Vishal Menon reviews Baby Girl, the new thriller from director Arun Varma that features Nivin Pauly in what feels like an afterthought role added purely for marketing purposes. Vishal notes the film contains a compelling moral dilemma—who deserves to be a mother, the woman capable of giving birth or the woman who can give unconditional love—explored through characters Ritu played by Lijomol and 19-year-old Meenakshi. However, writers Bobby Sanjay turn this potential into a convoluted mess, treating the baby like a missing courier and parading doubtful characters with skewed logic while relying on implausible coincidences to move the plot forward.

Vishal finds the filmmaking dated and basic, like something from the late 90s, with characters meant to look like gypsies appearing borrowed from a school cultural fest. He singles out Sam CS’s music as jarring and stilted, sounding like it was scored by prompting Gemini with “thriller movie music.” The police officers feel irrelevant, dramatic moments turn unserious with weak performances, and Nivin’s character Sanal keeps popping back into action whenever he’s been missing too long. Vishal concludes that Baby Girl is no match to the classic Traffic that the same team made over a decade ago, and ironically in a film about the divine blessing of childbirth, the baby herself feels like little more than a cute plot point.

Suchin Mehrotra reviews Daldal, the 7-episode crime thriller from creator Suresh Triveni streaming on Amazon Prime Video and adapted from Vish Dhamija's bestselling novel Bhendi Bazaar. Suchin admires the show's daring to defy algorithm-driven storytelling and refuse to handhold audiences, but finds the execution falls short of its ambitious aspirations. He praises Bhumi Pednekar for bringing stillness and conviction to her role as angry, tortured cop Rita Farrera, calling it a character that deserves a better show, while noting Aditya Rawal continues to prove he's one of the most exciting young actors around as drug addict Sajid.

Despite committed performances from leads including Samara Tijori as serial killer Anant, Suchin finds the show feels like moody, violent, scattered, sad vibes without the required tension of a cat-and-mouse thriller. He criticizes the structure for taking two full episodes to establish who's who, then lacking enough pilot mileage to sustain seven episodes. Director Amrit Raj Gupta and the writers attempt to explore deeper themes of trauma and abuse but seem to forget the surface itself, with the final showdown descending into a messy blur. Suchin concludes it's ironic that a series daring to rise above formula makes you yearn for a little formula to make it go down easier—a well-intentioned, indulgent misfire.

Anupama Chopra reviews Primate, the new horror film from British director Johannes Roberts that delivers a deliciously simple premise: a loving family's pet chimpanzee contracts rabies and turns into a ferocious killer, trapping alluring teenagers in a beautiful cliffside house in Hawaii. Anupama praises the masterstroke of setting much of the action around the swimming pool, since the chimp Ben can't swim and the rabies makes him hydrophobic, turning the water into the only safe haven. She highlights the wondrous work of movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba, whose mix of makeup, special effects, and practical effects makes Ben feel horrifically real rather than an alienating CGI creature.

At a crisp 89 minutes, Anupama notes that Johannes keeps audiences properly terrorized with brutal blood-letting—faces ripped off, chests and heads smashed in—building tension with ruthless efficiency. The cast includes Oscar winner Troy Kotsur as the deaf father Adam, adding another layer to the horror. Anupama confesses she only got through some scenes by closing her eyes, and advises viewers not to look for nuance or subtext. Primate hurtles along like a boulder delivering elemental pleasures, and sometimes that's all you need at the movies.

Anupama Chopra reviews Border 2, the sequel to J.P. Dutta's blockbuster war film released nearly 30 years ago, now directed by Anurag Singh and set during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Anupama praises the first half for juggling multiple characters, action, and emotion with dexterity, highlighting Anurag's forte for distilling tears from a few lines of dialogue. The film features four leading men—Sunny Deol as Lieutenant Colonel Fateh Singh Kaler, Varun Dhawan as Major Hoshiar Singh Dahiya, Diljit Dosanjh as ace pilot Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon, and Ahan Shetty as Navy man Rawat—with Sunny delivering the best hero entry through an elaborate fight with nifty footwork on landmines. Anupama notes that Mona Singh is lovely as Fateh's beleaguered wife, and Diljit's irrepressible charm brings levity that lights up the screen.

However, Anupama finds the film wobbles in its three-hour-twenty-minute runtime, with sea battles featuring rudimentary VFX, land battles becoming eye-glazing, and enemy soldiers portrayed as buffoons that never make the stakes feel high enough. She observes the film leans heavily into nostalgia for the original, including casting Ahan who can't match the stony strength of his father Suniel Shetty as Bhairon. Patriotism becomes a substitute for plot, and while Sunny nearing 70 can still do the heavy lifting with panache, the war scenes grow repetitive even as the emotional ones hit the high notes.

