Over
the years, the Indian Film Industry has intermittently churned out genuinely good
films, which were made on a smaller scale but with top-notch (and often better) content compared to their
blockbuster counterparts (barring a few exceptions). This is the list of the top
50 of these underrated films which deserve more recognition and need to be seen
by more people.
1. 13B
(2009)
One of
the best mystery-thrillers of Indian Cinema, 13B follows the story of
a quintessential middle-class man (played by Madhavan), who begins to experience a series of supernatural phenomenon by way of a television program, soon after his family moves into a new apartment on the 13th
Floor. The film’s story and its execution
were acclaimed by some Hollywood filmmakers also.
2. 1971
(2007)
A deftly made prison movie set in the year 1977, it revolves around six brave prisoners of
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, as they attempt to escape from a POW camp to reach the Indian border, which is just 200 kms away. It comprises an ensemble cast including Manoj Bajpai,
Ravi Kishan, Deepak Dobriyal and Manav Kaul (my personal favorite act).
3. MAAZII
(2013)
Another
hidden gem, Maazi is loosely adapted from David Cronenberg’s A History Of Violence, a slow-burning
Hollywood thriller starring the
charismatic Viggo
Mortensen. It’s the story of a sweet and seemingly innocuous man, whose peaceful family life takes a U-turn when he accidentally kills a gangster (Pankaj
Tripathi in a cameo) and becomes a local hero. But soon after, his daughter is kidnapped and he decides to punish the culprits by finally confronting his dark past.
4. MITHYA
(2008)
It’s a
comedy-thriller which portrays Ranvir Shorey as a struggling actor, who is coerced into impersonating a
look-alike underworld don. But things go haywire when the
actor suffers a head injury during an accident and experiences dementia, after which he starts believing that he is actually a crime kingpin.
Arguably the best film helmed by Rajat Kapoor, also starring Naseeruddin Shah
and Vinay Pathak.
5. KHAMOSH
(1986)
Vidhu
Vinod Chopra (1942 A Love Story, Parinda) directed this stylish
whodunit, which takes place in the backdrop of a Hindi film set, where a budding actress (Soni Razdan) commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Naseeruddin Shah, who plays the role of a CID inspector, investigates the bizarre death as the needle of suspicion oscillates between the crew members. The suspense will keep you guessing until
the end.
6. BLACK
FRIDAY (2004)
This film is Anurag Kashyap's take on the events following the devastating 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts in this adaptation of the book by S. Hussain Zaidi. The narrative delves into the minds of the actual conspirers about how and why this dastardly act was committed and concurrently how the blasts were investigated by the police. The film has achieved a cult following especially
from Anurag Kashyap fans like me.
Inspired by real-life events, the film is a harrowing account of a girl named Sonia whose sister is sold by
her poor father, and how she tries to rescue her from
the brutal world of sex trade in Mumbai, but also ends up being the victim. A disturbing film, which
needs to be seen.
8. TUMBBAD
(2018)
A
simple mythological story of greed in the garb of a period horror film set in 1920s India, it
follows the story of Vinayak Rao (Sohum Shah of Talvar’s fame) and his search
for a hidden treasure in a fictitious village near Pune.
9. FILMISTAAN
(2012)
This
film follows the story of the happy-go-lucky Sunny (The Family Man, Asur), a wannabe actor and a movie buff, who starts working with an American documentary crew in a border area in Rajasthan, where a terrorist group mistakenly kidnaps him and brings him to Pakistan, leading to
hilarious misadventures. His failed attempts to escape from the terrorists form the rest of the story. Will he succeed?
When
a social activist campaigning against a State Govt. International Business Park is run over by a tempo driver, a high-ranking IAS officer (beautifully underplayed
by Abhay Deol) is brought in to probe the incident. The activist's former student (Kalki Koechlin)
believes it to be a murder and joins hands with a low-level filmmaker (Emraan Hashmi),
who claims to have the proof that will bring the government down. A genuinely
well-made political thriller by Dibakar Banerjee.
11. CITYLIGHTS
(2014)
Directed
by Hansal Mehta, Citylights is the story of a poor Rajasthan farmer (Rajkumar Rao), who migrates to Mumbai to repay a loan but is soon conned by unscrupulous city dwellers, which further multiplies his problems forcing him to go the wrong way, eventually ending in tragic consequences. Will he be able to save his family?
12. MR.
AND MRS. IYER (2002)
This intense drama directed by Aparna Sen follows the dreadful bus journey of a Tamil Brahmin
(Konkana Sen Sharma) and a Bengali
Muslim wildlife
photographer (Rahul Bose) and how the conservative but good-hearted Brahmin woman protects the
Muslim man by disguising him as her husband when communal rioting breaks out and their bus is targeted by religious extremists.
