Tag Archives: 2024

Movie Review: A Nice Indian Boy (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Rent or Buy A Nice Indian Boy at Amazon

A Nice Indian Boy is an adorable romantic comedy about how the way we communicate with our family influences how we interact with everyone else, for good or ill. This adaptation of Madhuri Shekar’s play of the same name is a ton of fun.

Karan Soni stars as Naveen Gavaskar, son of mom Megha (Zarna Garg) and dad Archit (Harish Patel). In the six years since Naveen’s sister Arundhati’s (Sunita Mani) wedding, everyone within the orbit of this Indian-American family reminds Naveen that he’s expected to get married soon, too.

The thing is, Naveen is gay. His mom is supportive, if a little unsure of how to relate. She religiously watches dating shows on a queer cable channel, looking for ways to connect with her son. Dad doesn’t want to talk about his son’s sexuality, so Naveen avoids the subject, which often means avoiding his parents altogether.

While praying to Ganesh at the temple, Naveen notices a handsome white guy come in and do the same. When they run into each other again, it seems like divine intervention. The guy is Jay Kurundkar (Jonathan Groff), a former foster child who was adopted by an Indian couple, who are now deceased. Jay asks Naveen on a date to see a screening of his late dad’s favorite movie: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

Jay is as emotionally open and sincere as Naveen is closed off, but their attraction is real. They fall in love, and eventually Naveen has to do the thing he’s dreaded: introduce Jay to his parents. Bringing home a white boyfriend requires understanding and finesse. Naveen bungles this spectacularly.

Lesser movies manufacture conflict from misunderstandings that could’ve been prevented with a simple conversation. Here, the the inability of the Gavaskars to talk with one another about their feelings is the point of the film. The dysfunction extends beyond Jay and his parents and includes Arundhati as well, who’s wilting under the pressure of being the perfect Desi daughter. The fact that none of them feel like they can freely discuss what they want with one another makes all of them miserable and adds a layer of artifice to their relationships.

The centrality of the relationships between the Gavaskars is more than just a source of character development. It’s world building. Naveen’s learned defensiveness informs the life he’s built for himself and the relationships he has with everyone in it. If Naveen can’t be honest with his parents, he can’t be honest with Jay, either.

All of this dysfunction is depicted in a really relatable way. Naveen’s emotional distance is frustrating but understandable, because we know where he comes from. Soni does an excellent job making sure the audience always roots for Naveen to become his best self. Groff’s Jay is sweet but secure enough that he’d walk away if he finds the romance more trouble than it’s worth.

The Gavaskar family is delightful. Garg is an hilarious nosy mom who plays well off of Patel’s taciturn dad. Mani deftly navigates Arundhati through a low moment, made easier to stomach because we understand the family she comes from.

Shekar’s story is truly charming, and director Roshan Sethi and screenwriter Eric Randall do a lovely job adapting it for the big screen. Like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, A Nice Indian Boy reminds us why we love stories about love.

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Movie Review: Mrs. (2023)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Mrs. on ZEE5

A bride’s newlywed bliss is slowly crushed under household demands and unattainable standards set by her new husband and his father in the relentless drama Mrs.. The film isn’t presented as a thriller, but it elicits some of the same oppressive feelings as movies in that genre.

Mrs. is Cargo-director Arati Kadav’s adaptation of Jeo Baby’s 2021 Malayalam movie The Great Indian Kitchen (which I haven’t seen). The Hindi version stars Sanya Malhotra as Richa Sharma, the leader of a dance troupe. Through an arranged marriage, she weds Diwakar Kumar (Nishant Dahiya). He’s a handsome doctor who is kind and attentive in the run-up to their wedding.

Upon moving into Diwakar’s family home with her in-laws, Richa notices that her mother-in-law Meena (Aparna Ghoshal) spends her day in near-constant labor, waking before everyone and going to sleep last. Father-in-law Ashwin (Kanwaljit Singh) is particular about his meals, so Meena has to do a lot of work by hand that could be done by a machine more quickly.

Diwakar’s sister lives far away and is expecting her first baby. Richa offers to take over the household chores so that Meena can go help with her new grandchild. Meena happily takes Richa up on the offer, but she knows that her daughter-in-law is in for a hard time.

A learning curve is to be expected, but Richa’s lack of familiarity with the house is not the problem. Even when she does as she’s asked, her father-in-law finds flaws. When she executes a recipe perfectly, he invents problems. She just can’t seem to do anything to his satisfaction.