Vishal Menon reviews Chatha Pacha, the new action comedy from director Advaith Nayar that’s being marketed as India’s first WWE-style wrestling movie. Vishal praises the film’s nostalgic power, beginning with a flashback of three little boys wrestling on their parents’ double cot—a visual that transports 90s and 2000s kids back to when they refused to believe wrestling was fake. He highlights how the film explores sibling rivalry through matches where real-life fights mirror wrestling bouts that were meant to be staged, drawing parallels to the OG Malayalam wrestling comedy Mutharamkunnu PO directed by Sibi Malayil.

The scenes within the ring are so well choreographed that Vishal feels like he’s watching ringside, inches away from beads of sweat flying toward him. He notes that leads Arjun Ashokan and Roshan Mathew channel the biggest sibling war of childhood—Kane and Undertaker—while Vishak Nair delivers the film’s most interesting character as the complex antagonist Cherian. Vishal acknowledges the writing falters with rushed details and unanswered questions, but when a two-and-a-half-hour film feels two-and-a-half minutes long, the crew has done something right. Chatha Pacha may not be a Stone Cold stunner, but works as a lovingly made tribute to boys who dared to try it at home.

Suchin Mehrotra reviews Space Gen: Chandrayaan, the new 5-episode series from TVF streaming on JioHotstar that dramatizes ISRO's historic Chandrayaan 3 mission. Suchin finds the show treats its audience like toddlers, with heavy-handed exposition, wafer-thin characters, and a relentless need to amp up drama where none is needed. He highlights how talented actors like Gopal Dutt, Prakash Belawadi, and Danish Sait are reduced to irritating caricatures, while lead Nakuul Mehta delivers what Suchin calls "the single most irritating protagonist in recent memory."

Despite the inherently compelling story of India becoming the first nation to land on the lunar south pole, Suchin argues the series squanders its potential with loud emotion, tacky packaging, and branded content sensibilities. He notes the special thanks to ISRO's PR team in the credits "says it all," and concludes he'd happily take a million Mission Mangals over this disappointing effort from the usually competent TVF.

Anupama Chopra reviews Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos, the directorial debut of co-directors Vir Das and Kavi Shastri. Vir plays a bumbling 34-year-old wannabe secret agent who has failed the MI7 test seven times. Raised in the UK by his gay dads—both legendary agents—Happy travels to Goa to rescue a kidnapped British citizen, despite his real talents being cooking and ballet. Anupama finds the film a gleeful, good-natured comedy that takes potshots at everything from Bollywood tropes to fairness creams to colonialism, but without malice or the edginess of Vir's earlier collaboration with producer Aamir Khan, Delhi Belly.

The cast plays along beautifully—Mithila Palkar as an aggressive local dancer, Sharib Hashmi as a local fixer, and Mona Singh having a ball as uber don Mama. Imran Khan's cameo, his first screen appearance in nearly a decade, is guaranteed to make audiences smile. While there are stretches where the humour dips, Anupama calls this a welcome change from both gritty spy thrillers and glamorous globe-trotting ones—Happy is the distant desi cousin of Johnny English and Austin Powers, propelled by earnestness and Vir's profound sweetness.

Kairam Vaashi reviews Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu, director Anil Ravipudi’s latest Sankranthi release starring Megastar Chiranjeevi. While Anil has earned his reputation as the “Sankranthi director” with hits like Sankranthiki Vastunam, F2, and F3, Kairam finds this outing considerably more basic—functional filmmaking with convenient writing and comedy that lands only about half the time. Nayanthara has little to do, Venkatesh’s cameo feels force-fitted, and most supporting characters could be removed without notice.

What saves the film is Chiranjeevi himself. Present in nearly 90% of scenes, the 70-year-old legend slips effortlessly into his Chantabbai zone—doing self-deprecating humour, weeping at TV serials, mimicking Rajinikanth, and reminding audiences he was always a terrific actor before becoming a star. Kairam’s verdict: a very basic film made watchable by one of Indian cinema’s most comfortable screen presences.

Kairam Vaashi reviews The Raja Saab, directed by Maruthi and starring Prabhas. The film follows Raju, whose sole mission is to reunite his Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother Gangamma, played beautifully by Zarina Wahab, with her long-lost husband Kanakaraju, played by Sanjay Dutt. Kairam admits he was nervous about this project from day one, questioning whether Maruthi could deliver a Prabhas film given the director hadn't previously worked with a Telugu Tier-1 star or handled films of this scale. Unfortunately, those fears have largely been realised.

