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Best Bollywood Movies of 2025

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Time to take a final look back at last year with my Best Bollywood Movies of 2025 list. The Hindi film industry has gotten bashed recently for a lack of quality titles, but last year produced a bunch of terrific movies.

As a side note, I’ve decided not to do a Worst Bollywood Movies of 2025 list. There are just too many common things that are wrong year after year — sexism, jingoism, unfunny romantic comedies that don’t recognize their own toxicity — to warrant a brand new list. I will say that my three least favorite films of 2025 can all be found on my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu.

Back to the good stuff. Here are my Top 10 Bollywood Movies of 2025, counting down from number 10.

The year’s biggest overachiever is the crime drama Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas. Arshad Warsi portrays the rare Hindi-cinema cop who is flawed but working on improving himself, making his own personal journey as compelling as the mystery he’s trying to solve. Running his story parallel to a romantic subplot is clever and keeps the audience guessing as to how it ties in to the main story. This was way better than I expected it to be.

Saiyaara didn’t wind up the year’s surprise box office hit for nothing. Overwrought, youthful romances used to be much more commonplace, and this engrossing drama reminds everyone why that was the case. What a treat to be introduced to two talented young lead actors — Aneet Padda and Ahaan Panday — who will undoubtedly be the stars of the future.

Most Hindi films set in Kashmir are war stories, but director Danish Renzu’s Songs of Paradise offers a refreshing change of pace. This gentle movie about a trailblazing woman in Kashmiri music history is a delight to watch.

Though it premiered at festivals in 2024, Humans in the Loop first got a wide release on Netflix in 2025, so I’m counting it here. Like Songs of Paradise, Humans in the Loop takes a quiet, focused approach to telling the stories of the Indian women who make AI possible.

In contrast, Dhoom Dhaam is a raucous adventure about an interrupted honeymoon. Yami Gautam Dhar and Pratik Gandhi are a ton of fun as a newly married couple who have a lot to learn about one another.

I adored the 2008 documentary Supermen of Malegaon, and director Reema Kagti’s fictional version of that film — Superboys of Malegaon — is a fitting tribute. It’s a perfect movie for anyone who loves movies.

Probably the biggest surprise of the year was Stolen, a film that excels as both a taut action thriller and an astute commentary on wealth inequality and institutional shortcomings. Director Keran Tejpal’s kidnapping drama is the best rural thriller since NH10, which is saying a lot.

Like Humans in the Loop, Mrs. is another film that finally got its wide release in 2025 after playing at festivals. The wait was worth it. Sanya Malhotra shines in this story of a new wife slowly crushed under the impossible expectations of her husband and father-in-law. It’s a poignant depiction of how abusers disguise their actions while still exercising control — and the resilience it takes to escape such an oppressive situation.

It made perfect sense when Homebound was selected as India’s official submission to the Oscars for Best International Feature Film. It’s a moving portrayal of two friends trying to escape poverty, only to run up against prolonged COVID business closures right as they start to make real money. Homebound captures an important moment in history while giving us characters we come to truly care about.

My favorite Hindi film of the year might also be the strangest (well, that honor might go to Crazxy). Another tale of an unhappy newlywed bride, this one takes a bizarre and hilarious turn that succeeds entirely thanks to a career-best performance from Radhika Apte. The Best Bollywood Movie of 2025 is Sister Midnight. Thank goodness this actually got a wide release and didn’t disappear after its festival run in 2024. I love this bonkers film.

Kathy’s Best Bollywood Movies of 2025

  1. Sister Midnight – stream on Hulu; buy/rent on Amazon
  2. Homebound – stream on Netflix
  3. Mrs. – stream on ZEE5
  4. Stolen – stream on Amazon Prime
  5. Superboys of Malegaon – stream on Amazon Prime
  6. Dhoom Dhaam – stream on Netflix
  7. Humans in the Loop – stream on Netflix
  8. Songs of Paradise – stream on Amazon Prime
  9. Saiyaara – stream on Netflix
  10. Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas – stream on ZEE5

Previous Best Movies Lists

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Movie Review: Kennedy (2023)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Anurag Kashyap’s crime drama Kennedy premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023 and then disappeared. It finally got a digital release on Letterboxd’s new video rental platform in late 2025. At long last, a wider audience — though not one in India, where the Letterboxd store is unavailable — could watch this sought-after thriller.

While Kennedy is thematically in keeping with Kashyap’s crime-heavy filmography, the movie is important for capturing a moment in time that most directors (and audiences) seem eager to forget: the phase of COVID-19 pandemic mitigations where businesses were gradually allowed to reopen following the strictest business closures. The conditions present particular economic challenges for the characters in Kennedy and affect the plot accordingly.

Rahul Bhat plays the title character, whose given name is Uday Shetty. He’s a former cop who’s been presumed dead for six years, though he’s unofficially on the payroll of Mumbai Police Commissioner Rasheed Khan (Mohit Takalkar). Whenever Khan needs someone killed without it being traced back to him, he calls Kennedy.