That’s exactly the point. Giving Richa approval would give her leverage, and that’s the last thing the Kumar men would ever do.

The relationships between men and women in Mrs. are defined by power imbalances. The methods used for maintaining that balance are less obviously villainous than, say, locking Richa in a closet, but are just as abusive nonetheless. It’s the cumulative weight of indignities, insults, and lack of agency — designed to make Richa too exhausted to resist — that reveal them as the control tactics they are.

That’s even before mentioning the fact that Diwakar subjects Richa to daily, painful sexual intercourse. He’s never noticed that he’s hurting her or cared that she’s not having a good time. It’s more important for him to get her pregnant, giving her yet more to do and making it that much harder for her to leave.

Kadav is careful not to be too heavy-handed with the tone of her film. She lets the audience draw their own conclusions from the actions of the characters, without relying on things like melodramatic music. It’s clear what’s happening.

Kadav also knows how to use her greatest asset: Sanya Malhotra. An opening dance number show’s Malhotra for the star she is, and she’s just as skilled through the rest of the film. She portrays Richa as a woman who is sincerely doing her best while she being pulled farther and farther away from the woman she was before marriage. She’s not a quitter, so it takes her a long time to accept that her best will never be enough.

Dahiya and Singh deserve a lot of credit as well for playing their characters with restraint. The point of the film would be lost if Diwakar and his dad were cartoon villains. Everyone knows them to be upstanding citizens and devoted family men, and that’s how they see themselves. They act in a manner that will get them what they want while still maintaining that image.

I really enjoyed Kadav’s film Cargo, which is delightful to watch. Mrs. is anything but delightful, but it’s an impressive achievement all the same.

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Movie Review: Superboys of Malegaon (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Superboys of Malegaon on Amazon Prime

Superboys of Malegaon is a film for anyone who loves movies. Director Reema Kagti’s latest is a touching story of friendship and all the things that can go right and wrong in the creative process.

Varun Grover’s screenplay is based on director Faiza Ahmad Khan’s documentary Supermen of Malegaon. The documentary itself is wonderful, and Grover brilliantly adapts its fictional version.

The story begins in 1997 in the industrial town of Malegaon, about 300 kilometers from Mumbai. Movies are a popular pastime for the men in the city, but film reels are hard to come by. The small theater Nasir (Adarsh Gourav) runs with his older brother gets by screening Charlie Chaplin movies, but business is lousy.

Their fortunes improve when Nasir learns how to edit together VHS tapes using two VCRs. His mashups of Chaplin and Bruce Lee are a hit, until the cops bust him for piracy. That’s when Nasir realizes that he needs to make his own films.

He’s got everything he needs within his circle of friends. Nasir can direct and edit. Akram (Anuj Singh Duhan) is the town’s wedding videographer. Farogh (Vineet Kumar Singh) writes for the newspaper. Irfan (Saqib Ayub) can act. And Shafique (Shashank Arora) can do whatever else is needed.

Nasir rejects Farogh’s suggestion for a more serious story, reasoning that things in Malegaon are tough enough as is. They settle on a parody of Sholay called simply “Malegaon’s Sholay.” With the help of plenty of other people in town and a dancer named Trupti (Manjiri Pupala), their original film becomes a massive local hit.

Watching the guys make the film with the technology available in a small Indian city in 1997 is a treat. They improvise a dolly by strapping Akram’s video camera to bicycle. Trupti’s vanity van is an auto-rickshaw with a shawl draped over one side. It’s not fancy, but it works.

Yet even this crew of friends is susceptible to the stressors that can foil any collaborative creative project. Disputes over input, respect, and financial compensation strain the group, and Nasir — who enjoys being celebrated as the brains behind the operation — is too prideful to stop things from unraveling.

The story is ultimately about learning the real meaning and value of friendship, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Since the movie is based on real people who have lives outside of their amateur filmmaking endeavors, Superboys of Malegaon takes place over the course of thirteen years. That just emphasizes how difficult it can be to put egos aside and apologize for bad behavior.

It’s hard to imagine a more perfect cast for this underdog story. Adarsh Gourav skillfully portrays Nasir as the kind of guy with enough charisma to pull together this kind of project, but with the flaws that often accompany that kind of charisma. Vineet Kumar Singh’s quiet seething as the writer whose ideas get trampled by his director represents the many contemporary Indian screenwriters who feel devalued by the industry.

With his skinny arms and incongruous pompadour, it’s impossible not to love Shashank Arora’s Shafique. Though everyone in the film feels their lives limited by lack of opportunity, that’s most true for Shafique. He’s the forgotten member even within his friend group. But from the minute he’s introduced, it’s obvious that he’s the heart of the film.

