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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: Subedaar (2026)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Subedaar on Amazon Prime

Filmmaker Suresh Triveni’s latest movie Subedaar is so tense it’s almost unbearable at times. In terms of achieving the intended tone, it’s an undeniable success. However, that single tone makes it hard to maintain the story momentum.

The first few moments of Subedaar are light-hearted misdirection. Elementary school boys Bablu and Mannu ponder how people in airplanes go to the bathroom and come up with a funny answer. But as the cheerful boys start to run between the heavy machinery dredging sand from the local river, the music becomes ominous. The boys jump in the water. Mannu doesn’t resurface.

He’s not the first kid to drown in the river as a result of industrial mismanagement. The dredgers are controlled by gangster Babli Didi (Mona Singh). She’s currently imprisoned awaiting trial for murder, but her shadow hangs over the town. Mannu’s uncle demands justice, so Babli Didi’s reckless half-brother, Prince (Aditya Rawal), kills him.

Arjun Maurya (Anil Kapoor) is new to this city governed by fear. He recently retired from the military, where he achieved the rank of Subedaar (a junior commissioned officer). His beloved wife just died, and he’s trying to form a relationship with his college-aged daughter Shyama (Radhika Madan). He hardly knows her because his career kept him away from home for most of her life.

The transition from highly organized military life to civilian chaos is unnerving for Arjun. He looks like he’s barely holding it together even while trying to do something ordinary, like closing his wife’s bank account. The frazzled bank clerk is so self-focused that he doesn’t register Arjun’s taut expression and the danger that lurks behind it.

The bank offers an early lesson in how the town operates. No one within the structures of power will help. They only protect themselves, particularly when Babli Didi and Prince are concerned. The mantra of the police chief is: “See very little, and forget everything.”

Prince is dangerous because he insists on controlling every interaction, enjoys humiliating people, and resorts to violence fast — and he never faces negative consequences for his brutal behavior. When Arjun refuses to be belittled by Prince and his cronies, it makes the former soldier a target. Arjun’s best friend Prabhakar (Saurabh Shukla) urges him to apologize and move on, but Arjun’s pride won’t allow him to do so.

At the same time, Shyama exposes one of her fellow students for his lewd behavior and is threatened with retaliation. She doesn’t tell her father about this, and he doesn’t tell her about Prince. When goons lurk outside the house at night or throw things at their home in the morning, father and daughter both assume they are the intended target. They’re both right, just at different times of day.

Though not always the main focus of the story, the relationship between Arjun and Shyama is the film’s most compelling. She has every reason to be angry with him, and he feels plenty of guilt mixed with his grief over his wife’s death (Khushbu Sundar plays Arjun’s wife Sudha in some sweet flashbacks). He’s doing the best he can to act like a parent to Shyama, but there’s no quick fix.

Troubled relationships between parents and children featured in Triveni’s two previous directorials as well: 2017’s Tumhari Sulu and 2022’s Jalsa. What makes the storylines work in each film is tremendous acting. Subedaar might be Triveni’s best yet, in that regard.

Kapoor is in top form as Arjun, trying to hold back the sea of emotions inside him. Madan shows us that Shyama’s hostility comes from a place of great pain. Both Kapoor and Madan are very good in their action scenes. Shukla’s Prabhakar says volumes with a single look, and Singh steals every scene she’s in.

Rawal is utterly loathsome as Prince, which is just what the role calls for. He’s particularly good at invading people’s personal space, because in his mind, it’s all his space. His presence is oppressive because we know there are no good guys coming to the rescue.

That said, a little goes a long way with Prince, especially since he doesn’t change or evolve. The only subplot to offset Prince’s lopsided feud with Arjun is Shyama’s own struggle against stronger opponents, so the experience of watching Subedaar becomes emotionally fatiguing over time. It’s a classic case where chopping twenty minutes from the runtime would actually make things more impactful.

Triveni is improving as a director with each movie. Subedaar is another step in the right direction, with clearer character motivations than in previous films. I’m happy to see it.

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Movie Review: Accused (2026)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Accused on Netflix

Netflix’s latest Indian Original movie features a lesbian couple in crisis, and its LGBTQ theme makes Accused stand out among other Indian Originals. Unfortunately, a formulaic story treatment makes the film more novel than innovative.

Comparisons between Accused and Todd Field’s 2022 movie Tár are inevitable. Both focus on a queer woman in a position of power whose career and marriage are threatened by sexual harassment allegations. Accused shifts things by making the allegations more of a mystery than a sure thing and by devoting more time to the main character’s wife’s experience.

Dr. Geetika Sen (Konkona Sen Sharma), an ace surgeon and gynecologist at London’s Chapelstone General Hospital, is known as much for her her gruff manner as for her medical talents. She’s about to leave for a big promotion at another hospital in England. On top of that, she and her wife Meera (Pratibha Ranta) are adopting a baby.