Kairam finds the second half genuinely fun once the characters enter a haunted palace, with engaging mind-game sequences between Sanjay and Boman Irani, and between Sanjay and Prabhas forming the strongest dramatic portions. However, the first half struggles with a lack of focus as it plods through Nidhhi Agerwal's track, Malavika Mohanan's track, and Samuthirakani appearing in and out of the narrative without real dramatic or comedic energy. While Kairam gives kudos to Prabhas for choosing a film outside his familiar action-gangster zone, he notes the star doesn't appear comfortable in songs and lacks his full vigour. Thaman's music, particularly "Rebel Saab" and "Sahana," sounds good on the big screen, but the picturisation could have been far better. Kairam concludes that in The Raja Saab, the second half is the Raja, the first half is the sob, making it a middling outing for Prabhas.

Anupama Chopra reviews Laalo – Krishna Sada Sahaayate, the Hindi dub of Gujarati cinema's biggest blockbuster. Released in October with minimal fanfare, the original became a word-of-mouth sensation and the first Gujarati film to cross 100 crores at the box office. With a modest budget of one crore 10 lakh, Anupama argues it's arguably 2025's most successful film in terms of ROI. Debutant director Ankit Sakhiya has crafted an emotionally resonant morality tale about Laalo, a rickshaw driver in Junagadh whose life has been eroded by alcohol addiction.

Anupama highlights Karan Joshi's layered performance as the broken protagonist, rendering his hollow masculinity, cruelty, and inherent goodness with equal conviction. Shruhad Goswami plays Lord Krishna with a lovely lingering smile and benevolent mischief, while Reeva Rachh delivers a solid turn as Tulsi. Though the film occasionally slips into preachiness, Ankit largely resists heavy-handedness, presenting Lord Krishna as a friend and guide. Anupama concludes that while the film draws from Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life and Vikramaditya Motwane's Trapped, it ultimately delivers a universal message about living with grace and generosity.

Suchin Mehrotra reviews Freedom At Midnight Season 2, the concluding chapter of the Nikkhil Advani-directed series based on Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins's book of the same name. Streaming on SonyLIV, this seven-episode season follows the weeks and months leading up to India's independence, the horrors of Partition, and the challenging period that followed. Suchin finds the second season far stronger and more affecting than its admirable yet emotionally distant predecessor, tackling explosive events from the largest mass migration in human history to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Suchin highlights the conviction and sophistication in the storytelling, praising the writing team of Abhinandan Gupta, Gundeep Kaur, Adwitiya Kareng Das, Divy Nidhi Sharma, Revanta Sarabhai, and Ethan Taylor, along with DOP Malay Prakash's painstaking frames and Ashutosh Pathak's sensitive score. The performances shine, particularly Rajendra Chawla as a scene-stealing Sardar Patel, Luke McGibney as a surprisingly dimensional Lord Mountbatten, and powerful cameos from Abhishek Banerjee and Anurag Thakur. While Sidhant Gupta's Nehru hits hardest in vulnerable moments and Arif Zakaria's Jinnah risks feeling like a villain, editor Shweta Venkat ensures episodes feel alive through striking montages marrying real-life footage with fiction. Suchin concludes that if this show indicates the calibre of storytelling ahead, there may still be hope for the year.

In The Hollywood Reporter India’s Best Hindi Shows of 2025, deputy editor Suchin Mehrotra celebrates a year that proved the finest Hindi-language storytelling continues to thrive on streaming platforms. From Vikramaditya Motwane and Satyanshu Singh’s tremendously crafted prison drama Black Warrant, featuring Zahan Kapoor’s excellent turn as a Tihar jail superintendent, to Sudip Sharma’s stunning sophomore season of Paatal Lok with Jaideep Ahlawat delivering one of the great performances as the tragic Hathi Ram Chaudhary. Writer-director Pushkar Sunil Mahabal’s dazzlingly inventive true-crime thriller Black White And Gray earns praise as one of the coolest and most distinctive Indian shows Suchin has ever watched.

The list also spotlights creator Smita Singh’s singular supernatural series Khauf, where Monica Panwar navigates the bone-chilling horrors of being a woman in Delhi—proving that nothing is scarier than real life. Rounding out the picks is the achingly sincere Real Kashmir Football Club, starring Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub and Manav Kaul as two men building Kashmir’s first professional football club from nothing. Special mentions go to Nagesh Kukunoor’s The Hunt for its brave finale, Netflix’s Bads Of Bollywood for its comedy gold, and Maharani Season 4 for remaining deliciously watchable after four seasons. These shows represent the ambitious, boundary-pushing storytelling that Indian streaming was always meant to champion.

