The year had a variety of films to choose from. Not all of them were successful at the box office, but had merit.
In fact, a few films that did the mandatory Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) and more, would not make it to the top 10.
Hearteningly, two of the best films were made by women, and the big studios like YRF, Dharma and Excel backed offbeat projects.
Deepa Gahlot lists the top 10 films of 2025, in order of release.
Chhaava
Where to watch: Netflix
Vicky Kaushal's stardom is on the rise, and he got the chance to act in Laxman Utekar's historical, that gave the biopic of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's valiant son Sambhaji Maharaj, the extravagant treatment of a Bollywood blockbuster.
The warrior king took on the might of the Mughal empire, led by a malevolent Aurangzeb (a scene-stealing Akshaye Khanna), and was killed due to the betrayal of his own men. The scenes of torture are gruesome, but preceded by spectacular battle scenes.
Superboys of Malegaon
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Reema Kagti's tribute to the passion of cinema, takes her to the dusty, handloom centre of Malegaon of the not-so-distant past, where a film-crazy Nasir Shaikh (Adarsh Gourav), achieved what nobody could have imagined.
He made small films for the audiences of his town -- mostly parodies of hit films -- on tiny budgets, with a video camera and amateur cast, and for a while, put Malegaon on the map of Indian cinema.
Ground Zero
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
There has been a spate of films about the courage and sacrifice of Indian soldiers. Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar's film, set in Kashmir, is about a real-life operation to flush out a terrorist, but the jingoism is in control.
The BSF officer stationed in the troubled state, Narendra Dube (Emraan Hashmi), is against tarring all Kashmiri youth with the militant brush, and wants to push for reconciliation.
Saiyaara
Where to watch: Netflix
Mohit Suri's film, with newbie actors, Ahaan Pandey and Aneet Padda, turned out to be the surprise hit of the year.
Instead of being put off by the mushy romance between a temperamental singer and a writer suffering from an early onset Alzheimer's, young viewers wept buckets and had the songs on their playlists on loop.
Metro… In Dino
Where to watch: Netflix
Years after his unusual anthology film, Life... In A Metro, Anurag Basu made a spiritual sequel, examining relationships across the age spectrum, with his ensemble cast, with Pritam comprising the music again, and performing on screen, like a sutradhar.
From an older couple trying to find the missing spark in their marriage to a young pair separated by different career and life goals, Basu tried to understand what men and women today are seeking in their partners.
Dhadak 2
Where to watch: Netflix
Mainstream movies do not usually touch upon caste issue, but Shazia Iqbal directed a spiritual sequel to Dhadak, which was also an inter-caste love story. This one was more serious and adult.
In the remake of the Tamil film Pariyerum Perumal (2018), the lower caste man (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and the upper caste woman (Triptii Dimri) are law students, who are aware of their situation and are able to face the consequences, when the ugliness blows up.
Humans in the Loop
Where to watch: Netflix
Aranya Sahay's film got a limited release, but has been winning awards for his original subject and clarity of vision.
A tribal woman (Sonal Madhushankar), abandoned by her upper caste partner, returns to her village with their two children. She gets a job at an AI data labelling centre, and notices the discrepancies between AI and the reality of her own tribal community.
At the same time, she has to handle the adjustment problems of her teenage daughter, who misses her old life.
- Do Read: 'Humans Are Driven By Fear'
Jolly LLB 3
Where to watch: Netflix
In this Subhash Kapoor film, the two Jollys from the earlier two films, the down-on-their-luck lawyers, Arshad Warsi and Akshay Kumar, start by squabbling over clients, and then reunite against the land grabbing project of an industrialist (Gajraj Rao), who wants to oust farmers from their homes for his ambitious Bikaner-to-Boston project.
As always, Saurabh Shukla, playing the eccentric but honest judge, has to oversee the increasingly bizarre case.
Homebound
Where to watch: Netflix
Neeraj Ghaywan's film stars Ishaan Khattar and Vishal Jethwa, as friends from a north Indian village, one a Muslim, the other a Dalit, who see a police job as the only way to out of poverty and socially sanctioned oppression.
Then COVID strikes and their lives are upended.
Janhvi Kapoor had a small part in the heart-wrenching film, which is India's entry for the Academy Awards.
Haq
Where to watch: Netflix
Suparn S Verma's film, starring Yami Gautam as a Muslim women divorced by her husband (Emraan Hashmi) with a triple talaq pronouncement, and her court battle to make him pay financial support for her three children, is powerful and provocative.
The plot is based on the real-life Shah Bano case that had far-reaching legal consequences for the rights of Muslim women and has all the ingredients for a powerful social drama that pits religious conservatism against secular law.
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
© 2025