The year 2020 gave us little and took away a lot. Locked in our homes, we turned to our screens for entertainment, distraction, and comfort. Sometimes we got tired of that too. But we still returned, because what else could we have done?
Theatres shut from mid-March and, for the first time ever, we didn’t have the option of communal movie-watching, an experience that meant so much. There was something therapeutic about laughing and crying with absolute strangers; a movie theatre is one of the few places in the world where a sense of community and loneliness co-exist.
Even if we didn’t get that for the most part of this year, we still had the movies — and for that we were grateful. Amid the bleakness, though, there was some silver lining: this year, the number of accomplished Hindi films — and the overall default level — showed a marked increase. My list of favourites — comprising both theatrical and online releases — runs below:
11. Unpaused
The five-part anthology is a good example of how art can respond to life. A film made during and about the lockdown, Unpaused depicts different facets of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis: the wearing pursuit of romantic love; the unceasing struggle to remain alive amid a crushing realisation; the fleeting hope and lasting despair of a migrant worker’s family; an endearing bond between two women, a surly sexagenarian and a chirpy twenty-something; and an auto driver and an old single lady overcoming class barriers to forge a poignant friendship.
A Prime Video screengrab from Unpaused.
Like most anthologies, Unpaused comprises a mixed bunch — a few shorts excel, some fall short — but their scope reminds us of the breadth of humanity in a country like ours. Nearly all of them are also laced with a comforting realisation: that human spirit can’t be easily crushed, that hope is the best elastic known to mankind.
10. Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitaare
Alankrita Shrivastava’s drama is about three characters: Dolly (Konkana Sensharma), Kaajal (Bhumi Pednekar), and Greater Noida. All three of them are famished, ambitious, desperate. They’re also clueless about their desperation. Maybe lasting solace can materialise via a fancy apartment, romantic love, or gentrification — or maybe not.
The only permanent fixture in these lives is something inherently transient, the gig economy — the titular twinkling stars found on the mobile phone apps — that satiates them for the moment. The movie is a penetrating, insightful take on urban space and aspirations: as our cities have exploded vertically — like jungles of ever-growing concrete — our listlessness has engulfed us. But people are animals whose hearts are bigger than their bodies; Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitaare is a moving tribute to that tireless spirit.
A Netflix screengrab from the movie Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitaare.
9. AK vs AK
Anurag Kashyap and Anil Kapoor meet at a film festival panel; they disagree and quarrel, and the director kidnaps the actor’s daughter. It keeps getting bizarre. Kapoor has one night to find her, and Kashyap will make a film on the star’s ordeal — this is moviemaking vengeance shot with verve and panache and punch.
Vikramaditya Motwane’s AK vs AK is a heady, meta exploration of the fissures in Bollywood. A feast of in-jokes and a celebration of inherent kookiness characterising the Hindi film industry, the thriller juggles fact and fiction with smooth finesse. It is sharp and subversive — with a distinct joyous feel, even while poking fun at the Bollywood establishment — reminding us of the tilting balance scale in the film industry, and that the time has come when the outsiders can make a star dance to their tunes.
Anurag Kashyap and Anil Kapoor in ‘AK vs AK’.
8. Chhapaak
A 19-year-old girl, a smile on her lips, a bounce in her steps, an entire life in front of her — all of that burns in an instant, when an acquaintance throws acid at her. But in Chhapaak, Malti (Deepika Padukone) isn’t just a survivor. Even though the film is centred on her quest for justice, it’s not only about social inequities, either.
Meghna Gulzar’s drama is well-rounded, telling different stories: of transcending class divide, of finding love, of embracing shifting identities.
A movie without a hero, where a famous heroine is rendered indistinguishable due to facial prosthetics, discussing a subject meant for ‘serious’ documentaries, Chhapaak isn’t a typical Bollywood fare. Yet it was made, and made with ample finesse and empathy, signalling the kind of change that swells your heart.
A YouTube screengrab from the trailer of movie Chhapaak.
7. Kaamyaab
How many times have we seen a ‘supporting actor’ in Hindi cinema — how many of them do we remember, how many of them do we celebrate? Hardik Mehta’s debut enters a cinematic dungeon and shines a light on the cobwebs. Consistently funny, drunk on movies, and restoring long-denied dignity to Bollywood’s ‘subalterns’, Kaamyaab is also a sobering take on the deeply hierarchical film industry, a microcosm of tiered Indian society.
Sanjay Mishra made the film his own — a performance so masterful that the actor and the movie told each other’s stories in perfect tandem. To top it all, the movie gave us a ripper of a line — a dialogue encompassing benign resignation and abiding humour, sounding all the more relevant in a post-COVID-19 world — “Bas enjoying life! Aur option kya hai?”
Photo: Red Chillies Entertainment and Drishyam Films
6. Halahal
Almost all Bollywood thrillers, centred on a murder, follow a standard template. Someone’s killed, an investigation ensues, and the murderer is found. Amid all this is the presumption that the victim was innocent, a plot detail whose personality doesn’t affect the story.
That is where Randeep Jha’s debut departs.
This isn’t narrative trickery — a twist for its own sake — but a turn with political justification. Set in Ghaziabad, swirling around “UP ka Vyapam”, Halahal depicts a far-reaching scam whose muck sullies politicians, cops, college deans, coaching centres, students.
