Every Shoojit Sircar Film, Ranked

The enduring conflict of a modern-day director is the balance between voice and vocation; between saying and selling. A lot of film-making is about shedding the initial idealism and misty-eyed gaze towards cinema. In that sense, Shoojit Sircar has grown to be a symbol of making the films you want to make. There’s a sense that he tells stories the way he chooses to, uncompromised and unburdened by the shifting landscape of Hindi cinema. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not an easy legacy to shoulder. But sometimes, creative agency is the only way out — and in. Sircar’s company, Rising Sun Films, is a consequence of early heartbreak; his unreleased Amitabh Bachchan starrer, Shoebite, became a casualty of a legal tussle between two production giants.

As a result, Sircar’s versatility — on par with perhaps only Vikramaditya Motwane from the current crop of filmmakers — is an example of how to best wield this freedom. There’s no such thing as a “Shoojit Sircar movie”. The flipside is that there’s no excuse for getting it wrong or playing it safe. Fortunately, he’s never needed that excuse. Each of his 7 features is a fascinating diversion from the trappings of Hindi cinema. They range from a haunting anti-war romance (Yahaan), a gritty political thriller (Madras Cafe) and an existential freedom-fighter biopic (Sardar Udham) to a quirky social-message comedy (Vicky Donor), a sharp caregiving dramedy (Piku), a coming-of-age mood poem (October) and a snarky landlord-tenant fable (Gulabo Sitabo). Not to mention his writer-producer avatar for Pink, an era-shifting courtroom drama that altered the discourse around consent and sexual abuse in a country averse to humble pie.

Most of these titles have been powered by a distinct find-your-tribe vibe — his collaborations with screenwriter Juhi Chaturvedi and producer Ronnie Lahiri are the stuff of film-school dreams. So much of his work stems from cultural and artistic curiosity that he transcends labels like ‘mainstream’ and ‘indie’. The craft remains compelling without being flashy; the vision remains personal without being defiant.

Centered on an ailing NRI man (Abhishek Bachchan) and his complex bond with his daughter, I Want To Talk will be Sircar’s 8th film — and it’s only fitting that it looks just as atypical. It also offers the perfect excuse to write about his career in the language of a ranking list. It’s a tough one. Not only has Sircar never made an ordinary film, each of the top 3 could be his finest in any given week. With that disclaimer, here goes:

7. Gulabo Sitabo (2020)

This texturally rich Tom and Jerry-coded comedy based on a stingy Muslim landlord (Amitabh Bachchan) and his grumpy tenant (Ayushmann Khurrana) is at once sharp and meandering. Sharp, because the film’s themes — the contrasting Indian fixations with heritage and capitalism; the quantification of history; the strangely secular battle between tradition and newness — reflect the setting of Lucknow and its idiosyncratic characters. Everybody is an “antique piece” in more ways than one. Meandering, because it’s hard to watch a loop of unlikable people plotting against each other for two hours. Sircar takes a big swing with Gulabo Sitabo, a one-line premise that employs pointlessness as a medium to explore pricelessness. Greed is the hero of the film. The climactic twist unfolds as a punchline that — much like life itself — uses masculinity as a ruse. It’s a socially reimagined version of Succession, in which the siblings were so busy scrambling for the throne that nobody saw ‘Tom’ coming. Come for Bachchan and Khurrana, stay for Farrukh Jaffar’s turn as the hidden protagonist of a cynical fairytale.

6. Yahaan (2005)

They say your first film is often your most fearless. It’s a testament to Sircar that Yahaan — a lyrical love-in-the-time-of-Kashmir debut — is not only a prelude to a fearless career but also its own brand of cultural bravery. Yahaan, on paper, features a forbidden romance between an Indian Army commander and a Kashmiri girl against the backdrop of Valley violence. But the paper bleeds onto the screen in Scandinavian-true-crime blues, Dil Se-lite songs and meet-cutes, politically canny subplots, and an affection for visual storytelling. If you try to recall Yahaan today, you think of an atmosphere — a cold and haunting aesthetic — and not any singular moment. You think of sounds instead of words, humanity instead of radicalism, which is an accomplishment in an age of the formulaic Kashmir gaze. The facile climax aside, the film has signs of the director’s future hits: a plucky female protagonist, a solid cast, a symmetrical worldview, and the artistic gumption to scrutinise a land rather than a landscape.

5. Madras Cafe (2013)

A Hindi action drama about a R&AW agent without any mention of Pakistan, glitzy pyrotechnics or a one-man army saving India is unthinkable today. But before Sircar redefined the historical biopic with Sardar Udham (2021), he almost did the same with the ‘Bollywood spy thriller’. Madras Cafe happened in the age of Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Agent Vinod (2012), unfolding as a gritty and politically expressive antidote to a hypercommercial genre. The setting is loaded. Against the cloak-and-daggers backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war, an Indian operative uncovers the conspiracy to assassinate prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and scrambles to stop it. The tragedy of it all is imminent, which makes Sircar’s movie a worthy alt-perspective sibling of Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se. Despite starring a brawny action star like John Abraham, the film chooses to be a lithe and ground-level interrogation of history — one where there is no hero, no winner, no survivor and no credit. More than a decade later, Madras Cafe is even more significant for its progressive dismantling of Hindi cinema’s allegiance and violence problem.