There’s something in the deal for Kennedy, too, beyond whatever perverse thrill he gets from murdering people. Kennedy is looking for a gangster named Saleem (Aamir Dalvi), and Khan has promised to help Kennedy find him. Whether Khan can be trusted is up for debate.

Living in the shadows makes Kennedy something of a ghost himself. A thick beard and mustache hide most of his face, and he hardly speaks. When he’s alone in his apartment, he’s joined by at least one chatty apparition who fills the silence for him.

Kashyap also fills the dead air with spoken word poetry written and performed by Aamir Aziz, who is accompanied by a live band. It makes the film surprisingly noisy despite its taciturn lead character. It’s a bold narrative choice, and one that I didn’t mind. For the English subtitles, the poetry had its own subtitlers — Srilata Sircar and Shigorika Singh — while Jahan Singh Bakshi handled the rest of the dialogue.

The poetry is performed on a stage in a club, and this is where the depiction of COVID mitigations is important for historical context. The club’s masked patrons listen to the performers, only removing their masks to sip their drinks. As a flip side to the depiction of the effects of COVID factory closures on migrant workers shown in Homebound, Kennedy shows how affluent city dwellers lived after businesses reopened. Clubs and restaurants operated at reduced capacity, but they were open.

This reduced capacity presents a problem for Commissioner Khan. Kennedy is one of the enforcers in Khan’s protection racket that extorts money from club owners and restaurateurs, and fewer patrons means less money for Khan. He’s desperate to pay off the loan he took out to bribe his way to the Commissioner’s post.

Besides the other crooked cops in Khan’s outfit and the ghosts in his apartment, the only person Kennedy has any connection with is a woman named Charlie (Sunny Leone). She shares an elevator with him following the first murder he commits in the film, and he winds up driving her to a club for his side gig as a rideshare driver (even assassins need to moonlight, apparently). She’s in trouble, and she pegs him as a man with the skills to help her. Whether he has the empathy it takes to do so is another question entirely.

With very little dialogue and with his face obscured by a beard or a mask, Bhat really only has his eyes and the way he moves his body to perform the role of Kennedy. The fact that the character is always mesmerizing is a testament to Bhat’s abilities. We’re always trying to figure Kennedy out, and Bhat gives just enough to keep us on the hook.

The biggest shame in the film languishing on the shelf is Leone’s performance as Charlie going unseen for so long. She’s a terrific choice for the role, and she brings a delightful, offbeat energy to it. Under other circumstances, this role could have pushed her career in a new direction toward more serious fare than she’s usually offered.

I’m glad Letterboxd finally made Kennedy available for rent (though only for a limited time). It’s an odd movie, but it’s always engaging. Its depiction of a very specific time period during an historically important period makes it special and worth preserving.

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Streaming Video News: November 20, 2025

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with the addition of two big theatrical releases: the Tamil film Bison Kaalamaadan and India’s submission to the 2026 Oscars, Homebound (which is terrific). Note that the version of Homebound playing on Netflix is the censored version that aired in Indian cinemas and not the version that I reviewed. I wrote about some of the scenes that were cut from the censored version of Homebound earlier this year.

The star-packed reality special Dining With The Kapoors debuts on Netflix on Friday.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s debut of Season 3 of The Family Man.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with the premiere of the Tamil series Nadu Center (also available in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, and Telugu). Also new is the Hindi series Ziddi Ishq (also available in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu)

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Which Scenes Were Censored in Homebound?

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On the day of Homebound‘s global theatrical release, Indian journalist Aroon Deep published a list of edits demanded by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) before the film could play in India. These changes weren’t required for the international theatrical release of the movie, and audiences elsewhere were able to watch the original version. I saw the unedited version of Homebound, and I loved it.

Fans across the globe should care about this, because Homebound‘s streaming partner Netflix is likely to carry the edited version. [Update: Netflix is carrying the censored version.] The Indian government presumably wouldn’t allow the original to stream on Netflix in India, and it wouldn’t make logistical sense to carry a separate version just for subscribers outside of India.

Given the sensitive nature of the film’s subject — discrimination faced by Indian Muslims and Dalits — what kinds of changes did the CBFC demand from Homebound? Here’s the list Aroon Deep published on September 26:

A few of these are standard requests, such as showing the title in both English and Hindi and adding alcohol warnings. But a number have to do with changes to dialogue and visuals, some of which could alter or dilute filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan’s intent. Note how vague many of the instructions are, like Cut No. 10: “Deleted and suitably replaced the visuals of news.” There’s no way to tell what was cut or how it differs from what replaced it.

Since Aroon Deep and I have both seen Homebound in the versions available in our respective countries — him the Indian edit and me the international original — we compared notes to see what was changed. I’m mostly reliant on English subtitles over spoken Hindi, so any dialogue is from the translated English subtitles unless otherwise specified. We looked at four key cuts:

Cut No. 4: “Deleted the dialogue ‘Aloo gobi… khate hain’ at TCR 11.33”

This is from a scene where an older Muslim cop encourages Shoaib to go work in Dubai. All the note tells us is that the original dialogue was something like: “Aloo gobi… is called.” What the cop says is, “At least over there, no one will ask you, ‘Is your aloo gobi halal, too?'” That’s what I could gather from my limited Hindi. The English subtitle is translated as, “At least over there, no one will ask you, ‘Do you slaughter your vegetables, too?’.”

