Megha Ramaswamy’s What Are the Odds? (2019) is a film unlike any other about Indian young adults, harkening the uncertainty of youth on screen to present an experience that is at once innovative, surreal, and profound. By Paromita Patranobish

Jeo Baby’s remarkable film The Great Indian Kitchen (2021) is a critique of patriarchy in Indian households, a delicious recipe of a discomforting, cold dish. - By Deekshith Pai

Vikramaditya Motwane’s AK vs AK asks more questions about reel and real than any other film in recent memory. How much of real life inspires cinema? How far can cinema piggyback on what’s happening in the outside world? By Urmi Bhattacheryya

Rohena Gera’s Sir (2018) is a romance that challenges the societal taboos of class in India, and deftly explores the story of two individuals who the barriers between them. With delicately-crafted moments, the film strips off our biases to ask “Is love enough?” By Harshita Murarka

The White Tiger (2021) is a dark and explosive rags-to-riches Indian story, cooked to be palatable to Western tastes. The adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s novel sticks too close to its source, losing on screen what was gained in text. By Karan Madhok

The OTT vs. theatre competition isn’t a challenge, but a delightful opportunity, writes Sanchit Gupta. We can have the best of both worlds: both the mediums need equal space to grow where different films with different objectives can find their home.

The diversity of Hindi-language web series over the calendar year was truly remarkable, featuring shows that thrilled, entertained, and pushed forward Indian storytelling more than ever before. From Paatal Lok to Aarya, and Scam 1992 to Panchaayat and beyond, Jamie Alter picks ten of the very best.

With characters that explore complexities of LGBTQ and Disability issues, Netflix’s new coming-of-age web-series takes baby steps into bringing a diversity of representation into the mainstream. - By Atulya Pathak

From Paatal Lok and Leila to A Suitable Boy and Deepika Padukone’s films, Indian movies and web series face targeted attacks from the outraged right-wing, hell-bent to shape the national narrative to their own terms. Is there a way forward for true creative voices to survive in the mainstream? By Karan Madhok

The true rags-to-riches tale of a stockbroker, Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is a gripping chronicle of the corrupting power of ambition, as well as an astute commentary on an archaic financial system that both boosted and crippled India’s economy - by Jamie Alter.

From the fierce Baldev Singh in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, the inimical patriarchs in Mohabbatein and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, and gentler fathers in Thappad and Gunjan Saxena, Harshita Murkarka takes a look at the evolution of fatherhood in the post economic-liberalised Bollywood.

Interview: Kuldeep Ruhil, the scriptwriter of the MX Player web series Aashram stayed at eleven ashrams and deras in North India to research why devotees are drawn magnetically to self-styled Babas.- by Barkha Kumari