13. GULAL
(2009)
Helmed
by Anurag Kashyap and set in present-day Rajasthan, it’s about a law student
who gets embroiled in student politics following his quest for revenge on account of being ragged by a gang of university goons with the help of a cunning local leader (Kay Kay Menon), who has nefarious plans of his own.
14. SHIKARA
(2020)
The
film is based on the love story of a Kashmiri
Hindu couple (played by newcomers Sadia Khateeb and Aadil Khan)in the backdrop of the infamous and barbaric exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from
the Kashmir Valley. Despite the negative reviews
opining that the film is a unilateral standpoint of the sensitive issue, I
still want you to give it a try as not everything can be wrong when the man
behind it is Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
15. KARWAAN
(2018)
This
feel-good road-trip comedy film depicts an amusing road trip from Bangalore to Kochi
by three mismatched individuals: the introvert Avinash (played by Dulquer Salmaan), his impulsive friend Shaukat (played by Irrfan Khan) and the carefree teenager Tanya (played by Mithila Palkar).
16. THE STONEMAN MURDERS (2009)
The
film starring Kay Kay Menon is a neo-noir crime
thriller set in the early 1980s Bombay, and is a fictional story based on the police investigation of the real-life Stoneman serial
killer, who killed footpath dwellers in their sleep.
17. RAINCOAT
(2004)
A
Rituparno Ghosh film, it tells the story of two ex-lovers (played by Ajay Devgan
and Aishwarya Rai), who meet again after six years and how they falsely pretend to be happy in their own lives but eventually learn about their stark truths and try to help each other in their own way.
A near-cult crime film, 3 Deewarein narrates the story of three prisoners (played by
Naseeruddin Shah, Jackie Shroff and Nagesh Kukunoor) and a documentary filmmaker
(Juhi Chawla) filming their reformation story in the prison. If you liked Frank Darabont’s
The Shawshank Redemption, then you should see this one. This film proves why
India needs more filmmakers like Nagesh Kukunoor.
This
is a story about groom kidnapping reportedly prevalent in the state of Bihar in which an aspiring IAS
officer is abducted by the bride’s family to avoid paying dowry. A one of its
kind story.
20. KHELEIN
HUM JEE JAAN SE (2010)
Inspired
by actual events, this Ashutosh Gowariker film starring Abhishek Bachchan and
Deepika Padukone is a cinematic depiction of the 1960 Chittagong uprising, which was led by a village school-teacher and his disorganized but devoted group of revolutionaries, who launched an imperfectly planned attack on their British oppressors.
There is another film called CHITTAGONG (Manoj Bajpai) on the same subject
which you should also see.
Inspired
by Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, things get interesting in the otherwise insipid life of a Rajasthan based PWD engineer, who is also a failed detective-writer when a woman called Manorama asks him to investigate her politician husband's alleged extra-marital affair. It did not do well commercially. Nevertheless, it
is an intricate well-executed neo-noir thriller.
When an undercover Indian agent (Irrfan Khan) discovers that India's most wanted man is going to attend his son's wedding in Pakistan, the RAW chief sends an elite extraction team (Arjun Rampla and Huma Qureshi) to Karachi to bring him to justice. It’s how espionage thrillers should be
made in India. A fantastic piece of work by Nikhil Advani (Director, Kal Ho Na
Ho) comparable to the best of Hollywood.
23. MUKKABAAZ
(2017)
A
recent gem from Anurag Kashyap set in the city of Bareilly, where an aspiring
boxer (played by the supremely talented Vineet Kumar) goes through insurmountable odds to
achieve his dream of becoming a professionally recognized boxer. But things go
awry when he falls in love with a high caste girl, who happens to be the niece
of his adversary - a local don and also the head of the state boxing federation (played by Jimmy
Shergil). The best Boxing film made in India (probably until Farhan Akhtar's TOOFAN releases).
After winning a huge bet, a professional gambler learns that he's diagnosed with incurable lung cancer after which my a mere chance he lands up in a rehabilitation center for cancer patients where he finds new meaning and the much-needed hope in his life.
25. INKAAR (2013)
25. INKAAR (2013)
Inkaar
revolves around a committee investigation for a sexual harassment lawsuit
complaint filed against the CEO of an advertising agency (stylishly played by
Arjun Rampal) by his ambitious protege (played by the ravishing Chitrangada
Singh). A committee (headed by Deepti Naval) examines both sides of
the story to find out whether the CEO is guilty or his protege has become a bit too ambitious.
