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The Honours: Spotlight Recognises The Biggest Disruptors of 2025
The Honours by The Hollywood Reporter India celebrated these five artists who helped push Indian cinema into new and exciting terrains
The Hollywood Reporter India honoured five key artistes who disrupted the entertainment ecosystem in the inaugural edition of The Honours, held on February 18 in Mumbai.
The Honours is an RPSG Lifestyle Media property powered by The Hollywood Reporter India, a celebration of excellence in storytelling, across films and series, languages and geographies. The awards were curated by the editorial team of The Hollywood Reporter India, who spent over six months watching, mulling and arguing. With great passion and diligence, we’ve arrived at our best list. Here are five exceptional names who we recognise under The Honours Spotlight.
Basil Joseph for Ponman
Actor and director Basil Joseph delivered a phenomenal performance in the Malayalam box-office hit Ponman. In the role of P.P. Ajesh, a gold broker navigating the murky ethics of dowry and debt in Kerala's Latin Catholic community, Joseph delivers the kind of non-acting found in actors with decades of experience. In one stunning scene, framed in mid-shot after being slapped by a man twice his size, he speaks matter-of-factly about the man's football skills as tears roll down his face — a single-take performance so naturalistic you don't notice the acting at all. In this stressful, high-stakes drama where no character is easily categorised as hero or villain, Joseph anchors a complex moral universe with ease and precision. As stakes rise and loyalties shift, his interpretation of Ajesh holds the suspenseful drama together.
Dulquer Salmaan for Kaantha
Dulquer Salmaan turned in an arresting, career-defining performance in Selvamani Selvaraj's meta drama, Kaantha. In the role of T.K. Mahadevan, a narcissistic superstar wrestling with the multiple people he is expected to be, Salmaan delivers the finest work of his career. In certain scenes, he needs just one-tenth of an expression to convey insecurity, anger, rage, and heartbreak. This is an incredibly complex character — easy to empathise with but impossible to understand — and Salmaan inhabits him with devastating precision. He transforms from the man he once was to the man he has become, caught between the deafening applause and the cries of his own conscience. Propelled by his performance, Kaantha rises above a love letter to cinema to become an epic tragedy.
Lakshmipriya Devi for Boong
Lakshmipriya Devi made an extraordinary directorial debut with her BAFTA-nominated film Boong — a Manipuri film with a soul as big as the world. Following a naughty boy's search for his absent father, this tender coming-of-age story trusts its personal narrative to convey the history of a place without exoticising it. Her film resists overt political commentary despite being set in a deeply politicised space, choosing instead the perspective of childhood — where hope remains possible. Simple yet profound, raw yet resonant, Boong finished shooting just one week before ethnic violence erupted in Manipur in 2023, making it poignant proof of a region alive before disaster struck. Nominated for Best Children's and Family Film at the 2026 BAFTA Awards, this is cinema that opens doors — and windows.
Rohan Kanawade for Sabar Bonda
Rohan Kanawade made a pitch-perfect filmmaking debut with his Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film Sabar Bonda. This magnificent film about longing and belonging humanises the constraints of queer love with profound tenderness. Set during a 10-day mourning period in a village, the semi-autobiographical storytelling unfolds like a secret in plain sight — a meet-cute looking for anonymity rather than invisibility. Where other films reduce queer identity to its courage, Rohan refuses such simplifications, instead presenting love through indirectness, euphemism, and the conspiratorial silence of a community that knows without saying. With immaculate performances and an understanding that prohibition is integral to who these characters are, he has crafted a film that rises above victimhood to celebrate the multitudes of longing.
Vicky Kaushal for Chhaava
Vicky Kaushal turned in a fearless, physically demanding performance as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj in Chhaava. A decade into his remarkable career, Kaushal delivers something completely new — a portrayal of unflinching courage and emotional depth that Kaushal committed to, depicting historical brutality with raw authenticity. In bringing to life the story of a warrior who endured weeks of torture without surrendering his beliefs, Kaushal taps into something transcendent. As he himself reflected during filming, "I still can't fathom how a human being can go through all that and not give up what he stands for." This is performance as spiritual excavation — demanding, uncompromising, and utterly transformative.