Naangal

Are the kids doing okay? Avinash Prakash’s searing and atmospheric drama is a coming-of-age story that does not lead to convenient answers. It is a provocative tale of repression and fractured parenthood. We follow three young siblings (Mithun V, Rithik M, and Nithin D), who are under the unrelenting gaze of their father. He slaps them again and again for a misstep, and the violence gradually registers in the film like a storm. He wants them to be responsible and motivated from a young age, but at what cost? Naangal is a film that cuts deep.

Be patient

Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda is the year’s most resonant and tender film. It would be wrong to slot it, which won big at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, as just a gay romance. It is just a love story, a story of homecoming, that arrives like a gentle stream. Laced with beautiful performances from Bhushaan Manoj and Suraaj Suman, Sabar Bonda makes space for two men to exist amid the pressures of being non-conformist in a heteronormative socio-cultural space. This is a film which truly understands what it means to be gay in India.

Also read: Sabar Bonda review: Rohan Kanawade delivers a tender, deeply moving study of queer love in one of the year’s best films

Jugnuma- The Fable

Manoj Bajpayee gave one of his best performances in Raam Reddy’s Jugnuma- The Fable. Set in the Indian Himalayas of the late 1980s, this mystical drama steadily envelops the viewer in its own world and refuses to let go. Stunningly shot by Sunil Borkar on 16mm film, Jugnuma is filled with dreamy, immersive visuals which guide the viewer to its cautionary tale of ecological decay. There is nothing mysterious about inherited privilege, the film says.

Also read: The Fable director Raam Reddy: ‘I really wanted to create a unique brand of magical realism’

Deep Fridge

In Arjunn Dutta’s Deep Fridge, there is no such thing as a happily ever after. Ex-spouses Swarnava (Abir Chatterjee) and Mili (Tnusree Chakraborty) confront their past, and how they have processed the hurt, frustrations and discomfort along the lines of their time together. What can change now? They can’t be hurt for so long; they must know when to move on. It is a meditative, richly observed look at the way we communicate and choose to survive.

Thalavara

Arjun Asokan shoulders this effective character study of a young man with vitiligo, chasing an acting career. Jyothish is met with scepticism and ridicule, but thankfully, Akhil Anilkumar’s film never sensationalises those moments. The film grants him space and time. Although the film might be a little melodramatic at times, Thalavara remains sensitively written and performed.

Sthal

Finally, a film which does not aestheticise how marriages are fixed in India. No place for unnecessary falling in love, no boy-meets-girl fluff, and no songs. The Marathi feature Sthal, directed by Jayant Digambar Somalkar, confronts the ugly and humiliating realities of arranged marriages. It centres around Savita (a superb Nandini Chikte), a woman who finds herself helplessly objectified and compared on the basis of her skin colour, height, and caste identity. This is a film that wants you to empathise with Savitha, and so many women like her, who are subjected to such prejudice.

Also read: Sthal review: A confident, unsparing look at the reality of Indian match-making

Agra

Kanu Behl’s Agra is a film of dizzying, frenetic energy. It is a film bound to make you uncomfortable, but it also wants you to see its tormented characters till the last moment. The casual violence in Guru’s (Mohit Agarwal) family becomes a microcosmic lens of a country left with no choice when it comes to power and privacy. Guru’s desires and frustrations fester due to the suffocating environment from which he demands space. Behl does not sensationalise his deep-seated sexual repression, but there is nothing clean in it. Is India ready for that conversation yet?

Also read: Agra movie review: Kanu Behl confronts sexual repression in the boldest, most vital film of the year

Avihitham

Avihitham, the Malayalam film from director Senna Hegde, is a potent black comedy about patriarchal society’s obsession with unnecessary gossip, moral policing, and scrutiny. When Prakashan (Renji Kankol) spots what appears to be an illicit affair between a local man, Vinod (Vineeth Vasudevan), and a woman in his village, it sets off a chain reaction of perceptions. Public lives become fodder for rumours and public spectacle. This is an important film, told with subtlety and confidence.

Stolen

Karan Tejpal’s survival thriller, about two brothers who become entangled in the desperate search for a kidnapped baby, is one film that hooks you from the first frame and doesn’t let go. Led by Abhishek Banerjee’s standout performance, it places the viewer directly inside the chaos and frenzy of the situations that unfold in quick succession. It is brutal, unforgiving and ultimately questions the devastating silence of a society that feels like a trap.

Also read: Stolen review: A survival drama done right, with an in-form Abhishek Banerjee

There are four flowers and there is the world

The recent death of acclaimed writer Vinod Kumar Shukla grants this beautiful documentary an added layer of melancholic grace. In director Achal Misra’s perceptive and evocative frames, the writer comes alive in his quiet and careful observations on a life lived in creative pursuit. It feels akin to spending a day with him, luxuriating in his presence. This is a wonderful and immensely moving document on one of our greatest writers.

Also read: Interview | Achal Mishra on meeting Vinod Kumar Shukla, making Chaar Phool Hain Aur Duniya Hai