Reema Kagti’s movie is made with real affection for everyone who inspired it. It’s in details like all the retro movie technology and Bhawna Sharma’s charming costume design. It’s in casting just the right performers to bring these scrappy guys to the big screen. Superboys of Malegaon is a lovable movie.

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Movie Review: Anuja (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Anuja on Netflix

Two sisters in Delhi face a difficult choice when one of them is offered a potential way out of poverty. Filmmaker Adam J. Graves uses Anuja‘s brief 22-minute runtime to make a meaningful critique of child labor in this Oscar-nominated short drama film.

9-year-old Anuja is played by Sajda Pathan, who herself lives in a Delhi shelter for children. Anuja and her older sister Palak (Ananya Shanbhag) are orphans who work 14-hour days in a garment factory.

Word of Anuja’s illegal employment has gotten around, as has her natural talent for mathematics. A teacher named Mishra (Gulshan Walia) comes to the factory to invite her to take a placement test for a boarding school, though she’ll have to find 400 rupees to pay for it. But the factory’s owner Verma (Nagesh Bhonsle) isn’t keen on letting one of his employees get away.

The invitation presents a real dilemma for the girls. Palak’s old enough to accept the limits of her own prospects and to understand that this may be her sister’s one chance at a better life. But they are the only family each other have, and it’s not easy to give that up for an uncertain future. Anuja doesn’t even know what a boarding school is, so why would she want to leave her sister to go to one?

Both Pathan and Shanbhag do a really nice job playing the sisters, who are hard not to care about. Much of the film’s short runtime is dedicated to showing their fondness for one another, as well as their protective instincts. Though it makes logical sense for Anuja to pursue her education, the emotional cost for both sisters is very clear.

The most effective moment in Graves’ narrative — which is produced by a host of industry notables including Mindy Kaling, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Oscar winner Guneet Monga Kapoor — is a fleeting one. As Anuja runs through a fancy clothing store fleeing its security guard, she spots a mannequin dressed in one of the garments she sewed. It’s a powerful condemnation of the exploitation underlying the fashion industry, and a it’s a reminder for the audience to become more informed consumers. Ignorance of the plight of workers is no excuse for supporting child labor.

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Movie Review: I Want to Talk (2024)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch I Want to Talk on Amazon Prime

Director Shoojit Sircar’s drama I Want to Talk features a career-defining performance by Abhishek Bachchan, but the screenplay by Ritesh Shah feels incomplete.

The film is based on Arjun Sen’s autobiographical book Raising a Father, though it comes with the standard opening note that it isn’t a strict retelling. Bachchan plays Arjun, a ruthless marketing executive living in southern California. He’s in the middle of a divorce from his wife Indrani, with whom he shares an elementary-school-aged daughter named Reya (Pearle Dey).

A coughing fit during a business presentation sends Arjun to the hospital, where it’s determined that he has laryngeal cancer. He leaves in a fog of denial, but a follow-up visit finds cancer cells in his colon as well. Multiple surgeries leave him unable to work, costing him his job, right as his divorce settlement costs him his house. He keeps his Cadillac but downsizes to rental home that has seen better days.

Throughout his medical trials, Arjun tries to shield Reya from the seriousness of his condition while maintaining a busy custody schedule of Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other weekend. This is where the screenplay struggles. According to the movie, Arjun is able to manage all of his appointments and recovery time without ever talking to his ex-wife about Reya. We only ever see Indrani once during a meeting with their lawyers. From a purely logistical standpoint this would be impossible, and that goes double for trying to explain to a kid who isn’t even ten why daddy can’t lift her up after surgery or why he’s so sleepy all the time.

With Arjun’s ex-wife being a void in the narrative, he’s forced to find support in other places. That includes his grumpy handyman Johny, played by Johny Lever in a role that shows he’s a more talented actor than we get to see in the over-the-top comic roles he typically plays. There’s also Arjun’s dismissive surgeon Dr. Deb (Jayant Kripalani), who comes to tolerate Arjun’s pestering.

Best of all is Dr. Deb’s nurse, Nancy (Kristin Goddard). She sympathetic but won’t let Arjun off the hook when he gets down on himself. Goddard delivers a short monologue that is equal parts heartfelt and hilarious. It’s a highlight of the film.

Another highlight is the evocative score by George Joseph & Koyna. It’s sparingly used but effective. Sircar relies a lot on ambient sounds and visuals of the stark, mountainous landscape near California’s Lake Hemet to set the scene.