In The Hollywood Reporter India's Top 5 Films of 2025, editor Anupama Chopra curates her definitive list of the year's most powerful cinema. From Neeraj Ghaywan's deeply urgent COVID-19 drama Homebound, which chronicles the friendship between a Muslim man and a Dalit man battling impossible circumstances, to Rohan Parashuram Kanawade's languid and lyrical Sabar Bonda—a gay love story set in rural Maharashtra that surprises with its tenderness and grace. Writer-director-actor Rishab Shetty's Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1 delivers a dazzling prequel set 1,500 years ago, featuring action sequences and a performance unlike anything Anupama has ever witnessed.

Mari Selvaraj's ferocious sports drama Bison Kaalamaadan earns the number two spot, with Dhruv Vikram delivering a blistering performance as a kabaddi player from an oppressed caste navigating caste politics and a fraught relationship with his father. But the crown belongs to Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra—writer-director Dominic Arun and dramaturgist Santhy Balachandran's critically acclaimed blockbuster that proves a female vampire superhero can be both heartbreaking and thrilling. From Netflix to Amazon Prime Video to Jio Hotstar, this list spans languages, genres, and streaming platforms, showcasing Indian cinema at its most diverse and daring. These five films represent storytelling that challenges, moves, and entertains in equal measure.

Kairam Vaashi reviews 45, the directorial debut of celebrated Kannada music director Arjun Janya. The film stars Shiva Rajkumar, Upendra, and Raj B Shetty in a fantasy drama rooted in themes from the Garuda Purana—exploring death, karma, and the five fundamental fears one must conquer in life.

Kairam examines how Vinay, played by Raj, becomes the axis of the story after a fateful action brings him into conflict with Upendra's Raayappa, while Shiva's Shivappa steps in as his unlikely protector. The review breaks down where the film's ambitious vision connects and where it falls short—from stretched sequences and a weak love track to inconsistent VFX and a jarring background score.

For Kairam, the film truly finds its spark only when Shiva enters the narrative, bringing screen presence, playfulness, and dignity that keep 45 afloat. He also touches on the Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana callback, retro song choices, and a climax surprise.

The THR India verdict? Full marks for effort and ambition, but the execution doesn't quite match the promise.

Kairam Vaashi reviews The Devil, the latest Kannada film starring Darshan Thoogudeepa, which released to packed theatres despite its leading man being in judicial custody. Kairam notes this marks the second time in Darshan's career that a film has released under such circumstances, following Saarathi fourteen years ago. The review examines how director Prakash kept the film's central plot twist hidden from the trailer, revealing a mistaken identity narrative that offers Darshan two distinct shades to portray—the virtuous do-gooder and the titular devil.

While acknowledging the film's production challenges, uneven pacing, and dated treatment, Kairam finds the interplay between Darshan's dual roles to be the film's strongest element. Supporting performances from Mahesh Manjrekar and Achyuth Kumar start promisingly but don't quite sustain, and Rachana Rai's role remains underwritten. For hardcore fans, there's plenty to celebrate, but Kairam concludes that beyond Darshan's performance, The Devil doesn't offer much beyond a watchable experience carried largely by its star's devoted fanbase.

In his review for THR India, Vishal Menon calls Kalamkaval a genre refiner for Malayalam cinema — a film that redefines the serial killer thriller through its masterful blend of screenwriting and editing. Directed by debutant Jithin K. Jose, the film features Mammootty in a role unlike any in his 400+ film career, playing a brutal serial killer with chilling precision. Vishal highlights a stunning 20-minute sequence in the first hour as possibly the most elegant stretch of Malayalam cinema this year, where timelines, victims, and identities merge seamlessly. The music by Mujeeb Majeed and cinematography by Faisal Ali create a labyrinthine atmosphere impossible to escape, while Vinayakan anchors the film as the obsessive officer on the killer's trail.

Vishal notes that unlike films such as Anjaam Pathiraa, Abraham Ozler, or the Tamil hit Ratsasan, Kalamkaval doesn't work overtime to justify its killer's psyche through elaborate backstories. Instead, Jithin lets images from Stanley's past speak for themselves, trusting the audience to grasp the horror without spoon-feeding. For Vishal, it's Mammootty who steals the film — embodying both the charm of a debonair and the menace of a murderer in the same breath. Who ever thought we could love him even more by playing a character that deserves all the hate in the world?