Cut No. 9: “Deleted the scene at TCR 01.22.19”

Though much of the scene where Chandan pretends to be of a higher caste in order to find out his exam results from a police administrator who complains about the quota system is the same, one closing line appears to be absent. The administrator — who knows Chandan is lying — says as he’s leaving, “If a pig wears a lion’s skin, it doesn’t become a lion.”

Cut No. 10: “Deleted and suitably replaced the visuals of news.”

A news report explains how migrant workers are forced to return home on foot due to prolonged COVID-19 quarantine measures that closed businesses. A closing segment of the report is missing from the edited version: “Last week, some officials accused a Muslim missionary group of being a ‘super-spreader.’ Calling this fake news, the opposition condemned the allegations and urged citizens not to spread rumors on social media.”

Cut No. 13: “Modified the visuals of the car passing by at 01:38.20 mins. approx.”

As Shoaib and Chandan walk along a deserted road, a car passes them but does not stop. The car in the edited version is a plain white SUV, but the car in the original had a red light on top, indicating it to be some kind of government or police vehicle.

Thanks again to Aroon Deep for making the censor sheet public and helping me figure out what changed from the original. You can follow his reporting on X (née Twitter) here.

Movie Review: Homebound (2025)

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4 Stars (out of 4)

This is a review of the uncensored version of Homebound. Here is my article on Which Scenes Were Censored in Homebound.

Watch the censored version of Homebound on Netflix

Two best friends find their future opportunities limited by discrimination, poverty, and systemic shortcomings in the touching drama Homebound. India’s selection committee picked a worthy submission to the 98th Oscars.

The film opens in North India around 2017-18. Best friends Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa) want to become police officers, a feat that first requires battling their way through a crowded train platform before they can even reach the admissions testing site. The crowd they navigate consists of hundreds of other young men and women vying for the same posts — a fraction of the 2.5 million applicants from across the country for just 3,500 job openings.

Shoaib is Muslim, and Chandan is from one of the Scheduled Castes. They’re sick of being looked down on by higher caste Hindus and figure that being cops armed with batons will put an end to the disrespect they’re accustomed to.

A year goes by with no word on the exam results, leaving the guys in limbo. They’ve invested so much in this dream that taking any other job seems like giving up. But there’s a hole in the roof of Chandan’s family home, and Shoaib’s dad needs knee surgery so he can get back to work in the fields. The guys can’t wait on their dream forever.

Writer-director Neeraj Ghaywan is so effective at communicating how immediate the needs of the poor are. With no financial cushion, problems quickly become emergencies. Even when the government creates opportunities intended to level the playing field — such as reserving university spots for those from castes historically denied admission — taking advantage of them requires planning and sacrifice from family members who don’t have much left to give.

One of those family members is Chandan’s older sister Vaishali (Harshika Parmar). Chandan opts to go to college to be with a woman he met at the police exam, Sudha (Janhvi Kapoor). When Chandan later drops out, Vaishali points out that he’s squandering opportunities their traditional parents would never let her have. He’s flitting between uncertain futures while she’s stuck working as a bathroom attendant at an elementary school. He needs to settle on a way to contribute to the family and stick with it.

The story takes a major turn when the guys get jobs in a garment factory over 1,000 kilometers away from home. They earn steady money that gives their families stability. Then COVID-19 hits. The government institutes same-day lockdowns that last for weeks, shuttering businesses. As money runs out, migrant workers like Shoaib and Chandan are forced to make their way home, sometimes on foot.

It was journalist Basharat Peer’s reporting on such cases for the New York Times that inspired Ghaywan to write Homebound. In fleshing out backstories for his main characters, Ghaywan draws together the various threads that create the net that traps people like Shoaib and Chandan in poverty. Sudha represents someone able to take advantage of the government’s efforts to remediate caste discrimination, but the mistreatment experienced by the guys show just how easy it is for bigots to undercut those efforts.

The cast of Homebound is wonderful. Khatter’s spent the last few years proving why he’s probably the best actor of his generation, but Jethwa makes a compelling case for why he should be included in the discussion. The friendship between Shoaib and Chandan feels so real, through all of its ups and downs.

Kapoor uses her supporting role to show just how impactful she can be when not playing a lead. Parmar likewise stands out even though she’s only in a few scenes. Vaishali is pragmatic, but her advice is also clearly motivated by her own emotional baggage. Both sets of the boys’ parents are played beautifully played as well.

Ghaywan’s sophomore effort after 2015’s terrific film Masaan was a decade in the making but worth the wait. Homebound is insightful and thought-provoking, painting a vivid picture of the challenges faced by those living in poverty in contemporary India.

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