jana Nayagan’ was supposed to be a celebration of Vijay's cinematic career as well as lay out his party’s ideological framework, but achieves neither
H Vinoth’s Jana Nayagan, more importantly Vijay’s Jana Nayagan, or even more accurately Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s Jana Nayagan, finally sees the light of day. An obvious propaganda vehicle, Vijay’s cinematic swansong was slated to release in January this year. But the film faced release troubles when the censor certificate was withheld without reason, forcing the makers to approach the courts. The court and censor battle stretched long enough that several things came to pass. The film mysteriously leaked online. Tamil Nadu then had its state elections in April, in which Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam emerged as the biggest party, leading to him taking oath as the state’s Chief Minister on 10 May. It was such an eventful, unprecedented couple of months that the film always had an uphill task, a mere underscoring of the occasion.
Fri, July 24 2026
Everyone loves a socially committed celebrity. Today, with student protests raging across India, the youth in particular are being urged to choose their idols wisely. Jana Nayagan‘s hero ‘Thalapathy’ Vijay is not one of those mega stars who show solidarity through tweets and Instagram stories. But if you notice his films in the last decade and a half, almost all of them are commentaries on social issues and how one man can solve them for the people of Tamil Nadu. When H. Vinoth’s film was banned by the CBFC days before its release in January 2026, it wasn’t hard to guess the reason. In an era when films are increasingly pushing certain propaganda and tweaking facts to suit their ideologies, here was a film that looked like an election manifesto. To a huge extent, it is.
The India Story
Drama, Thriller (Hindi)
A community confronts the devastating impact of pesticide contamination as industrial negligence threatens public health. The fight for accountability exposes systemic failures in regulatory oversight and corporate responsibility.
Cast:
Kajal Aggarwal, Shreyas Talpade, Murali Sharma, Manish Wadhwa, Sham Mashalkar, Kamlesh Sawant, Trisha Sarda, Atul Tiwari
Director:
Chettan D K
Writer:
Sagar B Shinde
Fri, July 24 2026
फिल्मों के बारे में भले ही ये मशहूर है कि सिनेमा मतलब एंटरटेनमेंट, एंटरटेनमेंट, एंटरटेनमेंट। लेकिन कुछ फिल्में ऐसी भी होती हैं, जो आपको जागरूक करती हैं, कचोटती हैं, आंखें खोलती हैं और झकझोर कर रख देती हैं। साउथ इंडियन फिल्मकार चेतन डीके की पहली हिंदी फिल्म ‘द इंडिया स्टोरी’ का उद्देश्य भी मनोरंजन की बजाय फसलों में कीटनाशकों के बढ़ते उपयोग से सेहत पर पड़ रहे दुष्प्रभाव के प्रति लोगों को जगाना है। फिल्म शुक्रवार, 24 जुलाई को देशभर के सिनेमाघरों में रिलीज हुई है। आइए, जानते हैं कि यह कैसी है-
Chennai Love Story
Romance, Drama (Telugu)
Two young people navigate their first experience of love, dealing with its powerful emotions and obstacles while discovering the delicate nature of newfound romance.
Cast:
Kiran Abbavaram, Sri Gouri Priya Reddy
Director:
Ravi Namburii
Writer:
Sai Rajesh Neelam, Ravi Namburii
Fri, July 24 2026
Director Ravi Namburii and writer-producer Sai Rajesh’s emotional narrative gets off to a great start, only to squander its potential
It is unfair to analyse a film as two halves. In the case of debut director Ravi Namburii’s Telugu film Chennai Love Story, however, it becomes inevitable. Sai Rajesh, who has written the story, screenplay and produced the film, introduces a twist at the mid-point that changes how the audience is likely to perceive the film. Everything from this point depends on whether one gives in to an idea that defies logic and what it entails, even if the story thankfully ends on a pragmatic note.
Heartstopper Forever
Romance, Drama (English)
It's a new school year for the Truham-Higgs gang. As Nick and Charlie's relationship deepens, their thoughts turn to life after the last bell rings.