While the couple seems happy together, there are a few signs of trouble early in the story. Geetika is routinely late to events, giving the excuse that she was in surgery and out of reach — and sometimes that’s true. Their move away puts Meera’s own pediatrics career on hold, which is important, given that there’s an age gap of at least 10 years between the couple (Sen Sharma is 21 years older than Ranta in real life). Geetika feels like her more established career takes precedence, even if it prevents Meera from making similar progress in hers.

Then there’s the fact that Meera’s family back in Meerut don’t even know she’s in love with a woman, let alone married to one. An attempt to introduce Geetika to Meera’s brother while he’s in town is scuttled when Geetika fails to show up for lunch.

In the midst of everything, Chapelstone Hospital receives an anonymous complaint from a patient alleging inappropriate sexual conduct by Geetika during an exam. Geetika insists she didn’t do anything wrong, but the hospital’s head of Human Resources, Simran (Monica Mahendru), is obligated to investigate, despite their friendship.

Rumors circulate, and soon there are more anonymous complaints, including one on a social media site. Racists and homophobes are happy to pile on the insults until the hospital can’t ignore it. Geetika is put on leave. Things only get worse from there.

The social media segment is one of the worst examples of Accused falling into contemporary Hindi filmmaking tropes. Images of social media comments float on the screen around Geetika, including one that reads, “Someone tag Netflix, the pilot episode just dropped.” The visual gimmick is tired enough even without the tacky self-referentialism.

Geetika becomes convinced that someone is framing her, and her paranoia only ramps up her tendencies toward secrecy. But that prompts Meera to wonder what else her wife is hiding. Add to that all the people who are happy to see Geetika brought down a peg — aggrieved colleagues, Meera’s infatuated co-worker Angad (Aditya Nanda) — and the doubt becomes more than the relationship can bear.

The lead actors do a really wonderful job. Sen Sharma is the ideal choice to play a character who can wither with a look while still being sympathetic. Ranta plays off her in a way that highlights the power imbalance and Meera’s growing discomfort with it.

Yet the film is so straightforward and surface level that it feels less substantial than it could have. Issues around queer identity in Indian culture are mentioned but not examined. Much of the dialogue around sexual harassment is taken from workplace conduct handbooks and feels divorced from lived experience. These big issues are convenient plot setups, but that’s it.

Accused even wraps with characters monologuing about the lessons they learned throughout — as if we, the audience, didn’t just watch them learning those lessons. It would’ve been nice if director Anubhuti Kashyap and writers Sima Agarwal & Yash Keshwani had more faith that an audience that would seek out such a story could handle a more robust examination of the issues it presents.

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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.

Renting Aamir Khan’s Latest Movie on YouTube

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Aamir Khan forged a new path for the digital release of Sitaare Zameen Par. He declined licensing offers from major subscription streaming services in favor of renting the film directly to consumers via YouTube. This allowed fans around the world to access the movie at a price cheaper than the cost of a monthly subscription.

I rented Sitaare Zameen Par on YouTube (review to come). I found the process pretty easy, though it somewhat depends on your intended playback method. Here’s what I did:

In the United States, Sitaare Zameen Par costs $6.99 to rent. I saved the film in my YouTube “Watch Later” playlist, so I accessed it from there. However, the easiest place to find it is at the Aamir Khan Talkies YouTube account in their Janta Ka Theatre playlist. Sitaare Zameen Par is in there along with other movies for rent. Here’s the current list with their US rental prices (note that Aamir charges more for movies where he’s the star LOL):

Dangal — $5.99
Lagaan — $5.99
Taare Zameen Par — $5.99
Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na — $3.99
Secret Superstar — $3.99

Out of curiosity, I checked how the prices compared to a few other Hindi movies available for rent on YouTube. Chak De India rents for $1.99, and Shabaash Mithu rents for $3.99 (in high definition, like the Aamir Khan films).

For playback, I opted to watch Sitaare Zameen Par via the YouTube app on my Apple TV. However, the film can’t be rented through the Apple TV app directly. I had to rent it via the YouTube app on my phone first before I could play it on the Apple TV.

Overall, the picture and sound quality are good, comparable to other subscription streaming services. Turning the subtitles on and off is annoying in the Apple TV app. It kept accidentally fast-forwarding the movie when I tried to reach the “closed caption” menu.

I used my phone to cast the film from YouTube to my Chromecast and found it much easier to access the audio and subtitle menus, as you have to pause the movie before interacting with other menus. Since you have to use your phone to rent the movie anyway, I’d probably just cast from my phone to the Chromecast and skip the Apple TV for future YouTube rentals.

