The 5 best Hindi movies of 2022 that you probably missed: Gems that prove Bollywood was doing just fine while you were distracted by Brahmastra and Bhool Bhulaiyaa

But enough negativity. Now is the time to celebrate movies; isn’t that the purpose of lists such as this? It is also the ideal time to push back against the frankly annoying narrative that Bollywood films are being outclassed by South Indian hits. This would be an acceptable argument to make if people were talking about box office alone, but they aren’t, are they? It would have also been a valid observation had they been highlighting films like Pada, Malayankunju or Bhoothakaalam. But instead, everybody across India seems to have convinced themselves that RRR, Kantara and KGF: Chapter 2 are pathbreaking works of art. This is about as accurate as saying that Hindi cinema is creatively bankrupt. It isn’t. Bollywood hasn’t changed; it is still producing the same ratio of stunners and stinkers. Viewing patterns have changed.

And just to remind you of this, here is a list of the top 5 Hindi movies of 2022:

Love Hostel

Vikrant Massey and Sanya Malhotra in a still from Love Hostel.

If you’re ever trying to understand just how dramatically the Indian streaming landscape has changed in the last half-decade, you needn’t look any further than Love Hostel, the deliriously dark chase thriller directed by Shanker Raman and produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment. The banner once had a first-look deal with Netflix, but after a trio of magnificently terrible releases — Bard of Blood, Betaal, and Class of 83 — the partnership came to a quiet conclusion. All of this is to say that Love Hostel deserved better than to be dumped on ZEE5, which is, at best, a third-tier platform (the joke, I realise, is squarely on me, considering that three films on this list can be found on it).

The movie itself is mordantly subversive, politically charged, and deliciously humorous despite its grave themes. It gives Bobby Deol his best role in perhaps forever, because no matter how many people Prakash Jha says have watched Aashram, that does not make it a good show. Love Hostel is exactly the kind of film that streaming is made for; it’s a pity then that it arrived at a time when the landscape had already been flooded by theatrical overspill.

Jhund

Amitabh Bachchan leads an ensemble of talented young actors in Jhund.

Having endured scores of terrible Hindi movies this year, one thing became incredibly clear to me. There is not much room in the marketplace for films that bear the distinct stamp of their directors. Audiences tend to prefer movies that remind them of other movies. And this is probably why Jhund — Nagraj Manjule’s excellent sports drama whose every second is brimming with unbridled personality — failed to perform at the box office.

Like Love Hostel, it ultimately landed on ZEE5, where it still didn’t get any sort of noticeable bump in affection or attention. Featuring Amitabh Bachchan’s best performance in years — a scene sandwiched between the film’s two halves is cinema in its purest form — and an accessible examination of truly thorny themes, Jhund also happens to be a rollicking sports movie, and towards the end, a suspense thriller about passing the security check at the Mumbai airport. The audacity.

Thar

Anil Kapoor and Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor in Thar.

A cool Western with more on its mind than empty genre thrills, director Raj Singh Chaudhary’s film had style to spare, but soared on the strength of its two central performances — by father-son duo Anil Kapoor and Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor.

The themes felt at once timeless and timely, and this, perhaps, was the tragedy at the film’s core. Thar unleashed sentimentality like bursts of violence — just when you expected it the least. And towards the end, it transformed into an entirely different beast, more allegorical, like a fable passed down from generation to generation. They say that Hindi films need to be more rooted. Here is a film that unfolds entirely on the fringes of society, as it cuts through the noise to get to the root of what is wrong with us.

Chup: Revenge of the Artist

Dulquer Salmaan in a still from Chup: Revenge of the Artist.

Director R Balki’s genre-fluid ‘thriller’ might come across like a bit too inside baseball for most; it is, after all, about the love-hate relationship between filmmakers and film critics (and who cares about that other than filmmakers and film critics themselves?), but once you scratch beneath its surface, you will admire its universal themes. Chup, at its core, is also about systemic corruption, about art, and about the privilege that some have been given to champion and chastise it.

But allow me to let you in on a secret: it is possible to enhance your viewing experience, but for that, you need to make one mental adjustment. You must decide that Chup cannot be taken at face value, and that it is a parody movie instead.

Monica, O My Darling

Rajkummar Rao in a still from Monica, O My Darling.

Speaking of films that play fast and loose with genre, director Vasan Bala delivered perhaps the most entertaining Hindi movie of the year with his Quentin Tarantino-esque crime comedy Monica, O My Darling. A deliberately twisty murder mystery with a sense of social and moral responsibility, the film owes a great debt to not only the parallel cinema of ’70s Bollywood, but to film noir, gangster dramas, and Hollywood capers from the swinging ’60s.

And like fellow Netflix release Thar, Monica’s slick exterior wouldn’t have been half as appealing without it sneakily subversive feminism, and the truly lived-in performances by its ensemble cast, particularly Rajkummar Rao, Huma Qureshi, Radhika Apte, and ‘above all else’, Sikander Kher.

A few honourable mentions: Good Luck Jerry, Laal Singh Chaddha, Sharmaji Namkeen.