The same setting, the same actors, and the same theme music, but nothing that feels mundane — that’s the beauty of Panchayat 2. Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, this TVF production will get you as emotionally invested in the lives of the village of Phulera and its residents as you were in the first season.

Modern Love Mumbai works beyond ‘butterflies’ to explore six unique yet universal stories of human connection and love in its varied forms.

Jayeshbhai Jordaar, written and directed by debutant Divyang Thakkar is a firecracker of a tale, but somewhere in the middle loses its spark. The film attempts to use humour and satire to question social issues like gender stereotype, disparity and female foeticide.

A suspenseful, dusty, neo-Western, small-town noir drama is what perfectly describes Thar. Directed by Raj Singh Chaudhary, the film dominates with a rape-revenge narrative on one hand. On the other, it’s a period police procedural that gets hijacked by a cold-blooded revenge drama.

Runway 34, directed by Ajay Devgn is a saviour-male complex led film with turbulence, that eventually struggles to land.

Morality, journalistic ethics, police corruption, the class divide, the challenges of being a single mother, the struggle for work-life balance, and the dynamics of privilege are all crammed up into this 128-minute film.

Kashmir has always had a turbulent past - from being a part of disputed territories to raging wars. Its history is often untold and unknown. But with The Kashmir Files, filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri tries to bring out an important aspect of Kashmiri history – the genocide and exodus of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits.

Sian Heder’s CODA is adapted from The Belier Family. But, what sets the film apart is the indescribable raw innocence that aids the drama. The stakes are not just external but equally internal and thus demand its characters to transform emotionally and psychologically. It also highlights two aspects of parenting.

An official adaptation of the British show Luther, this show makes the web debut of Ajay Devgn, through a perfect cat and mouse chase, with the past shimmering on multiple surfaces underneath.

With 7 Academy Award nominations this year, Belfast, directed by Kenneth Branagh is a twinkly-eyed childhood memoir set during the cold months of 1969, when outbursts of sectarian violence across Northern Ireland marked a change in the air.

Gangubai Kathiawadi is a story of an exceptional woman in an exceptional circumstance, filled with the Bhansali-esque poise, poetry, and grandeur.

The Fame Game, created by Sri Rao and directed by Bejoy Nambiar and Karishma Kohli explores the facets behind stardom, the harsh truths of the film industry, and how everything is more to what meets the eye.

A spiritual sequel to Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday, this film, written by Behzad Khambata and his co-writer Ashley Lobo deals with a ‘common man’s problem’. However, the fight and stakes this time are more personal, and social media is a central character.

Woody Allen’s Match Point , with a sprinkle of David Fincher’s Gone Girl, Gehraiyaan, is a deep-dive into the complexities of trauma, human behaviour and its consequences, that get painfully dissected in the lives of young upwardly mobile people.

Badhaai Do is another win for small-town stories, that takes two steps forward in terms of social significance. Written by Suman Adhikary, Akshay Ghildial, and director Harshvardhann Kulkarni, this film ticks several boxes in terms of representation: a lavender marriage, a desire to be parents, and an Arunachali partner.

The Great Indian Murder, based on the book Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup (whose previous book Q&A became the hit-film Slumdog Millionaire) and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia seems to traverse political and criminal corridors in a gritty way, but does not live up to the ‘Tigmanshu mark’ as seen before in Criminal Justice or Paan Singh Tomar.

Looop Lapeta, the adaptation of the German classic cult film Run Lola Run follows the same framework as the original. However, what saves this film is the direction and camera work : the true heroes are its technical crew, and it shows.

Taking from the first franchise of the film, Badhaai Ho (2018), this sequel, starring Rajkumar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar fails to bring anything new to the table.

Unpaused: Naya Safar carries on the first part of the anthology released earlier in December 2020. The only difference: Instead of one, two shorts stand out in this masked-up anthology.

Joel Coen’s adaptation of the Shakespearean play starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand leans into noirish interpretation but fails at many levels.