Although the world of I Want to Talk is atmospheric, it doesn’t feel full enough. The plot jumps forward several years, and a lot of information about how Arjun manages his life is lost in the transition. We see little of the growth in Arjun’s relationships with those closest to him; they are suddenly friends instead of adversaries. Even important characters feel like they blink out of existence until Arjun needs their help.

The exception is Reya, who is played as a teenager by capable debutant Ahliya Bamroo. Sircar gives Reya enough scenes to establish her as her own person within Arjun’s story. She’s a kid finding herself while navigating a tricky relationship with her father, one further complicated by by his medical problems. But again, her continuing ignorance about his condition after more than a dozen surgeries beggars belief.

All that said, this is Abhishek Bachchan’s movie, and he carries the weight of it gracefully. It’s a performance that is challenging not just emotionally but physically. His movements are slow and pained, evoking memories of another character burdened by frailty in a Shoojit Sircar movie: Abhishek’s father Amitabh Bachchan in Piku. Sircar shows great compassion for people with physical challenges in the way he directs his actors, and both Bachchans interpreted their characters beautifully.

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Movie Review: Jigra (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Filmmaker Vasan Bala’s Jigra (“Courage“) shows the lengths to which a protective older sister will go to save her younger brother. Alia Bhatt once again commands the screen, turning in a complex, emotional performance in this tense prison-break drama.

Bhatt plays Satya, big sister to promising software engineer Ankur (Vedang Raina). When they were still in elementary school, the kids witnessed their father’s suicide. Satya has shielded Ankur from harm ever since. They were raised by a wealthy, distant relative, Mr. Mehtani (Akashdeep Sabir), whose son Kabir (Aditya Nanda) is best friends with Ankur.

While Ankur believes they are one big family, Satya knows the truth. She manages the Mehtani’s household staff, only changing out of her uniform for public events where the appearance of familial unity matters. The Mehtani’s expect reimbursement for her care, and soon they’ll expect the same from Ankur.

Ankur and Kabir ask Mr. Mehtani to help them find an investor for software Ankur built. This project is an ideal opportunity for Kabir to straighten his life out following multiple drug arrests. Mehtani sends the guys to meet a colleague in the fictional island nation of Hanshi Dao, off the coast of Malaysia.

The guys secure the funding and celebrate. Kabir gets caught with drugs, and both are arrested. Drug possession is a capital offense in Hanshi Dao — a fact the Mehtani family lawyer Jaswant (Harssh A. Singh) knows but the guys don’t. Jaswant tricks Ankur into taking the fall for Kabir. When Ankur is sentenced to death, Satya burns bridges with the Mehtanis and heads to Hanshi Dao to free her brother.

Without the expectation of repayment and the double-edged sword of family ties, Satya is finally able to find allies who share a mutual interest. Ex-gangster Bhatia (Manoj Pahwa) wants to get his son Tony (Yuvraj Vijjan) off of death row. Muthu (Rahul Ravindran) quit the Hanshi Dao police force after he accidentally sent an innocent man — Chandan (Dheer Hira) — to prison. With no legal recourse left, the three unlikely allies use their skills and connections to formulate an audacious escape plan.

Though Satya is the main character, the story gives us a glimpse into Ankur’s life in jail, too. His betrayal by the Mehtanis and his painful adjustment to life under sadistic warden Hansraj Landa (Vivek Gomber) shake him out of his prolonged adolescence. He finally becomes a man, one with only a few months to live.

With a big star like Bhatt on board, Bala — who co-wrote Jigra with Debashish Irengbam — takes a slightly more conventional filmmaking approach than with his previous features Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and Monica, O My Darling. This mostly comes in the form of flashbacks to Satya and Ankur as little kids, meant to reinforce the depth of the siblings’ bond (akin to how many mainstream Hindi films about romantic couples insist on flashing back to how the couple first fell in love). The flashbacks aren’t necessary and slow down the pace of the film. Satya’s love for Ankur is active — we can already feel it in everything she does.

One of Bala’s superpowers is staging his heroines in fight scenes. Too often, “strong” female characters in films have some sort of elite training or physical prowess — qualities that allow them to fight like men, essentially. Bala’s leading ladies — Satya in Jigra, Supri in Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, and Monica in Monica, O My Darling — aren’t like that. They are scrappy, ordinary women who prevail over their male adversaries through sheer determination (though Supri’s black belt helps). Satya’s unpolished fight scenes are all the more riveting because of what they say about her personality. She won’t let anything get in her way.

