'They are as layered and complicated as life itself.' 'There is love, but there is also pain and fire.'
Whether it was in the company of superstars Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan -- or, on rare occasions with both together, among others -- Saravanan's demeanour would stand out, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If you look around the world at people of colour, religion, caste, sexuality or any of the marginalised communities, we are always talking in numbers.' 'We are always assigning them a statistic.' 'That is an easy way to assuage your urban guilt. Because you hide your apathy with hollow sympathy.' 'We are, in a way, making them invisible.'
Nothing about TMMTMTTM feels fresh. That includes the painfully uninspired romance between the leads, who lack both genuine chemistry as well as individual charm to make a romantic drama like this work, sighs Mayur Sanap.
Dinesh Raheja salutes Sandhya, the acclaimed dancer who passed into the ages on October 4.
2025 started with a blockbuster in Chhaava and ended with an even bigger one in Dhurandhar. There have been other Hindi hits too, and we take a look at the Top 10.
Dharmendra got his He Man image with Phool Aur Patthar, which was so strong that he never managed to fully shrug it off.
Singer-actress Sulakshana Pandit, 71, passed into the ages on November 6 after a prolonged illness. Besides her acting roles, she leaves behind some beautiful songs to remember her by.
Here's what caught our eye at the movies this year.
Dinesh Raheja charts the highs and lows of Hrishikesh Mukherjee's creative association with five megastars -- Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dharmendra.
Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan bring action back in the mainstream with much success.
Veteran filmmaker Chandra Barot, best known for directing the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan-starrer 'Don', passed away on Sunday due to cardiac arrest at a hospital in Mumbai. He was 86.
'Badlapur,' says Sreehari Nair, 'proves that sometimes there are more personal truths to be discovered in our trash cans than in our neatly arranged book-shelves.'
'Even if I had the backing of a big corporate house, which I don't, in today's market, I wouldn't want the responsibility of making a Rs 300 crore-Rs 400 crore film.'
Director Priyadarshan's Malayalam film Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham was declared the Best Feature Film.
Dharmendra's oeuvre was so phenomenal that there was never a phase in his professional life when he was in danger of falling into a rut, in terms of either the kind of films he starred in or the sort of co-actors he worked with.
One needs courage to sit through the film which is a remake of hit Hindi film A Wednesday.
Kamini Kaushal, who began her career with the 1946 classic Neecha Nagar and went on to act in a host of films right till 2022, passed away in her Mumbai home on Thursday night.
Sooraj R Barjatya was judged Best Director for the Hindi movie Uunchai at the National Film Awards.
'I wanted to go for the heart, and at the same time, open the audience's mind.'
As Shyam Benegal turns 89 on December 14, Subhash K Jha takes a look at 10 of his best films and tells you where you can watch them.
The maestro has scored music for an impressive number of Hindi films, each one of them a gem in itself.
The International Children's Film Festival will be held in Hyderabad in November.
'I start filming Call Me Bae Season 2 really soon and we're filled with lots of love from the audience from season 1 so I hope they enjoy this one too.'
Kareena has been a leading lady now for 25 years, Deepika for almost two decades and Alia for over a decade. Dinesh Raheja chronicles the changing ways Bollywood has treated actor-moms.
"I think F1's best watched on TV," says Gul Panag speaking from a train on her way to Ambala to spend time with her parents. A little over twenty four hours ago, on Thursday evening, she compered the official opening ceremony for the Indian Grand Prix.
'I've not been doing much work because I was not getting the kind of roles I want to do.'
Mehmood and R D Burman shiver, wail and flail when they encounter a stuffed tiger that wags its tail, furniture that moves on its own volition and dancing skeletons and mummies. Dinesh Raheja revisits a must-watch.
Despite the mediocrity at large, these films had me in raptures for the emotions they evoked within as a cheering audience, critic and cinephile.
As the year draws to a close, Rediff's Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya takes a look at the hits and misses, the highs and lows, the newsmakers and the dealbreakers in alphabetical order.
It's good to see Huma Qureshi help create a film which is as charming as it is empowering, without taking on the stridency that so many women-oriented films invariably adopt, notes Deepa Gahlot.
It's 'not looking like a Diwali lineup, which is usually grand and has superstar movies.'
'Editor M S Shinde deserves full credit because, I'm told, Ramesh Sippy had shot 300,000 feet of footage, which was brought down to 18,000. 'He died in 2012, in a 126 square foot flat in Dharavi, penniless, a forgotten hero.'
Films that turned out to be box office disappointments.
Melodies that stayed on in the mind and memory are too few and far between. Except the ones that do make an impression are definitely worth celebrating for their refreshing style and substance.
It's been a rough year for Hindi cinema, crippled by a producers-versus-multiplex strike that took out a major chunk of Fridays, leaving us all with lesser to watch.
'Star didn't think Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi was good enough to come immediately after KBC.' 'Except for Ekta, no one imagined it would become such a hit.'
'My worst performances are in those movies in which the directors showed me how to act,' Emraan Hashmi tells Arthur J Pais/ Rediff.com in Toronto.
