We recommend: The best new movies and TV series
Editor’s note: The latest in the Welcome series, starring Akshay Kumar and a host of others, is fun and uneven. In theatres, a super new entry into the DC Universe. John Cena stars in a wacky comedy with the loose cannon Eric André driving him nuts. A romcom with a twist, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. And the fifth and final season of The Bear is in, chef.
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New releases
Sahni (played by Zakir Hussain), a crooked businessman, decides to deliberately tank a film he’s financing for some tax-based chicanery. And so he brings together a group of generational flops to work on this mega project. Thus goes the plot of Welcome to the Jungle (the third in the Welcome series), the riotously fun and rather uneven new action-comedy starring Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, along with a pretty lengthy list of other remarkable actors (Jonny Lever, Paresh Rawal, Raveena Tandon, Rajpal Yadav, Disha Patani, and more). Lots of running gags, subtle jibes, and meta-jokes at Bollywood follow in this “non-stop hodgepodge”, as Scroll calls it, where some jokes land and others fall flat.
Where to watch: Theatres
James Gunn is back with another movie to add to his DC universe. Fresh on the heels of Gunn’s Superman reboot from last, which received wide praise, Supergirl makes its way to the cinemas.
Milly Alcock, who appeared (briefly) in the 2025 film, is Supergirl—or, Kara. She’s quirky, a little punk-rock even, and far away enough from the usual machismo of the traditional superhero that it makes her character relatable and likeable.
Years after bearing witness to the destruction of her homeland, Kara is now hellbent on drowning her sorrows as she daydrinks and parties, bar and planet-hopping, all while hanging out with her beloved dog, Krypto. When she encounters a 13-year-old who, much like her, is traumatised after losing her parents, she decides to team up with the kid to take down the culprit.
This movie, while about the present, is rooted heavily in Supergirl’s past. David Rooney, in the Hollywood Reporter, writes,
The best parts of the film, scripted with little distinction by Ana Nogueira, are the flashbacks to Kara’s final months on what’s left of her dying home planet Krypton, or more specifically, the floating colony Argo City, also headed for destruction. There’s an emotional pulse to these scenes, as the teenage Kara fights the decision of her parents (David Krumholtz and Emily Beecham) to send her to Earth, just as her uncle sent her cousin Kal-El (David Corenswet) a couple decades earlier.
And a treat: just like Alcock’s little cameo in last year’s film, David Corenswet shows up as Superman in this one.
Where to watch: Theatres
This new drama by Julian Schnabel, with Oscar Isaac in the lead, is ambitious, sprawling, confusing, hard to crack. It’s about the great Italian poet and writer Dante’s Divine Comedy, a handwritten manuscript of which finds its way into the hands of a mob boss in New York. The film is set across two separate timelines: there’s the mobster of contemporary times (shot in black-and-white), and then there’s a plot taking place in parallel in the 1400s (which, naturally, is in colour). Calling it “alternately riveting and dull as dirt”, Rogerebert.com writes that, for all its flaws, the film poses interesting questions:
What is Schnabel saying about the intersecting forces of art, violence, and faith? After all, the film explicitly intertwines those two quintessential Italian institutions, the Vatican and the Mafia. It’s just one of its many half-baked ideas. Schnabel has a habit of pushing his project down interesting avenues only to take sharp right turns down distracting alleys.
Where the watch: Netflix
John Cena is a real estate bigshot, Rudd, who, many years ago, played ‘big brother’ to foster kid Marcus, just so it would look good on his college applications. But now, all these years later, Marcus, played by the hilarious Eric André, wants to reconnect. He also happens to be a psych ward escapee.
As Marcus infiltrates Rudd’s life, it becomes increasingly difficult for Rudd to continue on his successful streak, as he keeps getting pulled into Marcus’s scrapes. However, everyone else in Rudd’s circle seems to love having Marcus around, as he embeds himself into the daily lives of his family and friends.