Through her depth of talent, Bhatt conveys so many of the emotions roiling within Satya even when her expression is stone-faced. It’s a remarkable performance in a career full of remarkable performances.

Pahwa and Ravindran play perfectly off of Bhatt. Because of their performances and the stakes for their characters, Satya’s relationships with Bhatia and Muthu are probably the most emotionally impactful in the film. Few actors portray heartbreak as well as Manoj Pahwa.

In only his second feature role, Raina acquits himself very well as Ankur. He undergoes more of a character transformation than Satya does, while still needing her as much as he ever did. Raina also does a nice job singing the film’s title track.

Vasan Bala’s filmography is among the best among working directors, and Alia Bhatt is Hindi cinema’s top actress for a reason. Put them together, and you get something very special.

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Movie Review: Fighter (2024)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Fighter is just what you’d imagine when you think of a Bollywood version of Top Gun. The predictable action flick about a reckless jet pilot is mostly fine until an aggressively patriotic climax that veers into jingoism.

Hrithik Roshan stars as Shamsher “Patty” Pathania, ace pilot among the Indian Air Force’s “Air Dragons” squadron. Fighter director Siddharth Anand also directed Roshan in the action flick War, the highlight of which was Roshan’s character’s epic entry scene. Anand tries to give Roshan a similar introduction in Fighter, but it feels derivative.

The Air Dragons team includes fellow jet pilots Taj (Karan Singh Grover) and Bash (Akshay Oberoi), and also helicopter pilots like Minal “Minni” Rathore (Deepika Padukone). All of the other male pilots are married or have facial hair, so obviously Minni and Patty will fall in love.

Commanding Officer Rakesh “Rocky” Jaisingh (Anil Kapoor) thinks Patty takes dangerous risks, but the force needs all the help they can get to combat a rising wave of terrorism in Kashmir (the film is set in 2018, before Article 370 was revoked). The squad’s training is interrupted when a terror blast takes out several buses full of Indian soldiers on their way to the region.

If you’ve seen either of the Top Gun movies, you can more or less guess where Fighter is going. The Air Dragons retaliate for the explosion, and Taj and Bash are shot down by Pakistan’s ace pilot: “Red Nose.” (They just had to give him a stupid call sign.) Rocky blames Patty, demoting him and shipping him off to be a flight instructor. But when a recovery mission goes sideways, Patty returns to (hopefully) save the day.

The story is serviceable enough. The actors generally give decent performances, despite Anand’s preference for heavy-handed sentimentality. Padukone and Roshan are at their best in a scene where Patty packs following his demotion, leaving not just the Air Dragons behind but Minni as well.

But Fighter is a movie that says one thing and does another. Characters speak broadly about the Indian public and the military fraternity at large, but every plot point is directly connected to Patty or Minni by either romantic or familial connections. Note that Patty only plots revenge against Pakistan for his dead fiancée — another helicopter pilot (he has a type) — not for any of the other Indian soldiers killed in action that he doesn’t know personally.

Patty states repeatedly that the Indian military has nothing against Pakistan as a country, only against terrorists working within its borders. But the movie immediately follows Patty’s speech with a scene of terrorist mastermind Azhar (Rishabh Sawhney) marching into the offices of the Pakistani military and giving orders. Multiple times, the Pakistani government is depicted to be collaborating with, or controlled by, terrorists.

Fighter‘s militant brand of patriotism takes an extreme turn in the climax (which is full of ambitious but silly stunts and corny closeups). Patty claims that India is the rightful owner of all of Kashmir, and he promises that soon Pakistan will be known as “India-Occupied Pakistan.” Ending what should have been a feel-good movie with what amounts to a declaration of war needlessly pushes this triumphant moment into a dark place.

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Streaming Video News: December 20, 2024

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s debut of the Original music documentary Yo Yo Honey Singh: Famous. Netflix also announced the first two Original premiere dates for 2025. Vikramaditya Motwane’s drama series Black Warrant comes out on January 10, and the celebrity docu-series The Roshans releases on January 17. I wrote a preview of Black Warrant for What’s on Netflix.

