Published By: Manjit Saikia

Underrated Bollywood movies that you may have missed (1)

Bollywood film industry churns out many more movies than Hollywood every year. In all the excitement of big releases every Friday in the box office, many rare gems pass through the movie theaters unnoticed. It is only in the hindsight that we realize what we had missed. We have listed out a few such underrated movies from Bollywood that is worth a second look in case you have missed it the first time.

Masaan (2015)

Masaan came out in 2015 with a tagline “Paths of grieve intersects in the Ganges River”. This was a story of four different lives intersecting with each other in tale that takes place in the Indian heartland by the banks of Ganges. The stories in Masaan are a heartbreaking chronicle of harsh lives in a small town that will force you to think. But you will also enjoy the brilliant acting and cinematography.

Black and White (2008)

Black and White was a ShubashGhai movie that came out in 2008. The movie did not do as well as expected in the box office despite the presence of stars like Anil Kapoor and Nawazuddin Siddqui.  However, its commercial success or lack of it takes nothing away from the fact that it had a very compelling storyline. It is a story of a hardened Afghan terrorist who came to India to kill but gets transformed. Even if you feel like the storyline is predictable, there are many moments in the movie that will stay with you for a long time.

Titli (2015)

Titli was one of the most hard-hitting movies that came out in recent years. It is a story about a dysfunctional family of thieves with the youngest member looking for a way out from the family business. One great thing about the storytelling is that the director Kanu Bhel don’t believe in spoon-feeding the audience but let them make their own derivations. It is not just the story but canonically too paints a different, a grimmer picture of life in Delhi – a welcome break from the Punjabi exuberance we are used to.

October (2018)

The movie October was completed in just thirty-eight days. The movie didn’t have any super star to make it a more visible at the time of its release. Despite limited commercial success, October went on to make a niche for itself and have won multiple awards in the country and abroad. It is a story about a bunch of carefree twenty-one year olds working in a hotel until a series of event land two of them in a relation unlike anything they have seen before. You might think of it as a love story but actually it is a story about love.

DilDostiEtc (2007)

This is a movie is not like any other teenage/college movie that is churned out by Bollywood every year. It is a stark contrast from all the frills and song-dance routine we would generally expect from a movie about college life. The story revolves around two college students and their different aspirations and directions on life, told in a way that is closer to real life than any other contemporary college movies.