We recommend: The best new movies and TV series

 

Editor’s note: Too much music this weekend, but with grit and realism. Billie Eilish and Iron Maiden have documentaries in the cinema hall. On Netflix, there’s a doc on football’s bad boy Jamie Vardy. There’s a lovely Marathi film in theatres about trans identity. And a wacky super-indie zombie flick as well. Yearners, don’t miss Off Campus. Fun havers, don’t miss the Money Heist spinoff on Berlin. Saif Ali Khan is an angry cop in Kartavya on Netflix in India. Everywhere else, there’s Dhurandhar: The Revenge.

 

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New releases

 

Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (English)

 

Global popstar and singer-songwriter Billie Eilish made her debut at 14. Between three studio albums, the 24-year-old’s musicality and image has moved from a brooding, indoors-y, queer, anti-star, bedroom-pop vibe to a musically exuberant, lyrically mature, and quasi-feminine aura. The doc, co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron (!, yes, right?), was filmed in Manchester. Shot in 3D, of course. (By the way, James, what are your thoughts on Quaritch and Varang fan fiction?)

 

Critic Helen O’Hara, for Empire magazine, wrote,

 

…this does a superb job of capturing Eilish’s skills as a performer, running the gamut from rabble-rouser to cult leader to angelic preacher. She’s a fascinating figure, dressed like early Eminem and running around the stage like the Beastie Boys in the ’90s, but capable of breaking hearts like Adele. You don’t have to know the set-list well for this to make you reflect on her idiosyncratic energy and the unusual place she has carved out in the pop landscape. As she conducts the crowd like a maestro, it’s obvious that she’s speaking to something necessary, and bringing outsiders into her orbit by rejecting the usual pop posing.

 

Where to watch: Theatres

 

Untold UK: Jamie Vardy (English)

 

Where does one even begin with Jamie Vardy? Maybe his unsavoury past where he was playing non-league football while wearing an ankle monitor? Or the time his leg injury just wouldn’t heal, because he’d embraced a diet of vodka punched with Skittles candy? Or, as one of the finest wind-up merchants of his time, the many thousands of fans that he’s riled up by mocking and taunting them on the field? Or maybe the time he became an unlikely protagonist in one of modern football’s greatest fairytales: Leicester City FC winning the Premier League against all odds (literally 5000 to 1)? 

 

Ten years later, the documentary writes itself, really. An incredible rags to riches story of the decorated Premier League footballer—and club legend—and all-round madman, tracking the many highs and lows that ended up defining his distinctly unexpected and improbable rise as a footballer. From racist behaviour in his past to discovering, as an adult, the identity of his biological father to phallus-shaped bottle openers, the doc does an admirable job of compressing a chaotic career arc and committing it to film.

 

Where to watch: Netflix

 

Kartavya (Hindi)

 

If the angry male protagonist is a machine to generate middle-class catharsis over survivor’s guilt in India, isn't that the kind of hero you will find our most glam stars deigning to play for the country's premier middle-class streaming service? Art as penance for life, etc. 

 

Writer-director Pulkit’s Kartavya is Salim-Javed via Vijay Tendulkar via Sudip Sharma—gentrified. Don't let Saif Ali Khan's thick Haryanvi come in the way of appreciating his rustic cop act. He has to deal with five problems in 108 minutes: protect his brother from caste violence, protect a minor who has witnessed exploitation that goes all the way up, keep his job, not put his wife and kid in harm’s way, and also not die. Does the film manage to not stall its tall order?

 

Reviews tilted towards the positive. Mint Lounge’s Uday Bhatia wrote of Khan, "He starts out chirpy, Saif-like, and gets progressively sadder. It's a performance in search of a film with a bit more going on."

 

Where to watch: Netflix

 

Baapya (Marathi)

 

"Feeling like a man is one thing, but being a man is another!" Konkan fisherman Anya (Girish Kulkarni) shakes his fists and cries to his ex-wife Shailaja (Rajshri Deshpande) who has undergone gender-affirming surgery and is now Shailesh.

 

From the moment Shailesh returns, the matter becomes a circus to the surrounding village while Anya, his present wife Vishakha (Devika Daftardar), and son Sanjya (Aaryan Menghji) have to deal with the fallout.

 

No, it's not a grim and dour LGBTQ film. Director Sameer Tewari's film, based on Priti Nair's idea, takes a lighthearted and earnest approach to educating viewers about gender transition and trans identity. Baapya comes to screens only a short while after intelligent, modestly budgeted, and entertaining Marathi cinema has been having its new-Malayalam cinema moment.

 

Scroll's Nandini Ramnath wrote,

 

The prejudice towards Shailya is the springboard for challenging orthodox beliefs about masculinity and femininity. The film lightens a risky subject through humour, affable characters and melodious songs. There’s a hilarious reference to preferred pronouns tucked into the rooted dialogue by Gauarav Relekar and Nikhil Palande.

 

Where to watch: Theatres

 

Off Campus (English)

 

Who said traditional love stories are dead? Hannah (Ella Bright) is great at studies but wants the college bad boy as her lover. Garrett (Belmot Cameli) is not so good at studies and that is threatening his dream of playing pro-hockey after graduation. They agree to help each other by fake-dating and getting the bad boy's attention. Except we know how this goes.

