Shubhra Gupta is film critic and senior columnist with the Indian Express. She watches world cinema for delectation, Hollywood for fun, and Bollywood for work. She has a huge capacity to sit through terrible Bollywood movies, but no patience at all with bad Hollywood. And world cinema has to be really cutting edge to grab her attention, and keep it. When she began reviewing, over 20 years ago, people would commiserate and say, “oh, you poor thing, you have to watch Hindi cinema”. But soon, Bollywood became cool, cool, cool. So now she hears this more often “oh my god, you watch Bollyood films, can you introduce me to Shah Rukh Khan”? No, she can’t, sorry, though she can vouch for the fact that he is really sharp and good fun in conversation. But what she can do, and has done week after week, month after month, year after year, without a break, is to lead you into the magical world of movies, and share her experiences of watching all those hundreds of films over the years. In her reviews and columns, she lets you into what she likes, and doesn’t, and invites you to be bewitched. And to know how to choose between the good ones and the turkeys, and how you can take away something from even the really ghastly ones. Because life is a movie, isn’t it? Bahut picture baaki hain, mere dost.

April 26,2024 15:41:52 PM
Ranneeti Balakot and Beyond review: Jimmy Sheirgill, Lara Dutta's tepid and predictable show stretches interminably over nine episodes with obvious writing and performances.
Fri, Apr 26, 2024
April 26,2024 15:29:33 PM
Ruslaan movie review: Aayush Sharma film takes you back to the era when Bollywood flicks didn’t really bother about coherent plots as long as there were enough formulaic set-pieces.
Fri, Apr 26, 2024
April 19,2024 17:18:08 PM
Under The Bridge review: The first thing that strikes you about the series, two episodes of which are out, to be followed with one each every week, is the spot-on casting of Vritika Gupta as the victim, Reena Virk.
Fri, Apr 19, 2024
April 19,2024 16:35:25 PM
Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2 review: This ‘LSD’ redux is not as original, but is as sharp, and as impactful. When Dibakar Banerjee cuts us, we bleed.
Fri, Apr 19, 2024
April 19,2024 10:25:09 AM
Do Aur Do Pyaar movie review: Vidya Balan, who expectedly gets top billing, is all practised ease in the romantic-comedy, also starring Pratik Gandhi, Ileana D'Cruz and Sendhil Ramamurthy.
Fri, Apr 19, 2024
April 12,2024 13:34:55 PM
Amar Singh Chamkila movie review: Diljit Dosanjh internalises Amar Singh Chamkila’s hard-scrabble life and pain, and distills it into his fine-grained performance, playing an artiste who lived and died by his beliefs.
Sat, Apr 13, 2024
April 11,2024 13:40:58 PM
Bade Miyan Chote Miyan movie review: Could it be that some AI app secretly overtook the writing, and made the film into squeezable paste, with zero flavour? Otherwise how can you turn these two heroes -- Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff -- into such dull clones of themselves?
Fri, Apr 12, 2024
April 09,2024 11:47:52 AM
Maidaan movie review: Ajay Devgn plays Syed Abdul Rahim with a patent sincerity and only a hint of the slo-mo swagger. His rag-tag team has the kind of composition so syncretic that it makes you ache with nostalgia.
Thu, Apr 11, 2024
April 06,2024 08:00:56 AM
In an era of generic online content, the selection of buzzy international titles and sharp Indian independent voices at the Cinévesture International Film Festival in Chandigarh gave a platform to meaningful cinema
Sun, Apr 07, 2024
March 29,2024 14:16:44 PM
Yes Papa movie review: The film does have the right intention. Child sexual abuse is a difficult subject, and needs wider amplification.
Fri, Mar 29, 2024
March 29,2024 09:35:49 AM
Patna Shuklla movie review: The mark-sheet switch and the rampant corruption in educational institutions keep you engaged in Raveena Tandon film, even if the story-telling itself bobs along evenly, without too many surprises.
Fri, Mar 29, 2024
March 29,2024 08:57:50 AM
Crew movie review: Tabu, so comfortable in in her older woman avatar, and Kareena Kapoor Khan, treading the thin line between greed and need with ease, are a riot; Kriti Sanon, in their company, manages to hold her own.
Sat, Mar 30, 2024
March 23,2024 07:00:43 AM
At the tenth edition of Qumra, a Doha Film Institute initiative, participants investigate questions around conflict and identity and the importance of individual cinematic voices.
Fri, Mar 22, 2024
March 22,2024 16:27:37 PM
Lootere review: Coming from the Scam 92 team of director Jai Mehta and showrunner Hansal Mehta, Lootere doesn’t dial back on danger, and manages to keep its stakes high.
Fri, Mar 22, 2024
March 22,2024 14:29:41 PM
Madgaon Express movie review: Divyenndu, Avinash Tiwary and Pratik Gandhi is a threesome which can lift any scene, but the lacklustre writing lets them down.
Fri, Mar 22, 2024
March 22,2024 11:03:10 AM
Swatantrya Veer Savarkar movie review: It appears Randeep Hooda’s intention was to right what he considers are historical wrongs towards his hero, and there’s not an iota of doubt of the near-worshipful tone the film bears towards the central character.
Sat, Mar 23, 2024
March 21,2024 08:55:26 AM
Ae Watan Mere Watan movie review: The breakout star in this Sara Ali Khan film is Sparsh Srivastav. He was terrific in ‘Laapataa Ladies’; here he proves that that performance was no fluke.
Wed, Mar 26, 2025
March 15,2024 14:44:08 PM
Murder Mubarak review: This is the closest any film has come to re-creating Anuja Chauhan’s universe, very few can do the insider-outsider divide with such acuteness, both sharp and warm.
Fri, Mar 15, 2024
March 15,2024 13:08:32 PM
Bastar The Naxal Story movie review: To expect any kind of nuance from the makers of The Kerala Story would have been a stretch. Bastar is more of the same.
Fri, Mar 15, 2024
March 15,2024 11:52:06 AM
Yodha movie review: Things plummet soon enough as Sidharth Malhotra goes full tilt at the rescue operation that ends with a pacifist note in the heart of our neighbouring country.
Fri, Mar 15, 2024
March 14,2024 12:35:55 PM
Big Girls Don’t Cry review: The series manages to re-create the very specific atmosphere of an all-girls boarding school whose teenage inmates are bouncy, flouncy, big-with-ideas, loaded-with-rebellion and high-on-hormones.
Thu, Mar 14, 2024
March 11,2024 12:01:34 PM
The highs and lows of Academy Awards 2024
Tue, Mar 12, 2024
March 08,2024 14:23:12 PM
Showtime review: Emraan Hashmi, Naseeruddin Shah-starrer web show promises us a great juicy deal, but delivers little as it treads all too-familiar territory.
Sat, Mar 09, 2024
March 08,2024 11:34:04 AM
Shaitaan movie review: After whetting our appetites with a few well-staged command and control sequences, Ajay Devgn takes over. And how can a hero, even if he has allowed himself to be bashed up and bloodied till then, not win?
Sat, Mar 09, 2024
March 02,2024 10:01:21 AM
Apart from The Fable, starring Manoj Bajpayee and directed by Raam Reddy, there were multiple housefull screenings of PS Vinothraj’s Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl) and Jatla Siddartha’s In The Belly Of A Tiger.
Sun, Mar 03, 2024



