We recommend: The best new movies and TV series
Editor’s note: Once more, a toxic man is in theatres harassing his leading lady, to AR Rahman tunes. But, hey, Zootopia 2, sequel to the charming and intelligent 2016 animated film, is running as well. There's also a Sanjay Leela Bhansali-lite this weekend with Gulzar & Vishal Bhardwaj's songs. On OTT, Stranger Things will steal all the attention, but keep an eye out for Left-Handed Girl and The Stringer.
New Releases
Tere Ishk Mein (Hindi)
Dhanush co-stars with Kriti Sanon in a Varanasi-set story about a toxic relationship. Yes, of course, it sounds familiar. Dhanush, with director Aanand L Rai, charmed Hindi audiences in 2013 with the very similar Raanjhanaa. After a string of flops, Rai is repeating himself looking for success, counting on Dhanush’s star-power to help him sail through.
Reviews are negative across the board; it’s turned out to be too crass and bizarre. (Of course, in a climate where Animal, a film about a man who calls himself an “alpha male” in as many words, is a blockbuster, perhaps the makers understand India better than critics.)
Scroll’s review starts on an indignant note and remains so for its entirety: “The man you were told to stay away from in school, college, adulthood? The man who inked your name on his arm without informing you, who declared that he would die for you without you wanting him to, who stalked you while you were trying to move on? Tere Iskh Mein is about that man.” No harm trying if you’re into Dhanush (why not?) and bad boys.
Where to watch: Theatres
Zootopia 2 (English)
The sequel to the 2016 anthropomorphic hit animated film, Zootopia 2 takes you on a ride to rehabilitate the image of…wait for it…snakes. Nick Wilde, the fox (voiced by Jason Bateman), and Judy Hopps, the rabbit (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), return as the unlikely cop duo, hoping to uncover how the snakes have been wronged in their perfect little world. The film follows the two as they dig into the history of their community and how it was founded, asking the question—are snakes not as bad as we’ve all been told?
With a stellar line-up including Idris Elba, Ke Huy Quan, Quinta Brunson, Andy Samberg, Brenda Song, Macaulay Culkin, and more, Zootopia has big shoes to fill after the success of the original film. Can it match the humour and warmth of its predecessor? We think so. If anything, at least the animals are cute.
Where to watch: Theatres
Gustaakh Ishq (Hindi)
This one is a love letter to the Urdu language, through poet Aziz, played by Naseeruddin Shah, and his self-declared student Babban (Vijay Varma). Plot: Babban has to save his family’s Urdu press back home in Delhi, for which he travels to Punjab to get hold of the poems written but never published anywhere by Aziz. His daughter, Minnie (Fatima Sana Shaikh), becomes Babban’s romantic interest.
The director is Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s one-time assistant Vibhu Puri, who has inherited his mentor’s aptitude for constructing beautiful frames and filling them with beautiful people saying beautiful things. Music by Vishal Bhardwaj & lyrics by Gulzar. Perfect date film for anybody who is not from STEM, or is from STEM but irritated with it.
Where to watch: Theatres
Kaisi Ye Paheli (Hindi)
An interesting mix of a detective drama and a mother-son story. This one is set in a fictional hill station where a cop and his detective novel-obsessed mother team up, after much heartache over shared trauma, to investigate a murder.
Director Ananyabrata Chakravorty’s film is a slow burn through and through, with a talented cast: Sukant Goel, a standout actor in his collaborations with filmmakers Dibakar Banerjee and Vasan Bala, is the lead. Sadhana Singh plays his mother. There’s Rajit Kapur there as well.
Critic Baradwaj Rangan raves, “The writing gives us slow reveals about characters and events. The film is paced like a genteel crime drama, where the point isn’t thrills or sensation or the biting of nails but the depths of desperation that transform a human being into a killer.”
