Team FC
Kamal Haasan directed and fronted this alternate history film with a cast that boasted the likes of Naseeruddin Shah, Rani Mukerji, Nassar, Vikram Gokhale, Atul Kulkarni, and Shah Rukh Khan. The film dealt with themes of Partition, religious fundamentalism, and the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi.
Shah Rukh Khan played a disgraced hockey captain-turned-coach in this gripping Shimit Amin drama that cast an eye on the state of women's hockey in India and the idea of being Indian whilst grappling with multiple identities that are either thrust upon the people or adopted willingly.
Anurag Kashyap's five-hour crime epic opened to acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival and proceeded to make waves upon its theatrical release, growing into a cultural phenomenon with tremendous recall value.
Chaitanya Tamhane's debut examined the vagaries of and casual cruelties inflicted by the Indian judicial system through the trial of an activist-poet. The film was unflinching in how it depicted the problems that plague those who find themselves in the dock, and the problems of those around them, all thanks to a system that is fundamentally broken.
Neeraj Ghaywan's maiden feature tackled themes of the caste system, prejudice, and morality in contemporary Varanasi. Aside from delivering as a film, Masaan also gave the audience a glimpse of the vast talent of Vicky Kaushal.
Madhu C. Narayanan's multi-starrer drama is set in a fishing village, and has at its centre four brothers and the difficult relationship they share with each other, and how they eventually come to become a family over the course of the film's runtime.
Jeo Baby's domestic drama revolves around the life of a modern woman who finds herself married to a man who holds in high esteem the most regressive and patriarchal of beliefs. The film delves into her life and how she comes to tackle the problems that plague her marital home.
S.S. Rajamouli's follow-up to the Baahubali films was a spin on modern Indian history, a what-if involving two freedom fighters, played by NTR Jr. and Ram Charan. As has come to be the expectation from the filmmaker, just about every outlandish thing imaginable happened in RRR, with surges of emotion bursting from the frame.
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