'Bulbbul' to 'Gehraiyaan': Five Hindi Films That Capture Fear in The Everyday

When one thinks of fear on screen, it is usually horror movies that come to mind. Ghosts. Zombies. Serial killers. Creatures. Possessed children. But fear isn’t the cornerstone of one genre of storytelling. It often lies in the eyes of the beholder. A love story can be scarily tragic. A coming-of-age drama may be frighteningly relatable. A political thriller can be eerily sinister. A sports biopic could be about overcoming the dread of failing.

Fear is an everyday emotion that cinema has co-opted, amplified, and literalised over the years. So, it’s essential to remember the modest foundation of this feeling. Some modern movies do it better than others. Here are five Hindi-language examples from this decade.

Bulbbul (2020)

Writer-director Anvita Dutt’s hauntingly composed paranormal period-fantasy about a chudail (witch) in 1880s Bengal is a feminist fable rooted in the idea of fear becoming a superpower of sorts. The crippling terror of patriarchy is what transforms a meek former child bride (Triptii Dimri) into a mythological vigilante figure. She is broken, then rises to spread the very dread she and others like her have endured. The emotion is usually framed as a bad thing, but when paired

with vulnerability, it results in a dark fairytale that turns the natural into the supernatural.

Homebound (2025)

Director Neeraj Ghaywan’s devastating social drama — adapted from a Basharat Peer article in The New York Times — revolves around two migrant workers who do everything to rise above their circumstances only to be reduced to a statistic during the pandemic-induced lockdown. The film is shaped by the fear of erasure. Mohammad Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan Kumar (Vishal Jethwa) rewire themselves to coexist with the ghosts of oppression instead of sacrificing their souls to beat these ghosts. It’s a journey of acceptance and calibrated hope; the spirit becomes bigger than any ghost that haunts them.

Gehraiyaan (2022)

The fear of becoming the very parents we try to outrun determines the story of a Mumbai-based woman (Deepika Padukone) torn between a broken past and a fading future. She makes messy choices in her pursuit of defying those fears, only to realise that she is not immune to the circularity of karma. While the movie is about the kind of “depth” that one can drown in, it’s also about the trepidation of swimming against the tide. Infidelity, betrayal, modern womanhood and ‘domestic noir’ are merely themes; the protagonist survives, but fear becomes the great leveller.

Merry Christmas (2024)

Most doomed romances are rooted in the fear of being alone — and the fear of trusting again. Director Sriram Raghavan’s twisted love story is about a single mother (Katrina Kaif) hoping to seduce a stranger (Vijay Sethupathi) into being the alibi for a perfect murder; unfortunately, the stranger is a former murderer on parole himself. Their journey revolves around him learning how to adopt her fear. It’s love wrapped in its most primal muscle: the antagonist of a previous horror film atones for his sin by protecting the protagonist of an ongoing one.

Badhaai Do (2022)

The fear of societal rejection punctuates the small-town story of a closeted police officer and a lesbian teacher who enter into a lavender marriage to escape their orthodox families. Rajkummar Rao (as Shardul) and Bhumi Pednekar (as Sumi) deliver career-topping performances in this tender and torrid tale of love in the time of enforced identity and suppressed sexuality. The fear of being persecuted by a heteronormative culture is one thing, but it’s the fear of losing themselves that makes for a bittersweet drama: poignant without being preachy.

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