 

Season one has a crazy 95% fresh rating at reviews-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes! Sherin Nicole at rogerebert.com wrote, "Off Campus is a swoon-worthy, hot, and heated rom-com-drama that gives its story space to fully bloom just like its characters. It’s a highly enjoyable romance from front to back that’ll leave you wishing, hoping, and anticipating which couple you’ll spend the sophomore season with. Until then, this series will get plenty of replays." There, you heard her.

 

Where to watch: Prime Video

 

Indian Institute of Zombies (Hindi)

 

Kuku FM, one of the earliest champions of the hyper-bingeworthy audio series and microdrama format, has entered film production. They have turned their existing IP, the audio series IIT Zombay, into a feature-length film, with a screenplay by Bollywood writers Hussain and Abbas Dalal. The microbudget flick has also used AI for its visual effects. If nothing else, this is a first major win for possibly the next generation of storytellers.

 

The great news is it's pretty good. The funky plot has an evil scientist turning obedient students into zombies so they become more insufferable. Now it's up to the backbenchers and the stoners to save the night. They quickly find out that the good and the undead are susceptible to just about anything they would fall for if they weren't zombies: pornography, item songs, easy entertainment.

 

Also featuring a "satin nightie-wearing teacher Braganza (Anupriya Goenka)," wrote Scroll's Nandini Ramnath, who added, 

 

Indian Institute of Zombies, directed by Alok Kumar Dwivedi and Gaganjeet Singh, is too acutely aware of its intended audience – undemanding college students – to create an experience that travels far beyond this age cohort. The Hindi comedy-thriller, which is out in cinemas, itself feels like a low-budget filmmaking experiment dreamt up between boring lectures and punishing deadlines, made with whatever or whoever was available.

 

Where to watch: Theatres

 

Soul Mate (Japanese, Korean)

 

The eight-episode limited series follows the decade-long relationship between two men who might be each other's soulmates. Ice hockey player Ryu left Japan haunted by his past. He is rescued by Korean boxer Johan. Their friendship moves through Berlin, Seoul, and Tokyo. It's not quite homosexual, maybe homoerotic, but 100% female gaze.

 

Here's Archi Sengupta from Leisurebyte.

 

Both of these characters are given time and space to breathe and evolve, knowing one another and themselves before the romance seeps in. Its realism and patience get under your skin as you see both characters coming to terms with their pain and trauma. Human emotions are treated with importance and patience, as a result of which viewers will find themselves rooting for the characters instead of waiting for a quota to be filled.

 

Where to watch: Netflix

 

Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano (English)

 

It's a battle of the titans. Mixed-martial arts legends Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano will square off in the ring in a live event to be streamed globally. The backstory is spectacular. Gina Carano, considered "the face of women's MMA", was the star in the sport for three straight years. About the time she left the game, entered Ronda Rousey, the next-gen superstar. Somehow, fans never got to see them ever fight each other.

 

Until now. This is a comeback story for both women. Rousey has to prove she's still the game after not fighting for nearly a decade following two humiliating back-to-back losses. Carano, who hasn't fought MMA for close to 17 years, isn't just a star from a time when the sport wasn't mainstream but also coming off the back of cancellation for her political views which led to her ousting from Disney's The Mandalorian. In a way, this Netflix event is also a challenge to Disney itself. Ring the bell!

 

Where to watch: Netflix (6:30 AM IST, Sunday 17 May)

 

Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition (English)

 

Era-defining heavy metallers Iron Maiden celebrate their 50th with Burning Ambition, a classic rock-doc celebrating their rise and fall and rise over the past 50 years. There’s not a lot of personal stuff here; it’s mostly about looking back on the timelines the band has excelled in, winning over doubters and haters and fans alike. (In fact, Iron Maiden’s 2007 gig in Bengaluru—Eddfest, which saw close to 40,000 fans showing up from across the country—is often credited as an important moment in India’s 21st century rock ’n’ roll journey, cited as a watershed moment that opened many doors.) 

 

This one remains largely uncritical, perhaps best enjoyed by fans, per Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian:

 

It’s cheerful and watchable, if a relentlessly on-brand fan promo, corporately policed and controlled, using vintage archive photos and video rather than closeup talking-head footage of the band now. It is uninterested in anything critical, with fervent, humorous testimonies from Maiden superfans from all walks of life, including Javier Bardem, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Kiss’s Gene Simmons.

 

Where to watch: Theatres

 

Hokum (English)

 

Here's the latest horror film acting as therapy for a grief-stricken and guilt-ridden protagonist. Bitter American horror novelist Ohm (Adam Scott) can't seem to catch a break. He escapes to an inn in Ireland to finish his novel. The inn is haunted. Hallucinations. Confrontations. Catharsis. The director is Damian McCarthy (Caveat, Oddity) from Ireland—a rising, formidable specialist in the horror genre.

 

Released slightly earlier in the US, the film has been a box-office success and a hit with the critics. This is how Matthew Jackson began his review for AV Club.

