We recommend: The best new movies and TV series
Editor’s note: It’s back to the campus this week—and then back to real life where you’ll need to kill your competitors because the times they are a-changin’. Arundhati Roy writes and stars in In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, in theatres after close to four decades. There’s TVF’s season three of Aspirants. Meanwhile, a funny and sad killer is on the loose in No Other Choice, out on MUBI. Plus sundry treats offline and online, including British journalist Louis Theroux (The Settlers, 2025) investigating women haters. Plus a theatrical horror film with Netflix aesthetic.
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In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (English)
What happened to our friends in college? What happened to those dreams? It's interesting that Arundhati Roy wrote her surrogate stand-in, the cocksure Radha, as someone who drifted to writing but drowned and died before she could complete her first novel. After childhood is left behind forever, is the rest of your life all about fighting the dying of the light?
These questions can be addressed only after you have watched Pradeep Krishen's disarmingly honest, tender, beautiful, and hilarious 1989 film, back in theatres thanks to a restoration by the Film Heritage Foundation. Much before Roy had her Big Bang with The God of Small Things in 1997, she used to be an architecture student who wrote screenplays and acted in films.
Roy married Krishen in 1984. This film, their second collaboration, is a joint effort in at least three ways. Roy returns to her days of studying at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, to bring to life not just her roaring memories, but also a time in Indian life when it was okay to walk feeling the world could be ours…
Here's Roy underlining the spirit of those times in an interview with Scroll's Nandini Ramnath.
There’s a sort of radical freedom in Annie. It’s not that you’re free to be a brat. It's not that kind of freedom. It’s a freedom from ambition, but not a freedom from concern. It’s not even like there was a student rebellion going on – it was just about breathing easy.
In that time, anybody who was trying to boast about the fact that they had better clothes or more money would be ridiculed. That’s the opposite of what it is now. It’s about the freedom from exactly what Facebook and Insta and all make people do, which is to inflate themselves and boast and keep on promoting themselves. This is complete freedom from that, to almost the opposite thing. The more ragged and the less glossy you are, the better.
The restored version was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in February. Krishen and Roy were supposed to be present, but Roy pulled out after the festival's jury chairperson Wim Wenders (director, Perfect Days) commented that cinema should be apolitical, in relation to the festival not taking a stance on Israel's attacks in Gaza.
Krishen, recalling the Berlin screening, told Scroll,
When I spoke on stage before the screening, I said, I am heartbroken that Arundhati isn’t there, but that she took a stand on principle about an issue she believes deeply in, and that I admire and salute her courage for standing up for her beliefs. As she always does. Warm, sustained applause!
Where to watch: Theatres
No Other Choice (Korean)
The Americans are in town and, as ever, they’re ruining everything. You Man-su (the wildly popular Lee Byung-hun) works at a South Korean paper company. He has the perfect wife, two loving children, a happy, successful life. An American company acquires his firm and he’s laid off. No worries, he promises his wife, he’ll be back on his feet in no time. But everything, as it often does, goes belly-up. Over a year later, Man-su is still struggling and so he makes a choice: he must bump everyone off in the paper industry.
The great Park Chan-wook—of Oldboy (2003) fame—is the directorial mastermind behind this spectacular 2025 black (tragi)comedy adaptation of Donald E Westlake’s satirical crime novel, The Ax (1997), about a man who has nothing and everything to lose. And so he sets off on a murderous spree. Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian, calling it a “sensational” satire, wrote:
It starts out like an Ealing comedy-type caper then somehow morphs into something else: a portrait of family dysfunction, fragile masculinity and the breadwinner crisis, and the state of the nation itself.
Where to watch: MUBI
Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere (English)
The always inquisitive Louis Theroux's latest subject of interest is the "manosphere"; male influencers and content creators teaching men to simultaneously woo and hate women. If you have seen Theroux's The Settlers, his excursion into the worldview of Israeli settlers in Palestine, you know you cannot miss this.
Where to watch: Netflix
AURORA: What Happened to the Earth? (English)
Bjork-lite Norwegian singer-producer AURORA in her latest album, What Happened to the Heart?, wondered where compassion disappeared near the end of the world with environmental and spiritual destruction battering us each day. What Happened to the Earth? is the concert film for her tour, giving a sneak peek into how an album is conceived bottom-up and performed live across months.
Where to watch: Theatres
Iron Lung (English)
Enough emo, now some screamo, almost entirely in black and red. Based on the underground horror video game of the same name, this is YouTuber Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach’s feature directorial debut. An event has caused all humans and stars to disappear. A convict, played by Markiplier, is forced to pilot a submarine through an ocean of blood in a lonely moon. The film has reportedly earned close to 20X its modest budget of three million. We recommend you watch this alone.
Where to watch: Theatres
Rooster (English)
“Any time Katie has a problem, I swoop in,” Daddy Mifflin claims in this new comedy series from Bill Lawrence, the co-creator of Ted Lasso. Steve Carrell is a washed-up pulp fiction novelist who re-enters academia to fix the life of his academic daughter. Her husband has left her for a grad student, which the entire world knows. As we already know, the plot will have him fix his own life as well.
Where to watch: JioHotstar
Sankalp (Hindi)
Prakash Jha, the Bihar-born Bollywood actor-director who can’t stop mining his home state and its cousins, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, for content, has delivered a 500-minute series about politics and all that jazz, yet again, again. Might be your cuppa chai. Also, here’s the ensemble cast: Nana Patekar, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub, Neeraj Kabi, Sanjay Kapoor, and Kubbra Sait.
Where to watch: Amazon MX Player
Dynasty: The Murdochs (English)
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch takes a final stab at ensuring his legacy, an obvious response to the hit HBO series Succession. The trailer will have you know. Catnip for Succession fans, which includes the splainer team.
Where to watch: Netflix
Fresh off the big screen
Zootopia 2 (English)
Zootopia, the animal kingdom, is under threat from a mysterious snake. For long, reptiles hadn't been around. What gives? Rabbit cop Judy and her fox partner Nick have to get down to figure out the conspiracy afoot. But first, they need couples’ therapy.
Where to watch: JioHotstar
TVF Aspirants S03 (Hindi)
The young’un perspirants for the Indian Holy Grail, the UPSC examinations, are still aspirants for biting into each others’ necks even after high school got over. Naveen Kasturia, Jatin Goswami, and Sunny Hinduja, star in a series about crisscrossing ambitions and undying wounds. Word on the street is, the new season is the best so far.
Where to watch: Prime Video
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