Despite no release of Bollywood biggies like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, and Ranveer Singh, Bollywood had an interesting start to 2024 with Merry Christmas and Fighter. What followed was a chequered slate of movies. But with big-budget movies boasting huge star casts getting great initial openings and then failing to impress, it became obvious that it is the content and not the stars that are today driving the audience to the theatres. Here are some of the interesting movies that we have watched this year (in order of release, excluding December drops):
1. Merry Christmas 
Directed by Sriram Raghavan
Release date: January 12, 2024
Based on Frédéric Dard’s 1961 French novel Le Monte-Charge, it is a story of two strangers meeting at a pub one night; a story of two unreliable narrators; a story of a murder that reveals the body of lies; and a story that goes beyond just being a murder mystery and becomes a brooding tale of urban loneliness. Immaculately crafted, it is Sriram Raghavan’s best if unintentional attempt at an intimate love story where even the bleakest scenes are laced with breezy situational humour. Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi’s might seem like the unlikeliest romantic pairing ever envisioned in the history of cinema, but their crackling on-screen chemistry makes you root for this charming couple.
2. Fighter
Directed by Siddharth Anand
Release date: January 25, 2024
Indian Air Force’s best combat aviators, Patty (Hrithik Roshan), Minni (Deepika Padukone), Rocky (Anil Kapoor), Taj (Karan Singh Grover), and Bash (Akshay Oberoi), are all part of the elite Air Dragons. As extremists blow up a CRPF convoy in Kashmir, this team leads the attack on the terrorist camp in Pakistan.
Although not in the same league as Top Gun, a movie it’s been compared to, there is no denying the fact Siddharth Anand’s Indian Air Force drama has the best aerial action scenes India has seen so far. The next stunner is Hrithik Roshan–as Patty he is the perfect amalgamation of a bona fide Bollywood star and a powerhouse performer. Although let down by lazy writing and excessive jingoism, Fighter is a visual stunner that packs in enough stuff to drool over.
3. Laapataa Ladies
Directed by Kiran Rao
Release date: March 1, 2024
India’s official entry to the Oscars, the movie is set in 2001 rural India this comedy of errors begins with a newly married man who lands in a soup when his veiled new bride gets swapped with another bride while they were on a train ride to his village. What happens next in this story of mistaken identity forms the core of this spunky but layered social satire that subtly but with assured hands of its writer lifts the veil of patriarchy to reveal its ugly face of a society that treats its women like invisible non-entities robbing them of agency and often even identity. Armed with a fresh ensemble cast the movie not only entertains you while you are at it but also leaves you with the rather distressing realisation that although the movie unfolds in the hinterlands and in the age of early mobile phones, today, while we wait for the iPhone 16 to drop sitting inside our cosy cosmopolitan high-rise, things have not changed much.
4. Madgaon Express
Directed by Kunal Kemmu
Release date: March 22, 2024
The Go Goa Gone actor and co-writer makes an impressive and assured debut as a director with this madcap comedy. Madgaon Express is Dil Chahta Hai on budget, and that’s by design! This is a boy’s trip that is relatable and affordable, and not aspirational like the Farhan Akhtar classic.
Three college buddies, Dodo (Divyenndu), Pinku (Pratik Gandhi), and Ayush (Avinash Tiwari), embark on a trip to goa. But instead of a swanky convertible, they hop on to Madgaon Express—it is as middle-class as it gets! En-route there is a bag swap a-la ’80s Bollywood and the trio lands up getting chased and counter chased across Goa by two warring gangs. As a hat-tip to Go Goa Gone Kemmu also adds some crack into the mix. The end result is an absolute laugh riot. The writing is tight and funny, and all three actors are hilarious, and their chemistry and comic timing is spot on.
5. Crew
Directed by Rajesh Krishnan
Release date: March 29, 2024
Crew starts with three hardworking women, Geeta Sethi (Tabu), Jasmine Rana (Kareena Kapoor Khan), and Divya Bajwa (Kriti Sanon), living what seems to be a rather glamourous life as air hostesses. But soon the dark realities are revealed. And the trio find themselves in the middle of a smuggling racket.
Crew is a well-made, well-written, and well-acted film that works so well because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. What is refreshing, apart from the unusual lead cast and the crackling on-screen chemistry among the trio, is that it is a spunky film where the leading ladies aren’t forever looking for ‘sexual freedom’, bashing men, and cussing their way to glory—things that have become an intrinsic part of the Bollywood’s carefully cultivated ‘independent woman’ trope. Instead, they are given real responsibilities that middle-class, working women can relate to and struggle with.
6. Maidaan
Directed by Amit Sharma
Release date: April 10, 2024
Paying a tribute to the golden era of Indian football (1951 to 1962) the movie focuses on the awe-inspiring journey of its chief architect, Syed Abdul Rahim, the Indian football team coach whose decade-long career was bookended with 2 Asian Games golds. Ajay Devgn gives one of his career-best performances and plays Rahim with a quiet confidence and subdued swagger.
Although Sharma and his elaborate list of writers take ample creative liberties, it is refreshing to watch a sports drama from Bollywood that steers clear of jingoism, melodrama, and stilted dialogues. It has the best sports choreography Indian cinema has seen in recent times. Maidaan is an engrossing and entertaining movie that sucks you in and keeps you hooked even if you are not a sports enthusiast.