Cast:
Kit Connor, Joe Locke, William Gao, Yasmin Finney, Corinna Brown, Kizzy Edgell, Tobie Donovan, Jenny Walser, Rhea Norwood, Leila Khan
Director:
Wash Westmoreland
Writer:
Alice Oseman
Sat, July 18 2026
Directed by Wash Westmoreland, the award-winning series wraps up with a bittersweet movie that allows fans a proper goodbye
While it is disappointing that Heartstopper never got a fourth season, viewers should be satisfied that the new movie Heartstopper Forever allows the coming-of-age tale to grow up and go out on its own terms. Writer Alice Oseman has adapted the sixth and final volume of their own webcomics. Over the past four years, we’ve watched characters Nick and Charlie met, become friends and fall in love. In the final movie, the two teenagers take tentative steps towards their futures and tackle misunderstandings in their relationship. The movie is a bittersweet ending to a show that makes audiences feel like part of this supportive world.
The Odyssey
Adventure, Action, Fantasy (English)
Odysseus, the legendary King of Ithaca, embarks on a long and perilous journey home following the Trojan War. Throughout his voyage, he is forced to confront the whims of gods, mythological monsters, and trials that stretch both his cunning and his humanity to the breaking point.
Cast:
Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Benny Safdie, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo
Director:
Christopher Nolan
Writer:
Christopher Nolan
Sat, July 18 2026
Sat, July 18 2026
With his gracious version of Homer’s Greek epic, Christopher Nolan liberates us from the contortions of mythology
The homework required to process The Odyssey is a key part of the experience. Familiarising yourself with the fabled source material (Homer’s ancient Greek epic) goes hand in hand with re-acquainting yourself with the fabled director’s filmography. If you’ve been watching Christopher Nolan’s movies over the years, you’ve essentially seen the making of The Odyssey in real time. It’s not just the recurring themes of adrift men looking for a way home — to children, to comrades, to companions, to family, to themselves. It’s also in the physical images of Nolan-telling scattered across this narrative. There are flashes everywhere. A confused man wrestling with memory on the sea-shore (Inception); the piecing together of a disorienting past (Memento); an injured hero returning to rescue a city under siege (The Dark Knight trilogy); a blind worker, twins, and the obsession to win as a plot device (The Prestige); wars fought on hostile water and lands (Dunkirk); Trojan-Horse-coded deception by a Matt Damon character and a father chasing a belated promise (Interstellar); a thinker haunted by the consequences of his genius (Oppenheimer); a sleepless and guilt-riddled veteran (Insomnia); the blurred lines of time and tide (all of them). The film-maker has been adapting Homer for more than two decades. Like the protagonist, he finally returns home with The Odyssey, but not before defying the genre gods and braving the blockbuster elements.
Sat, July 18 2026
A Christopher Nolan film is always a reason for that extra excitement for any cinema buff. If Billy Wilder famously wondered, “How would Lubitsch do it?”, film lovers today often find themselves asking, “How would Nolan do it?” Whether it is space travel or a biopic about the scientist who created the most destructive weapon known to mankind, Nolan brings his own unique vision to storytelling. What makes his films special is the way he crafts them, using every cinematic tool at his disposal. In fact, he constantly pushes the boundaries of the medium.
Oh! Sukumari
Comedy, Romance, Drama (Telugu)
Follows an aspiring politician who falls in love with Sukumari, a beautiful and soft-natured woman, while her father conceals a secret that threatens their relationship.
Cast:
Thiruveer Reddy, Aishwarya Rajesh, Jhansi, Vishnu Oi, Anjaiah Milkuri, Srinivas Gavireddy, Kranthi Balivada
Director:
Bharat Dharshan
Writer:
Bharat Dharshan
Sat, July 18 2026
Set in rural Telangana, director Bharat Dharshan’s Telugu film turns a familiar tale of family dynamics and personal dreams into a partly engaging dramedy with a quirky central hook
In the opening portions of Oh! Sukumari, a young girl hears her teacher describe happiness as a large family bound by love and togetherness. Having lost her mother, she quietly holds on to the hope of finding that kind of home someday. Elsewhere, an ageing patriarch mourns a family that seems to value him more for his wealth than his presence. Their shared longing for love and belonging forms the emotional core of the film. Director Bharath Dharshan brings these seemingly disparate lives together with humour. Oh! Sukumari belongs to the recent wave of low-stakes rural comedies that find charm in the everyday lives, dreams and struggles of ordinary people.