4. Vicky Donor (2012)

Over the last decade, the Hindi social-message movie has mutated into a cash-grabbing algorithm; commentary is used as a parachute for plummeting entertainment standards. Ironically, one could blame Vicky Donor for being so good that it convinced others to imitate the genre. A breakout hit for both Sircar and future star Ayushmann Khurrana, Vicky Donor expertly juggles intent and content. The plot revolves around the tragicomic adventures of a sperm donor who struggles to keep his ‘profession’ a secret after falling in love. The easy humour and cross-cultural colour — where Vicky’s loud Punjabi family clashes with his girlfriend Ashima’s liberal Bengali clan — are the film’s calling cards. But it’s the progressive little touches — like the woman being a divorcee, or fertility expert Dr. Chaddha’s commercial-yet-paternal nature — that changed the game. Sircar and writer Juhi Chaturvedi nail the balance between giggling and preaching; between ethnic satire and moral drama. Consequently, years later, Vicky Donor remains the first word in the Cinema of Public Service.

3. Sardar Udham (2021)

In an era of biopic overkill and jingoism, Shoojit Sircar’s Sardar Udham is a film unlike any other. As a biographical drama of an Indian revolutionary, it challenges the very idea of patriotism. The story is about Udham Singh, a freedom fighter known for the assassination of Michael O’Dwyer, the lieutenant governor of Punjab responsible for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. But much of the film shows the in-between portions of a life in transit. Udham Singh is seen as a lone wolf — on silent journeys, between cold destinations, on the run, in hiding, undercover, stammering, waiting — possessed by the mundanity of revenge. His killing of Dwyer becomes a statement against British rule, but it feels more personal than political. A terrific Vicky Kaushal turn suggests that Udham was a pre-Independence drifter — an orphan, a former soldier for the British Indian army — until the tragedy. The narrative reflects the non-linearity of grief, an emotion that defines Singh’s quest. The final 20 minutes feature a technically masterful and unyielding depiction of violence; it’s the most riveting “action” sequence in new-age Hindi cinema. The film ends, but it’s the beginning of Sardar Udham Singh. He was just a boy who lost a girl to the simplified pages of history.

2. Piku (2015)

Piku epitomizes Sircar’s seamless synergy with Juhi Chaturvedi. The anti-story of an independent Delhi-based Bengali woman (a career-best Deepika Padukone) and her needy, hypochondriac dad (Amitabh Bachchan) is a masterclass in spatial, conversational and emotional staging. Not a frame looks curated, not a character sounds designed. Every scene bristles with lived-in energy, overlapping emotions, observational humour and wry affection. The film’s cultural identity triggers the sort of social dynamics sorely missing from modern storytelling. Piku symbolises a generation torn between parental reverence and resentment; between caregiving and individualism; between being held back and moving forward. She is “shackled” by duty, but she also knows no other way of loving; the push and pull between programmed desire and natural duty defines the film. The film captures the precise period in which one is holding on and the other is letting go — only we don’t know which is which. It isn’t afraid to be mature about a tricky theme, never losing sight of the fact that the road trip to their ancestral home is a front for the man’s fatherhood. He passes away the moment he sees a future of companionship for his daughter. Some call it toxic control, others call it the lyricism of living.

1. October (2018)

Like most people, I don’t rewatch movies that are instantly forgettable. But October is something I haven’t had the courage to rewatch because it’s unforgettable. It’s the first-kiss syndrome; the viewer is unwilling to change their memory of a lingering experience. It ties into the haunting ghost story that October is — a rare Hindi film that’s a season, a place, a romance, a coming-of-age tragedy and a tender psychological drama all at once. It revolves around Dan (Varun Dhawan), a rakish intern who works in the hospitality sector only to evolve within the confines of a hospital. When Dan discovers that Shuili, a colleague he barely knew, asked for him moments before slipping off a terrace, he begins to spend his days by her side. A man-child falling for a comatose and unconsenting woman might be creepy in most cases, but October mines the relationship between grief and masculinity. It’s almost as if Dan strives to rescue her to rescue himself; he seeks purpose and direction in his idea of an unrequited relationship. She becomes his escape and his reckoning — a notion so thorny that it’s a wonder a film like October exists and persists. It’s an achingly imagined portrait of the space that connects the stories people tell themselves with the truths they choose to become. All along, Sircar’s craft rarely lets us forget that this is in fact Shuili’s world, and Dan is just living in — and stumbling through — it.