When the leader of a vigilante group Bhavesh Joshi is brutally murdered as he was about to expose large-scale water theft by a corrupt politician, his best friend assumes the identity of a renewed and stronger Bhavesh Joshi and makes his life-goal to avenge his friend's death and to clean and reform the country. A truly underrated superhero film by Vikramaditya
Motwane (Udaan, Lootera).
27. SHAHID
(2012)
Helmed
by Hansal Mehta, Shahid is the true story of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi (played by Rajkumar Rao). After being wrongly imprisoned for 7 years under the TADA Act, Shahid Azmi went on to become a competent lawyer, who fought cases for innocent Muslims charged under POTA, which eventually resulted in his assassination in the year 2010.
28. MASAAN
(2015)
Helmed by Neeraj Bhayavan, Masaan follows two parallel narratives (a) of a lower caste engineering student (Vickey Kaushal), who works in cremation ghat in Varanasi and falls in love with an upper-caste girl and (b) of a guilt-ridden college teacher accused of having pre-marital sex and how these two anti-climactic stories converge in a hopeful end.
29. DASVIDANIYA
(2008)
It’s
the heart-rending story of a 37-year-old man (Vinay Pathak) when one day he
finds out that he is terminally ill and prepares and sets out to fulfill his 10-item bucket list and goes through a mix of immense joys and sorrows while fulfilling them.
30. UGLY
(2013)
The film starts off when a struggling actor
(Rahul Bhat) finds out that his daughter is kidnapped from his car while he was away to meet his casting director. The
ensuing missing girl’s investigation led by her ex-wife's husband (Ronit Roy) explores human greed and the character's darkest sides through a series of flashbacks.
31. 8 x 10
TASVEER (2009)
A gifted Canada-based forest ranger (Akshay Kumar) investigates the mysterious death of his father, using his unique supernatural ability to enter a photograph from a person's point of view and re-experience
the events witnessed by the person, only to witness a shocking revelation about his own life and his father's killer.
32. LUV
SHUV TEY CHICKEN KHURANA (2012)
A fugitive (Kunal Kapoor) running away from a dangerous gangster from London, returns to his native village and finds that his grandfather has forgotten the famous 'Chicken Khurana' recipe, which made his family Dhaba a sensation in Punjab. He then makes it his mission to reclaim the lost glory with the help of his ex-flame (Huma Qureshi). Rajesh Sharma’s hilarious performance is the film’s highpoint.
This
Sudhir Mishra’s film is set against the backdrop of the Indian
Emergency and follows the romantic triangle of three young people in
the 1970s (Kay Kay Menon, Shiney Ahuja and Chitrangda
Singh) when India was undergoing massive social and political
changes.
Set in
a dystopian alternative future, the film shows an Indian village populated
exclusively by males due to female infanticide over the years and the gender
imbalance it creates, leading to disastrous consequences. A brilliant but disturbing
tale about male chauvinism and mistreatment of women but not for the
faint-hearted.
A simple, short-heighted Lucknow University librarian (Rajpal Yadav) finds himself in a peculiar situation when he gets married to a beautiful and taller woman (Rituparna Sengupta). Things become worse when a tall, talented and charismatic man enters their lives and jealousy starts consuming him.
36. SAMAY
(2003)
Loosely
adapted from the Hollywood crime-thriller SEVEN (Starring Morgan Freeman and
Brad Pitt), Samay follows ACP Malavika Chauhan (Sushmita Sen), who heads an
investigative team looking into the serial murders a wealthy businessman, a famous actress, a wanted hit-man and finds that the only link connecting these murders is that the victims were the best in their fields. But with no clues left behind, will ACP Chauhan be able to catch the killer and if she does, then at what cost?
37. SEHAR
(2005)
Loosely based on the encounter of the criminal Shiv Prakash Shukla, the film follows the story of an honest IPS officer Ajay
Kumar (Arshad Warsi) as the new SSP of Lucknow police. When Gajraj, a ruthless criminal kidnaps the daughter of the CM's friend, the SSP forms a special task force to rescue the child. Gajraj escapes but was later nabbed by the STF.
38. SHAURYA
(2008)
An
effective remake of Hollywood court-room drama A FEW GOOD MEN (starring Tom
Cruise), Shaurya revolves around an amateur Indian Army lawyer (Rahul Bose), who is assigned a high profile case against his best friend (Javed
Jaffrey) as the defense counsel for an officer (Deepak Dobriyal), who has been accused of shooting
his commanding officer in Kashmir. Bose investigates and pleads not-guilty, to everyone's surprise. Kay Kay Menon’s performance in the climactic
interrogation scene is undoubtedly amongst the best acted-out scenes in the
history of Indian cinema, which alone makes it worthy to be on your watch list.