Following a pretty predictable and traditional set-up for a comedy, this film still shines through as a stand-out laugh-out-loud watch, with both André and Cena defying expectations. The film can rely on crude humour, writes The New York Times, “but the good-natured performers commit to their bits so much one can’t help but smile.”
Where to watch: Netflix
Chris & Martina: The Final Set
During the late ’70s and ’80s, two women dominated the world of tennis—Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. The two icons were locked in a friendly rivalry of sorts (some might even have called the frenemies).
This new documentary tells a nostalgic, powerful story of their relationship. Navratilova, who defected from Czechoslovakia at the age of 18, befriended Evert, but had to compete against her, over and over again, through the years. Her queerness made her less palatable to the patrons, while Evert suffered no such losses (or sponsorships).
With their simultaneous success at the game, the two also experienced simultaneous cancer diagnoses—Evert with ovarian cancer, and Navratilova with throat and breast cancer.
The film takes us through the history of the women’s friendship, their ‘enmity’, their careers, and how they continue to support each other as they live with illness. Peter Bradshaw writes in the Guardian,
It’s a highly watchable film, which makes the strong and valid point that even in the cutthroat world of professional sport there is, in fact, room for real friendship and “sportsmanship”.
Where to watch: Netflix
Middle class Delhi is in focus on Perfect Family, via the Karkarias in Janakpuri. Somnath (Manoj Pahwa), the patriarch, is blunt and careless with his words. His wife, Kamala (played by Seema Pahwa), is warm and loving as she attempts to keep the peace. The kids have their own lives and families to worry about. But things take a turn after an incident with the granddaughter at school. And the Karkarias find themselves going to therapy, visiting Megha Verma (played by Neha Dhupia). And thus the façade of the ‘perfect family’ starts to shake and tremble in this tender, sensitive new series. Writes Times of India:
Actor Pankaj Tripathi's debut production is not about providing neat answers or dramatic resolutions. It is about acknowledging how complicated families truly are—how love exists alongside resentment, how care often coexists with hurt, and how healing is rarely quick or comfortable.
Where to watch: SonyLiv
One more chapter
Often a tragedy, sometimes a comedy, routinely a farce, The Bear—the story of a fine dining restaurant in Chicago, and the people behind it—returns for its fifth and final season. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), the tortured artist walking around with intense baggage, is joined once again by Sydney (Ayo Edebiri in a remarkable turn) and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), as they fight inner and outer demons to make things work. The show scaled new heights in its spectacular second season, but things dropped a bit after. The fourth season was a return to form of sorts, and you’d expect them to go out on a high this time around.
Where to watch: JioHotstar
The cultural clash between the sheher ka babu and local villagers set in their ways continues in the new season of TVF’s Gram Chikitsalay, a slice-of-life snapshot of rural India with a fish-out-of-water central tension at its heart. It’s a template TVF created to great success in Panchayat, and here, modifying things a bit, the focus is on a city doctor finding his way to a village. The protagonist is Amol Parashar, or Dr. Prabhat, who leaves behind a life of comfort to work at a Primary Health Centre (PHC) in a fictional village called Bhatkandi. His initial resistance to their ways, in the first season, gives way to an acceptance that he needs to work with the locals to improve the state of healthcare in the region. Writes The Hollywood Reporter India: “Prabhat is too busy playing a reverse-Munna Bhai M.B.B.S hero: someone who strives to win over the skeptics with competence, common sense and merit rather than ‘love’ and rustic compassion.”
Where to watch: Prime Video
Fresh off the big screen
When two heartthrobs unite in order to maximise their joint slay… you get a film you simply cannot look away from. Beloved icons Zendaya and Robert Pattinson star in Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli’s A24 film from earlier this year.
Finally available on streaming, The Drama is about Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya), a young couple preparing for their upcoming wedding. But when Emma reveals a secret she’s been carrying for a long time, things start to fall apart. Her disturbing confession leads Charlie to reconsider how much he really knows his fiancée.
Where to watch: Prime Video
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