Where to watch: Theatres
Kevin Hart: Acting My Age (English)
At 46, standup comedian-actor Kevin Hart is taking stock of his life. His new Netflix special, Acting My Age, sees Hart face up to the realities of middle age. As Decider writes: “Kevin Hart clearly operates his life on a different plane from the rest of us, but he nevertheless tries to make himself relatable through stories about his own foibles, which makes him closer to Chris Rock than to Dave Chappelle.”
With his typically high-energy, frenetic delivery, Hart takes the audience through the rigours, mental and physical both, of ageing—from rupturing his abductor muscles during a foolhardy sprint against a former professional sportsman, to going on gorilla-spotting vacations with his family to Rwanda.
Where to watch: Netflix
The Stringer: The Man Who Took The Photo (English)
‘The Terror of War’, commonly known as ‘Napalm Girl’, remains one of the most harrowing war photographs from the Vietnam War, taken in 1972. A naked, tear-stricken nine-year-old girl, alongside other crying children, is running from a napalm strike initiated by South Vietnamese forces that had mistakenly hit her village instead of North Vietnamese troops. South Vietnamese photojournalist Nick Ut, credited with the photo published in Associated Press (AP), ended up winning a bunch of awards for it.
But did he really take the photo? The Stringer, a new documentary, argues that the photo was in fact taken by a local photo stringer—a freelance photographer—named Nguyen Thanh Nghe, following a two-year investigation. It contends that it was intentionally misattributed, leading to plenty of controversy. This led to AP conducting its own investigation to determine who really took the photo. The film makes compelling arguments through its investigation; AP, after their own forensic analysis, continue to attribute it to Ut, and remains open to reviewing any new evidence: “In the absence of new, convincing evidence to the contrary, the AP has no reason to believe anyone other than Ut took the photo.”
Where to watch: Netflix
Left Handed Girl (Taiwanese)
Taiwan's official entry to the Oscars 2026 is the story of a single mother, Shu-Fen, and her two daughters, teenager I-Ann and the five-year-old I-Jing, as they move to Taipei from the countryside to get their life together.
Shu-Fen tries to stay afloat running a noodle stall at a night market. The older daughter is having her own personal troubles. But the title is a reference to the youngest, who is actually left-handed, but her conservative grandfather has forced her to use her right hand, saying the left hand is "the devil's hand". This matter is an opening to study the wider fault lines within the family.
Critic Peter Martin of Screen Anarchy writes, "A cauldron of emotions, Left-Handed Girl unfolds like a boiling onion: hot to the touch, and potent in its flavor."
Where to watch: Netflix
Born Hungry (English)
Canadian celebrity chef Sash Simpson was once surviving on the streets of Chennai, abandoned as a child. A kind couple's adoption saved his life. The documentary, directed by Barry Avrich and produced by Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s production house along with others, tracks Simpson’s journey amidst longing to trace and reconnect with his biological family, with feelings of cultural detachment and abandonment in tow.
Where to watch: JioHotstar
Here’s a new chapter…
Missing: Dead or Alive? season 2 (English)
This true crime docu-series tracks officers from a South Carolina sheriff’s department investigating mysterious or uneasy disappearances in the region. Directed by Jared McGrilliard and Rob Miller, the series spends time with the local deputies—Vicki Rains and Tony Garcia, and others—in the area.
The second season is out now and, like the first one from 2023, comprises four episodes. It looks at the psychological and emotional toll that difficult cases can take on the family members and officers, as they set about solving these challenging cases.
Where to watch: Netflix
Stranger Things season 5 volume 1 (English)
Four episodes, now, of the critic-proof Netflix season. Four in December. This is the final season. The highway between the real world and 'The Upside Down', home to sufficient monsters and ghouls keeping this franchise alive, is still open. The military is on the streets. A lockdown is afoot. Lots of running about featuring teenagers and young adults, with special effects on top, and trauma underneath, for the discourse to follow. Good ol' reliable.
Where to watch: Netflix
souk picks