7. Amar Singh Chamkila
Directed by Imtiaz Ali
Release Date: April 12, 2024
Diljit Dosanjh is pitch perfect as he plays Amar Singh Chamkila, the highest record-selling Punjabi artiste of the ’80s who was gunned down at the young age of 27, along with his wife and fellow singer, Amarjot Kaur (Parineeti Chopra gives a noteworthy performance). Apart from a commentary on art and censorship, among other things it also questions the idea of what is and what is not socially acceptable being determined and dictated people whose privileged life might not have allowed them to live the same realities as people belonging to the lower strata of the society—the ‘uncouth’ being marked according to their taste and standards. Through this musical biopic, Ali reinvents himself as a filmmaker and we see him experimenting with newer storytelling styles. Apart from using Chamkila’s original songs, the filmmaker brings back his Rockstar team of Mohit Chauhan, Irshad Kamil and of course, the legendary AR Rahman to create the throbbing soundscape that becomes the beating heart of this tragic saga.
8. Do Aur Do Pyaar
Directed by Shirsha Guha Thakurta
Release date: April 19, 2024
What happens when you are cheating on your girlfriend with your wife? This is a story of an Inceptionesque adultery! The concept might sound a bit bizarre on paper but might just be more realistic than the usual versions of movies dealing with extra-marital affairs. Kavya (Vidya Balan) and Ani (Pratik Gandhi) have been married for 12 years. It was a love marriage with Kavya eloping with Ani to her parents’ dismay. But now that romantic love has evaporated quite a bit with the heat of reality, and unbeknownst to each other, both now have steady partners. But what happens when in sudden turns of events the married couple suddenly find themselves drawn to each other all over again? Brilliantly acted by Pratik Gandhi and Vidya Balan, this is a charming little rom-com with well-written character arcs that add to the plausibility of the goings-on.
9. Munjya
Directed by Aditya Sarpotdar
Release date: June 7, 2024
The narrative unfolds in two timelines. It is 1952, Gotya, an adolescent Brahmin boy is obsessed with Munni, who seven years his elder. He tries black magic to acquire Munni and her affection but sadly dies in the process. And becomes a malevolent ghost, Munjya, who years later latches on to one of his descendants Bittu and starts meddling in his love story—still on the quest to possess Munni.
Munjya adapts an age-old Marathi folklore (according to which a pre-adolescent Brahmin boy dies within days of his thread ceremony, he becomes Munjya) to tell a tale of timeless emotions such familial bonds and unrequited love while also putting across a social commentary on male entitlement, stalking, and consent. The acting by the ensemble cast is commendable, especially that of Abhay Verma as the wispy Bittu. But with the horror elements, especially mischievous the CGI ghoul, hardly managing to be scary and the humour landing consistently, maybe it would be more apt to call this movie a supernatural comedy instead of a horror comedy.
10. Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank
Directed by Amar Kaushik
Release date: August 15, 2024
While it is rare to find a good sequel, especially in Bollywood, this year saw a sequel not only dwarf its original at the box office but also become the highest grossing Hindi movie of the year. Chanderi’s favourite ‘ladies tailer’ Vicky (Rajkummar Rao), who is still in love with the ghost, Stree (Shradha Kapoor), joins force with his two buddies, Bittu (Aparshakti Khurana), and Jena (Abhishek Banerjee), and Rudra Bhaiya (Pankaj Tripathi) once again to save the town from evil. But this time the evil is a man named Sarkata. And unlike Stree, who could be easily dissuaded by writing a simple ‘O Stree Kal Aana’ on the walls of houses, Sarkata like most men, doesn’t believe in the concept of consent. Although not as edgy and fresh as the OG Stree, the sequel still holds within it a biting social comedy which ironically become relevant like never before, especially with the fictional scene of women coming out in hordes on the streets of Chanderi finding a direct real-life parallel on the streets of Kolkata post the RG Kar incident.
11. Sector 36
Directed by Aditya Nimbalkar
Release date: September 13, 2024
Starring Vikrant Massey and Deepak Dobriyal—both in top form—Sector 36 is a ‘fictionalised’ take on the shocking and horrific Nithari case of 2006, where Noida residents Moninder Singh Pandher and his house help Surinder Koli were accused of abducting and sexually assaulting children (nearly 20 victims) from a nearby village and also resorting to cannibalism, only to eventually escape the noose in 2023 with the court acquitting them due to lack of evidence.
Massey plays the unhinged house help Prem Singh (who has been given a backstory of childhood trauma in the movie) and Akash Khurana plays his partner-in-crime, the paedophile boss Balbir Singh Bassi. Dobriyal is Ram Charan Pandey, the Sub Inspector trying to crack the case. This tightly written taut thriller is a must watch for Massey and Dobriyal’s acting masterclass. The interrogation scene between the two is on undoubtedly one of the best acted in Indian cinema.
12. I Want To Talk
Directed by Shoojit Sircar
Release date: November 22, 2024
Arjun Sen (Abhishek Bachchan), a successful career-driven US-based marketing professional gets a life-altering shocking diagnosis—he has advanced throat cancer. He grapples to come to term with his own mortality and make optimum use of the time left while trying to reconnect with his daughter Reya (a brilliant debut by digital creator-turned-actor Ahilya Bamroo ) who he co-parents with his ex-wife.
Inspired by Arjun Sen's memoir, Raising A Father this movie can be regarded as part of a Shoojit Sircar trilogy with the other two movie being Piku (a movie that explore the bond between a daughter and her hypochondriac, ageing father) and October (a movie that is largely set inside a hospital around a terminally ill patient). The rather slow-paced movie sees a pot-bellied Abhishek Bachchan give one of his career-best performances as he loses all his vanity and becomes the character in body and soul with his eyes doing most of the talking—something that has become an intrinsic part of his craft (the most recent example being the brilliant scene in Ludo where he meets his scared daughter).