I’m not sure if this new rental format will be an industry game changer, but I hope it gives filmmakers an alternative avenue to digital accessibility. The major streamers are being more cautious about licensing content, and smaller films struggle to find an online home as a result. At the right price point, this could help these movies widen their reach after their theatrical runs end (or allow them to bypass theaters altogether).

Worst Bollywood Movies of 2024

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While I normally make a Top 10 (or Bottom 10, I guess) list of the worst movies of the year, I didn’t feel like I saw enough truly terrible Hindi films in 2024 to warrant a lengthy list. I’m instead going to highlight the four most problematic 2024 releases that I watched. Here are the worst of the worst:

Fighter was easily the most disappointing movie of 2024. Deepika Padukone and Hrithik Roshan in an action-packed Top Gun knockoff sounds like a recipe for success. Unfortunately, a jingoistic climax takes what should have been something silly and fun to a dark place.

Dibakar Banerjee tried to recreate the experience of watching a reality show, a Twitch stream, and sitting in a Zoom meeting for his anthology sequel LSD 2: Love Sex aur Dhokha 2. It’s an awkward format that is less enjoyable than doing any of the three things it mimics.

Annu Kapoor in drag could not save the dated, unfunny romantic comedy Luv Ki Arrange Marriage.

My worst movie of 2024 was admittedly one of the most entertaining that I watched all year, albeit for the wrong reasons. Horror director Vikram Bhatt went all-in on CGI for his latest, making a movie filmed almost entirely in front of a green-screen with sets and effects added in later. This isn’t unusual — one can’t exactly shoot a movie in outer space or on an alien planet — but it requires a lot of time and money to make it look convincing. Bhatt didn’t spend enough of either of those, resulting in a movie that looks cheap and weightless. His approach may be high-tech, but it doesn’t yield better results than his earlier films like Raaz or even Creature 3D. But if you want a laugh, watch my Worst Bollywood Movie of 2024: Bloody Ishq!

What was your least favorite movie of 2024? Let me know in the comments!

Kathy’s Worst Bollywood Movies of 2024

  1. Bloody Ishq – stream on Hulu
  2. Luv Ki Arrange Marriage – stream on ZEE5
  3. LSD 2 – stream on Netflix
  4. Fighter – stream on Netflix

Previous Worst Movies Lists

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Best Bollywood Movies of 2024

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With the first theatrical releases of 2025 due to make their streaming debuts any day now, it’s time to wrap up 2024. I wasn’t able to get to all of the films I wanted to review (sorry, Madgaon Express), but I did have 35 Hindi movies to choose from. Here are my Top 10 Bollywood Movies of 2024:

Sequels can’t help but be compared to the films that spawned them. Thankfully, Stree 2 had the same spooky, funny energy as the original Stree from 2018.

Choosing Laapataa Ladies as India’s submission to the most recent Oscars opened it up to unfair criticism, especially after it failed to make the shortlist for Best International Feature. Still, it’s a very cute story that introduced some fresh new acting talent.

If you’ve read any of my previous “Best of” lists, you know that they almost always include a Vidyut Jammwal action flick. This time it’s Crakk: Jeetegaa Toh Jiyegaa! (which is unfortunately not available anywhere in the United States at the time of this writing).

I’m a sucker for buddy comedies about women, and Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and Kriti Sanon came through with the heist flick Crew.

The movie that India’s selection committee should have picked as its Oscar submission was All We Imagine as Light, a great look at the alienation of modern day life in the city.

Some of my favorite performances of 2024 were by Deepak Dobriyal and Vikrant Massey in the tense serial killer drama Sector 36.

The most exciting action movie of the year was Kill. Watching Lakshya punch, kick, and hack his way through goons on a crowded train provided nonstop thrills.

Alia Bhatt makes an appearance on this list as an action heroine in the jailbreak drama Jigra. Vasan Bala is one of my favorite directors, and casting Bhatt as a sister who’ll do anything to save her imprisoned brother was a genius choice.

One of my other favorite filmmakers took a huge risk in shooting a thriller that consists almost entirely of footage meant to look like it was shot on a smartphone, and boy did it pay off. Vikramaditya Motwane trusted Ananya Pandey to lead the claustrophobic mystery CTRL as an influencer lured into a technological trap, and he was repaid with a career-best performance in a gripping film.

The best Hindi movie of the year told the true story of a controversial artist via a clever, memorable mix of narrative techniques. Diljeet Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra shone in their leading roles in my new favorite movie from writer-director Imtiaz Ali. The Best Bollywood Movie of 2024 is Amar Singh Chamkila!

What was your favorite Hindi film of 2024? What would have made your Top 10 list? Let me know in the comments!

