I have two words to tell you how significant this year was, in the landscape of Indian entertainment, and no, it isn’t the name of a film: Sacred Games. Netflix’s first original show, based on Vikram Chandra’s book of the same name, Sacred Games turned out to be an absolute gamechanger.
Starring Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the cop-and-mobster, and a bunch of other notables (Pankaj Tripathi, Ranvir Shorey, Aamir Bashir, Kalki Koechlin, Radhike Apte amongst others), this two part show, directed by Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap, changed the way we would consume ‘content’ going forward.
Not that Sacred Games could be accused of being generic content. This very Bombay story had the zing that Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet lacked, and though the second part was nowhere as good as the first, the two-hander ensured that web series were here to stay, kickstarted the popularity of streaming platforms in India: after Netlix came Amazon, followed by SonyLIV, and Disney Plus (now Jio Hotstar) and several others.
Mirzapur is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
A few months after Sacred Games, Amazon Prime Video came out with its own original, Mirzapur, a show with a potent mix of small-town mobsters, crime families, and memorable characters. Directed by Karan Anshumann, Gurmmet Singh and Mihir Desai, the series showcased an ensemble toplined by Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Vikrant Massey, Divyenndu Sharma, Shweta Tripathi, Shriya Pilgaonkar and others.
Also Read | 25 years of Indian Cinema | 2017: A humdinger of a year for small films with a big heart
With Covid-related theatrical shutdowns, which were just around the corner, and consequent production slowdown of the movies, viewers were given a taste of shows, films, shorts from around the world, both in subtitled and dubbed versions. The audience had never been so spoilt for choice, and nothing would ever be the same again. Now, instead of being ‘how is the film’, the question I get all the time is: OTT par kab aayegi?
Going back to the movies that came out that year, a handful of well-told hits rose above the general dross, which was topped by the so bad it’s terrible Thugs Of Hindostan (Aamir Khan), with Anand L Rai’s Zero (Shah Rukh Khan) coming a close second.
Story continues below this ad
Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s Badhai Ho has Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao as a middle-aged couple catching pregnant, having to deal with a horrified grown up son and his girl-friend, played by Ayushmann Khurrana and Sanya Malhotra .
Sriram Raghavan and Ayushmann Khurrana, along with Tabu and Radh teamed up in Andhadhun for a smart thriller in which a bunch of characters are blind-sided by a canny musician.
In Sidharth P Malhotra’s Hichki Rani Mukerji plays a character who rises above their disability (Tourette’s syndrome) with conviction, in yet another attempt at a disabled character after Black.
Here are some of my other favourites of 2018.
Amar Kaushik’s Stree, with Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor was the beginning of the small-town horror coms tinged with a strong dose of feminism, leading to several copies, but nothing that compares to the smarts of this one.
Story continues below this ad
Shoojit Sircar’s October gave Varun Dhawan yet another role to show that he could do something else other than Govinda-style song-and-dance comedies. A coming of age with a difference.
Shashanka Ghosh’s Veere Di Wedding, a female buddy comedy starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania, very quickly became of my favourite of the genre– the girls were frank, fearless and fun, facing down all kinds of obstacles.
Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz gave Hindi cinema one of its finest actors in the shape of Vineet Kumar Singh, playing the titular small-town boxer and his journey.
Also Read | 25 years of Indian Cinema: 2016 was the year of Dangal, Fan, Udta Punjab and Pink
Story continues below this ad
Anubahv Sinha’s Mulk brought him out of the sludge he had been in, and the film, starring Rishi Kapoor and Taapsee Pannu can be seen as a course correction for not just the director, but of a nation spiralling on the path of majoritarianism.
Also who can forget Tumbaad, co-directed by Anand Gandhi and Rahi Anil Barve, a beautifully shot, atmospheric period film, starring Sohum Shah, melding myths and secrets and greed?
Mirzapur is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Varun Dhawan in October.
A quick snapshot of Bollywood in 2018.