39. HEY
RAAM (2000)
It is
an alternate historical film set in the 1940s India that tells us the story of an archeologist Kamal Hasan), who is inculcated with extreme hatred against Muslims after his wife is brutally raped by a Muslim gang when the Calcutta riots broke out. He gets his revenge but the hatred is reinforced when he meets an anti-Gandhi Hindu nationalist (Atul Kulkarni). However a chance encounter with an old friend (Shah Rukh Khan) transforms his heart to follow Gandhian principles of love and non-violence.
40. KAUN
(1999)
A young woman (Urmila Matondkar) finds herself alone and scared in her house when she sees the news of a serial killer on the loose. Then an overanxious stranger (Manoj Bajpai) knocks on the door. Is he the killer? A horror-thriller
with a twist in the end, which became the talking point of 1999.
41. SHOOL
(1999)
An upright police officer (Manoj Bajpai) gets his new posting in a small town in Bihar which is controlled by a corrupt, uneducated MLA (Sayaji Shinde). The idealistic ways of the cop irks the MLA. Their growing enmity leads the viewers to a hair-raising finale which was shot in the Legislative Assembly in Hyderabad. Without a doubt, one of the best cop movies ever.
42. BHEJA
FRY (2007)
Rajat
Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Ranveer Shorey and Milind Soman star in this chucklesome tale
of an arrogant music industry executive, whose plan to bring an idiot to dinner
goes hilariously awry.
Based
on a real-life incident, when an Army Captain (Sanjay Suri) is martyred in
Kargil, his family (Om Puri, Revathy, Gul Panag) is granted a petrol pump as a
means for livelihood. However, they must face a corrupt system and red-tapism
at various levels of Indian bureaucracy when they want to obtain permissions to
run it.
This inspiring story follows a cricket-obsessed deaf and mute farmer (Shreyas Talpade) from a
remote Indian village who, under the mentorship of an alcoholic ex-cricketer
(Naseeruddin Shah), dreams of wearing the blue Indian cricket uniform while bravely dealing with cricket club politics, dubious sports agents and his own poverty.
A compelling directorial debut from Andhadhun Director Sriram Raghavan, it’s the
story of a woman (Urmila Matondkar) who falls for a charming and mysterious
businessman (Saif Ali Khan), not knowing that he is actually an underworld don. When she is accused of being his partner-in-crime and sent to jail, where she hatches an incredible plan to payback her ex-lover with a taste of his own medicine.
Set in
18th century India, this offbeat film features Saif Ali Khan as
a Naga Sadhu bounty hunter, who sets out on a journey across Bundelkhand with
the intention of exacting revenge upon a Subedar,
for an injustice committed in the past.
Like some
other films on this list, Haasil is not for everybody. Written-directed by
Tigmanshu Dhulia, it is a love story set against the backdrop of University
politics in Allahabad and is about a college student (Jimmy Shergil) in love
with a girl, gets caught up in college politics and crime and must fight it out
for himself when his friend (Irrfan Khan) becomes his foe.
48. MADAARI
(2016)
It is
the story of a common man (Irrfan Khan), who sets out to avenge the death of
his son caused by rampant corruption in the government. Losing the only family
he had, brings him to kidnap the home minister's son and bring those responsible
to justice.
49. DOR
(2006)
This
beautiful story of redemption is about the unique friendship that develops
between two women (Ayesha Takia and Gul Panag), who come from different
backgrounds and how fate brings them together. Their new-found friendship is
tested as one holds the fate of the other's husband in her hands.
50. KARTHIK
CALLING KARTHIK (2010)
Karthik, an underconfident but intellectual introvert (Farhan Akhtar) was always underappreciated throughout his life. One day, his life changes for good when he
receives a phone call from a stranger. With the caller's help he wins the girl of his dreams (Deepika Padukone) and succeeds in unimaginable ways. But after a fall-out happens between them, the caller promises to destroy his life for breaking his trust.
Some
other honorable mentions not included in the top-50 list :
MUMBAI MERI JAAN, PARI,
SOORMA, TRAPPED, KAPOOR & SONS, 99, AAMIR, KHOSLA KA GHOSLA, YAHAN, SAAZ,
ZAKHM, IS RAAT KI SUBAH NAHIN, RAAKH, FIRAAQ, CHALO DILLI, PHIR MILENGE and
COURT.
If you
feel any other movie should also have been in this list, then you may give your
suggestions below.
I have watched few films listed above. I must say, you have some taste mate. I loved your list across various genre. Thank you for suggesting such wonderful films. Great work.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the list. Try the ones which you haven't seen yet.
Delete