Kathy’s Best Bollywood Movies of 2024

  1. Amar Singh Chamkila – stream on Netflix
  2. CTRL – stream on Netflix
  3. Jigra – stream on Netflix
  4. Kill – stream on Hulu; buy/rent on Amazon
  5. Sector 36 – stream on Netflix
  6. All We Imagine as Light – buy/rent on Amazon
  7. Crew – stream on Netflix
  8. Crakk
  9. Laapataa Ladies – stream on Netflix
  10. Stree 2 – stream on Amazon Prime

Previous Best Movies Lists

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

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: Sharmajee Ki Beti (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Sharmajee Ki Beti on Amazon Prime

First-time feature director Tahira Kashyap Khurrana (wife of actor Ayushmann Khurrana) shows a lot of promise with her comedy-drama Sharmajee Ki Beti (“Sharmajee’s Daughter“). The story peeks into the lives of five women and girls–all with the last name Sharma–living in the same apartment building, as they deal with different gender-related problems.

Kashyap Khurrana makes the mistake that plenty of filmmakers have made before by treating “women’s issues” as a single theme that can be addressed in its entirety in one film. It’s not a fatal flaw, but it does make the screenplay — which was written Kashyap Khurrana — feel unfocused at times.

The character whose arc least successfully integrates with the rest is that of Tanvi Sharma (Saiyami Kher), a single woman living in the building. She’s a state-level cricket player, but her actor boyfriend Rohan (Ravjeet Singh) only cares about her looks. Kher does a fine job showing Tanvi’s attempts to reconcile her self-image with the one Rohan wants her to present, but it’s a thin premise. The movie wouldn’t have suffered without her plotline.

Kashyap Khurrana had everything she needed for a full film with the four remaining Sharma ladies: the mother-daughter pairs of Jyoti (Sakshi Tanwar) & Swati (Vanshika Taparia) and Kiran (Divya Dutta) & Gurveen (Arista Mehta). Daughters Swati and Gurveen are 13-year-old best friends. Jyoti teaches at a coaching center, while Kiran is a stay-at-home mom.

Between them, Jyoti and Kiran face a lot of the problems of modern motherhood. Jyoti struggles to balance her career and the satisfaction it gives her with her duties to her sweet husband Sudhir (Sharib Hashmi) and to Swati. On the flip side, Kiran feels isolated after moving from Patiala to Mumbai, especially with her businessman husband Vinod (Parvin Dabas) acting distant and staying out late. Tanwar and Dutta are both terrific, but Dutta really makes the most of her sympathetic role.

The real stars of Sharmajee Ki Beti are the girls, Swati and Gurveen. The whole movie could have been about them. Their story arcs are that endearing and their performances are that charming. Swati is OBSESSED with the fact that she’s the only girl in her class that hasn’t gotten her period yet. Gurveen tolerates Swati’s constant menstrual talk, while coming to grips with her own preoccupation with one of the pretty older girls at school.

Kashyap Khurrana’s strongest attribute as a director is her faith in her actors, and that faith extends to the two teens playing Swati and Gurveen. The girls have long dialogue exchanges that are shot in one take, and Taparia and Mehta are more than up to the task. Their scenes together are the most immersive in the movie, because they feel like real friends. Keeping the camera on them for as long as Kashyap Khurrana does while both of them are in frame adds to the immersion.

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Vanshika Taparia as Swati. She gives an outstanding performance. She’s hysterically funny when bemoaning her delayed puberty. She’s also crushing in the way only a teen girl can be when her mom forgets to pick her up from school. The recent boom (comparatively speaking) in Hindi movies about teenagers gives me hope that we’ll get to see more of Taparia sooner rather than later. Her performance alone is reason enough to watch Sharmajee Ki Beti.

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Streaming Video News: June 27, 2024

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s world premiere of the Hindi film Sharmajee Ki Beti, starring Divya Dutta and Saiyami Kher.

Today’s other world premiere Hindi film is Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Rauta Ka Raaz, streaming now on Zee5.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s addition of the Hindi-dubbed version of the Malayalam film Aavesham. 2014’s Total Siyapaa is also now streaming. It’s not that great.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with the addition of the Telugu film Bhaje Vaayu Vegam. I also wrote a preview of Wild Wild Punjab for What’s on Netflix ahead of the film’s July 10 release.

If you’re looking for a fun podcast to listen to this weekend, I was recently a guest on the Bollywood Drafts Podcast. The premise of the podcast is to take a collection of films and rank them in reverse order from 13 to 1 to find the best movie of the bunch. Past topics include the films of Shah Rukh Khan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. For our episode, four of us — me, Shah Shahid, Nim Kaur, and Erin Fraser — ranked the movies that have won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress in the 21st Century. My unorthodox playing style may have driven host Manish Mathur a little crazy. Please give it a listen here. It was a blast to record!

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]