Screengrabs from some of the films.
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2024 has been an ugly year to be a fan of Hindi cinema. We’ve seen independent voices being crushed and shut out of the system with little to no opportunity. Mainstream personalities have been busy rubbing their noses in front of powers that be, using a whole range of gestures: professing their love for “sanatan dharam” on a podcast, using the spotlight to gush about the Union home minister Amit Shah right before the release of their film or a young actor confidently lying through his teeth, expressing his admiration for a controversial (and compromised) primetime news anchor.
Even in the midst of this, we’ve somehow managed 10 strong Hindi films, which feels like a miracle. 2024 was the year of the outliers; filmmakers stepping out of the money chambers to assert their identity into a film, even if it meant fewer people watching their films. From an auteur consciously scaling down his projects to someone reinventing himself after an indifferent run to a brand-new auteur announcing herself on the world stage – 2024 was the year when the heart prevailed over the mind.
Here are The Wire’s top 10 (in no order of preference) Hindi films of 2024:
- Merry Christmas: Sriram Raghavan’s love story keeps up an exterior of a mystery through the entire runtime, except the final 15 seconds. It was a film that was consciously designed and paced (to misdirect the fidgety ones), showcasing an auteur at his most subliminal self. Underneath all that cynicism and apathy, Raghavan laid his heart out on a platter with this film. Like a romantic, if you believed in the powers of Sriram Raghavan, there’s a big chance that you found your pay-off.
- Laapataa Ladies: Kiran Rao’s satire on women empowerment is everything I don’t associate with Hindi films in 2024 – feel-good, earnest and sincere. Starring a glorious ensemble of actors including Chhaya Kadam, Ravi Kishen and the central trio of Sparsh Srivastava, Nitanshi Goel and Pratibha Ranta, Rao manages something few of her contemporaries can do these days. The film goaded us to look beyond our doubts and be less cynical of the people around us.
- Fairy Folk: Karan Gour’s domestic drama, about a couple (Mukul Chadha and Rasika Dugal) stuck in a marriage that is going nowhere, is one of the most confident, ambitious swings of the year. Confidently weaving in magical realism, social commentary and insights on modern-day relationships, Fairy Folk feels exactly like the brave independent experiment that has been rolled over by executives. Released with a pay-as-you-like model, making the film available for the general public on a locally hosted website, the filmmakers paved the way for independent exhibition in the near future. How tenable this model is is something we’ll have to wait and watch.
- Amar Singh Chamkila: Imtiaz Ali shot back to form with this biopic of Punjab’s own Elvis Presley. Using a range of animation, cross-cut with real-life footage, the film boasts of a serene and deceptively straightforward lead performance by Diljit Dosanjh. But what really works about Ali’s Netflix film (apart from Rahman’s glorious soundtrack) is how he uses the biopic as a ruse to look at a society that births, feeds off and then carelessly disposes off its icons.
- Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2: LSD 2 is Dibakar Banerjee’s hate story to Indian society after his film Tees was put on an indefinite hold by Netflix. Along with writers Prateek Vats and Shubham, Banerjee came up with a triptych of stories revealing a sickly society addicted to likes, shares and subscribers. A society where nothing is off limits – your sexual identity, your queerness, your allyship with the marginalised sections – and everything can be exploited to build your perceived self on a website but, deep down, we’re hollower than we’ve ever been.
Also read: In 2024, We Saw a Return of Humanism in Cinema - Kill: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s film is unsparing in its action. Kill surprised many by how it adopted the bandits’ point of view. Raghav Juyal is the standout actor in this film, with the filmmaker embracing Fani’s volatility, vulnerability and his inadequacies as a son to his much-revered bandit father (Ashish Vidyarthi). Bhat doesn’t compromise on any amount of violence; it would’ve been nicer if the filmmaker had given hints for how he himself viewed these relentless action scenes, and its deeper philosophies (if any).
- Jigra: Vasan Bala’s jailbreak film was one of the most thoughtfully designed mainstream films. It could’ve gone in any direction, but what remains heartening is how many of Bala’s choices feel deliberate – even when they go against the rousing nature of the mainstream film template. As he mounts massive action set pieces towards the end of the film, the treatment still feels intimate and internal. Graduating from an indie film to a bigger budget – where a filmmaker’s unique voice is the first one to go out of the window – is where Jigra emerges victorious. This is a Vasan Bala film through and through.
- All We Imagine as Light: Payal Kapadia’s Grand Prix-winning multilingual film tells a quiet, moving tale of sisterhood in a city that sucks in and spits out immigrant lives with equal apathy. What remains one of the most seductive things about the film is how counter-intuitive Kapadia’s approach feels – scoring the cacophony of Mumbai’s bustle with whispered voice notes. Scored by Topshe’s synth pieces and languorously shot by Ranabir Das, this film starring Kani Kusruthi, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam is one of the strongest Indian films of the year.
- Girls Will Be Girls: Shuchi Talati’s debut premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2024, and is one of the finest coming-of-age films from India. Produced by Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal, Talati’s debut is a rare film that humanises the young adult as people who have a mind of their own, their own burgeoning politics, belief systems and their own say in desires. Much to everyone’s surprise, the film released on Amazon Prime right before the end of the year, making it one of the biggest triumphs for independent filmmaking.
- Berlin: I’ve watched shows like Slow Horses (Apple TV+) and The Day of the Jackal (Peacock) and wondered why there aren’t any Indian shows that can be introspective about our own intelligence failures and national conceits. Atul Sabharwal’s Berlin is a film that looks inwards, and it’s a shame that after it was released on Zee5, the film got buried under layers of lesser films and shows. The way Sabharwal conjures up the mood with architecture, score and a stacked cast including Rahul Bose, Ishwak Singh and Aparshakti Khurrana, it’s a miracle that such a film is being made in India and (unsurprisingly) not talked about enough.