How do you live in a world where everyone is guilty? You don’t live, suggests the film, you compromise. Halahal opens to the murder of a young girl and then reveals a cannibalistic society where people are more dead than the casualties of their crimes.
A still from ‘Halahal.’
5. Serious Men
Hindi cinema rarely tackles caste. And when it does, the person from a ‘lower’ caste is nearly never the protagonist. She’s a victim, an object of pity — or, worse, an idealist.
There are two ways to dehumanise someone: by either demonising or deifying them. Serious Men does neither.
Its protagonist, Ayyan Mani (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) — a clerk among scientists, a Dalit among Brahmins — designs a new scam to counter an old one: he parades his pre-teen son as a child prodigy.
Sudhir Mishra’s adaptation, a softer version of Manu Joseph’s novel, bursts the bubble of the Indian status quo with discomfiting humour and sly subterfuge.
Featuring one of the best performances of the year — by Siddiqui and Aakshath Das (Ayyan’s son) — Serious Men is a rare example of a Hindi film telling a complex tale without leaning on the crutches of sentimentality or sanctimony.
A YouTube screengrab from the trailer of Serious Men.
4. Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Young hearts meet. Sparks fly. Love blooms. Marriage plans materialise. The patriarch disapproves. This could have been Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge — or other numerous Bollywood romances. But there’s a small twist: the young hearts belong to two men.
Hitesh Kewalya’s debut, though, doesn’t make a big deal about it. Homosexuals in Bollywood have been derided for long — and if they’re not mocked, then they’re seen as ‘quirky’ or ‘different’.
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan — evidently in love with Bollywood, including Aditya Chopra’s iconic debut — treats this love story as any other… love story. The homosexuality of the characters isn’t explained or underlined. There are jokes, songs, tomfoolery, parental hostility, a nutty Indian family, and two people in love: in short, business as usual, plot points reserved for ‘normal’ characters. It’s one of the film’s biggest triumphs: You don’t need a ‘reason’ to make a movie on gay romance.
Kewalya concentrates on making a solid drama — which turns out to be sharp, compelling, funny — and the rest takes care of itself.
A still from ‘Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan’.
3. Thappad
One of the more striking things about Anubhav Sinha’s drama isn’t the titular slap, but what transpires before. Amu (Taapsee Pannu) wakes up every morning, finishing the first hour of her job: picking up newspaper, clipping lemongrass leaves, making tea, serving breakfast, handing the wallet to her husband, seeing him off.
This isn’t considered work in the middle-class imagination, and that’s the whole point. The movie is alive to stories that we don’t consider… stories.
Like Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Thappad isn’t the kind of cinema that interests Bollywood. It is not loud, grand, or declarative — it doesn’t benefit the dominant structures that the film industry so loves to serve. But Sinha tells an affecting story hiding in plain sight with remarkable poise. Thappad isn’t angry or bitter; it’s assertive yet gentle — and quietly devastating. And Pannu, one of the best actors in the industry, delivers an astounding performance and a powerful statement.
A still from ‘Thappad’. Photo: YouTube
A live-in maid, an affluent businessman, a plush Mumbai apartment, and no one else. Centred on a stark class divide, Rohena Gera’s drama renders the invisible visible, showing the never-ending inclines that someone like Ratna (Tillotama Shome) has to climb.
But this isn’t just about her exasperation and despair — it’s also about her desire. Tucked in desire is “Sir”, her employer who, like her, is also battling a personal crisis.
This, again, is not the kind of relationship common to Hindi cinema: a bond where hesitant conversations stitch intimacy and affection rests in the shadows of towering social expectations. Yet this movie isn’t just about romantic love; it is about Ratna’s true desire: to be a fashion designer.
In a world where maids are supposed to fulfil household functions, Is Love Enough? Sir sees her as a person. Shome, the heart of the film, delivers the best performance of the year. When we see her on screen, we don’t just appreciate her stunning acting; in her, we see the people we’ve forgotten to see.
A still from ‘Is Love Enough? Sir’.
Good films often take their cues from communal currents: the lives on the societal surface, distressed and ignored. Better films take their cues from subterranean events: the lives of people not even considered…people, dehumanised and forgotten.
Eeb Allay Ooo!, a sharp satire on the lives of migrant workers, is a sobering account of the latter. The protagonist, Anjani (Shardul Bhardwaj), is a professional ‘monkey repeller’. The roads of Lutyens’ Delhi form his workplace, where monkeys must be stopped from entering the government buildings.
Prateek Vats, the director, takes this logline and runs a marathon, unveiling a surreal dramedy that elaborates and interrogates the meanings of lasting success, religious fixation, marginalised lives, and impossible dreams.
A still from ‘Eeb Allay Ooo!’
Eeb Allay Ooo! tackles weighty themes, but it is never burdened by them. Instead, it blends absurd humour with discomfiting social commentary, reflecting our sad, cruel country. Before the COVID-19 crisis, the migrant workers were an urban insignificance: service-providing machines expected to remain silent and invisible.
Vats brought one of them out much before they were all out on the streets — the movie won the top award at the Mumbai Film Festival last year — reaffirming the fact that accomplished filmmakers may not change the world, but they’re the voices of sanity, of empathy, joy, and solidarity, in an imploding, insane world.