 

Damian McCarthy is a fascinating hybrid filmmaker: On the one hand, he might be the closest thing modern horror has to a Wes Anderson analogue, a writer-director who delights in handmade, conceptually dazzling labyrinths dominated by a singular vision; on the other, he values instinct and tone, breaking the perfection of his images in just the right places like planned cracks in Japanese pottery. This makes him a tricky filmmaker to pin down even as his style is immediately recognizable. He can be funny, profound, and utterly terrifying not just in the same film, but often in the same frame. Hokum is the latest fruit of McCarthy’s chameleonic gifts, and his best film yet.

 

Where to watch: Theatres

 

Exam (Tamil)

 

Writer-director A Sarkunam's seven-episode thriller is a tight if implausible series about a former convict impersonating a policewoman and engaging in a 10-day undercover operation to find out who’s responsible for a civil services exam scam. The heroine is Dushara Vijayan, the fabulous actor from Pa Ranjith's Sarpatta Parambarai. The episodes end on cliffhanger moments. The protagonist's cover is always seconds away from getting blown. The creative producers are Pushkar-Gayatri, the brains and brawn behind intelligent crime titles like Vikram Vedha and Suzhal: The Vortex.

 

The Hollywood Reporter India's Sruthi Ganapathy Raman noted that the series "moves with the precision of a taut crime thriller. But the high point in a series like this isn’t really efficiency, but with its capabilities in economical, deeply symbolic storytelling."

 

Where to watch: Prime Video

 

 

Fresh off the big screen

 

Dhurandhar: The Revenge (Hindi)

 

Writer-director Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar has studied craftsmanship "mating with a Research and Analysis Wing PowerPoint presentation", as described by Scroll critic Nandini Ramnath, who called the film a “techno-jingo gorefest”.

 

Dhar’s seven-hour production was shot between July 2024 and October 2025. Dhurandhar: The Revenge was released in March, three months after the first half opened in theatres in December.

 

With The Revenge, Dhar ramped up the stylised violence as well as political messaging for the Bharatiya Janata Party, such as including the argument that 2016's demonetisation was the result of a RAW plan to neutralise Pakistani terrorism. There is not a single Pakistani—and therefore, Muslim—character not involved in wishing for and participating in India’s destruction, save for the heroine the Indian spy hero beds and weds.

 

Anguished criticism over the spy-action thriller's politics followed. Meanwhile, both parts together have become the highest-grossing Indian release of all time. Among the two-part film’s plusses is its pulse of a creator-owned graphic novel: richly developed characters, deep worldbuilding, unhurried plot progression, and a consistent visual and sonic aesthetic.

 

Dhurandhar: The Revenge, however, lost its predecessor's charm while upping the dirt, sweat and angry tears. Scroll called it a 'movie seething with demonic rage and torture porn" while Mint Lounge put it neatly: 'Dhurandhar has more rage than it knows what to do with." Currently available only for international viewers, The Revenge will stream in India from June 4 on JioHotstar.

 

Where to watch: Netflix, outside India

 

Project Hail Mary (English)

 

If you do not want to encounter angry, bearded, long-haired, tall, dark, and handsome men this weekend, here’s a chirpy, clean-shaven, short-haired, tall, fair, and handsome man for you. Ryan Gosling headlines the life-affirming sci-fi blockbuster about an astronaut travelling into outer space to save the sun from an energy-draining organism that is killing all the stars. Helping him in his mission is a five-legged alien that appears to be made of rocks. This rocky journey has a happy ending.

 

Where to watch: Available to buy & rent on Apple TV, Prime Video, Google Play

 

 

One more chapter

 

Devil May Cry S02 (English)

 

Writer-creator Adi Shankar's Devil May Cry series introduces dark political subtext into the popular video game that follows mercenary Dante caught between humanity and the realm of demons. The show's hyperviolent action and heavy-metal aesthetics have drawn praise while Shankar's use of the story to explore xenophobia, government surveillance, and post-9/11 paranoia has divided fans of the earlier 2007 anime and the game itself. A new season is here.

 

Where to watch: Netflix

 

The Punisher: One Last Kill (English)

 

The 51-minute special takes off of the two-season The Punisher series, part of the unending Marvel Cinematic Universe. Reliable tough man Jon Bernthal is back as the brutal and haunted Frank Castle, who wants to escape his past but is dragged back into battle. Only for the fans.

 

Where to watch: JioHotstar

 

Good Omens Finale (English)

 

Here's another long single episode of a much-loved series. The season finale of the British-American fantasy comedy, based on Terry Pratchett's famous novel, wraps up the wishful tale of the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and demon Crowley (David Tennant) teaming up to save the Earth from catastrophe.

 

Where to watch: Prime Video

 

Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine (Spanish)

 

The beloved antihero Berlin (Pedro Alonso) returns in the sequel to the prequel series of Netflix's gigantic global hit Money Heist. Yes, there's another heist that needs to be done. Yes, Berlin has a new lover. Yes, someone cries in despair, "We're not going to jeopardise our heist for sex. That'd be insane!" Smarts, explosions, exotic locations. Happy weekend.

 

Where to watch: Netflix