Varavu
Action, Thriller (Malayalam)
Cast:
Joju George, Vani Viswanath, Murali Gopy, Arjun Ashokan, Saniya Iyyappan, Sukanya, Baburaj, Vincy Aloshious, Ashwin Kumar, Abhimanyu Thilakan
Director:
Shaji Kailas
Writer:
A K Sajan
Sat, July 18 2026
Every plot point is told from a broad, generic standpoint with nothing left to guess
If Shaji Kailas began his career today, he would wrestle with the idea of starting out as a celebrated food vlogger. Even when he’s setting up major action sequences, he seems obsessed with the idea of staging confrontation around food. Speaking strictly of its novelty, this could be something as inane as framing an intro shot while placing a hot, steaming glass of lemon tea at the foreground. But the ideas that cracked me up in his new film were the subtle innuendos he’s packed in to trigger a conflict. Take the instance of five masked assassins walking into a small restaurant with the intention of creating trouble. One of them looks at the waitress and shadily asks if she will give him some “buns and milk”. It’s meant to sound as off as it does, but the dialogue delivery of the actor makes it sound crass. When the film’s hero, Paulson (Joju George trying his best), walks in upon hearing this, he sends the bad guy flying with a kick to his groin. As he flies across the screen, we see two eggs flying with the same velocity, landing at the centre of a frying pan. A second later, Paulson slashes a sword across another bad guy and instead of zooming in on the damage this causes, we cut to a shot of a banana that gets sliced into two.
Ikka
Drama, Thriller (Hindi)
With a loved one's life at stake, a celebrated lawyer must defend a man he suspects is guilty — battling his conscience every step of the way.
Cast:
Sunny Deol, Akshaye Khanna, Tillotama Shome, Dia Mirza, Sanjeeda Sheikh, Jyoti Mukherji, Shishir Sharma, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor, Vijay Vikram Singh, Daria Bedi
Director:
Siddharth P. Malhotra
Writer:
Suparn Verma
Sat, July 18 2026
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a star’s person eventually subsumes every character that they play on screen. With Sunny Deol, it’s never about whether he is good or bad in a film. It’s about Sunny Deol playing Sunny Deol in a Sunny Deol film! The necessary accoutrements are all in place. The slow-motion entry, the clenche d f ist , the admonishing finger, the fiery stare, the high-octane roar and of course, the “dhai kilo ka haath”. Together, they provide the intended comfort of familiarity. As for Akshaye Khanna, the Dhurandhar hangover continues to loom large. The hair is still there, though not quite as glorious as before, but recognisably similar. The tilted neck, the inverted smile and the studied mannerisms are even more pronounced. Bookended by these two larger-than-life performances is a story struggling to breathe and say something of its own. A young girl is brutally assaulted under mysterious circumstances. As she battles for her life in the hospital, the action shifts to the courtroom. Enter Arjun Mehra (Deol), a lawyer whose reputation precedes him.
Sun, July 12 2026
A lot is at stake in Ikka, and we are aren’t just talking about the receding hairlines of its main men. Almost three decades after they came together on screen for Border, Sunny Deol and Akshaye Khanna feature in this commercial Bollywood-style courtroom thriller that cranks up melodrama to the max, but is nostalgically old-school enough to make for some guilty-pleasure viewing. Unlike Border, where they batted for the same team, Sunny and Akshaye are at loggerheads in this Siddharth P. Malhotra-directorial, though they do join forces — unwillingly for the former — for a large part of this film that throws in enough twisty plot points but isn’t particularly smart or sleek.
Sat, July 11 2026
kka revolves around the celebrated Public Prosecutor Arjun Mehra (Sunny Deol). He is known for fighting for the truth and that too by adhering to ethics. He stays in Mumbai with his wife Avantika (Dia Mirza) and daughter Samaira (Daria Bedi). One day, Shouryamann Gaur (Akshaye Khanna), son of a wealthy industrialist and politician Harshvardhan Gaur (Shishir Sharma), gets accused of attempting to murder Soma Mittal (Akansha Ranjan), a young girl he met at a night club. Arjun is offered to fight Shouryamann’s case as a Defense Lawyer this time. He plainly refuses because of the past equation between both of them. However, circumstances force Arjun to fight Shouryaman’s case.