In other Netflix news, I was recently a guest on an episode of the Bollywood Drafts podcast where we ranked the Top 10 Netflix Original Hindi Films. I had so much fun talking with Suchin and Cris about their favorites — including some intriguing movies that I Whathaven’t seen — and I appreciate host Manish for having my back on a controversial pick. 🙂 Without spoiling the final rankings, here was the Top 10 list I assembled before the recording (title links go to the Netflix entry, star links go to my review):

  1. Bulbbul (2020) — ★★★★
  2. Amar Singh Chamkila (2024) — ★★★★
  3. Jaane Jaan (2023) — ★★★★
  4. AK vs AK (2020) — ★★★½
  5. CTRL (2024) — ★★★½
  6. Brahman Naman (2016) — ★★★½
  7. Ludo (2020) — ★★★½
  8. Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023) — ★★★½
  9. Sector 36 (2024) — ★★★½
  10. Monica, O My Darling (2022) — ★★★½

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with the addition of the Marathi series Lagnanantar Hoilach Prem.

I’m going to take most of the rest of 2024 off for the holidays. It’s a good time, too, since things look very quiet on the streamers for the next two weeks. I expect to see Singham Again debut on Amazon Prime on the afternoon of Thursday, December 26. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 should come out on Netflix on the same day, which is also when the Tamil film Sorgavaasal is scheduled to debut.

After the new year starts, it’s time to review some final movies before making my Best and Worst of 2024 lists. I’m considering box office blockbusters like Singham Again and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, plus Fighter, Bad Newz, and Baby John (though that likely won’t stream until late February). I’m also interested in theatrical releases Jigra and Madgaon Express and OTT exclusives Sikander Ka Muqaddar and Despatch. Which titles should I prioritize? Anything I’ve left off of your must-watch list?

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thanks for another great year at Access Bollywood! — Kathy

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Most Watched Netflix Original Indian Movies of 2024

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What’s on Netflix — the great site that just published my huge Netflix Indian Originals 2025 preview — posted their guide to the most watched Netflix Original movies of 2024. Two charts separate English Original movies from non-English Original movies. Tabs allow you so see how films performed in their first, second, third, and fourth week of release.

The data is derived from Netflix’s weekly Top 10 lists, posted every Tuesday. This is a smaller subset of the data Netflix publishes every six months in its Engagement Reports, but that information obviously isn’t out for the second half of 2024. Though less comprehensive, data from the weekly Top 10 lists still gives us a good idea of which Netflix Originals were most popular — or at least most in-demand right after they released.

I’m going to look at just the results for the First Four Weeks as compiled by What’s on Netflix to see what Indian Original movies released in 2024 were the most popular. I’ve noted below which movies did not rank in the Top 10 for four full weeks after their release (or failed to chart at all). The links below go to my review of each film. Here are the Most Watched Netflix Original Indian movies of 2024:

  1. Do Patti — 17,000,000 cumulative views
  2. Sector 36 — 12,100,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 3 weeks)
  3. Maharaj — 11,600,000 cumulative views
  4. Bhakshak — 10,400,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 3 weeks)
  5. Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba — 10,100,000 cumulative views
  6. Sikandar Ka Muqaddar — 9,500,000 cumulative views (in first 3 weeks)
  7. Murder Mubarak — 6,300,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 2 weeks)
  8. Amar Singh Chamkila — 5,300,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 2 weeks)
  9. Wild Wild Punjab — 4,500,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 2 weeks)
  10. CTRL — 2,100,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 1 week)
  11. Vijay 69 — Failed to feature in the weekly Top 10

It’s no shock to find Do Patti atop the list with stars as big as Kriti Sanon and Kajol in the leading roles. Given the dark subject matter of Sector 36, I’m a little surprised to see it in second place (not that I’m complaining; it’s a great movie). Undoubtedly, news about the court case that delayed Maharaj‘s release raised awareness of the film.

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar hasn’t even been out for four weeks yet, so it’ll be fun to see if it can climb past Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba into fifth place when it completes its first month of release.

The two major disappointments on the list are Amar Singh Chamkila and CTRL, two of my favorites of the year. When the next Engagement Report comes out, I hope the data will report that they were just slow burns that got more views over time. They really are worth watching.

How did your favorite Netflix Original rank?

Streaming Video News: December 13, 2024

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Quick update to say that my very, very big preview of New Indian Netflix Original Movies and Series Coming to Netflix is up at What’s on Netflix. I’ve got detailed write-ups of 11 new series, 12 new movies, and 11 returning series, with details on cast, plot, and production status. There are also some small bits of news about projects with indeterminate fates (I’m ready to declare Baahubali: Before the Beginning dead). My favorite tidbit is about the crime series that likely won’t be going forward because its creator was arrested for fraud.

Please give the post a read. It’s a ton of work, but I really have fun putting it together. What Netflix Original shows and movies are you looking forward to next year?