The 10 Best Hindi Movies of 2024 (2025)

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2024 for Hindi movies was like a kickback to the countless number of Box-office turners we got last year. After the sheer storm that movies like Pathaan, Jawan, Animal, and Gadar 2 brought out at the Box Office (their questionable quality aside), 2024 turned out to be a year where Hindi cinema got its mojo back – in particular the little gems that often go unnoticed.

Sure there was the usual pile of absolute garbage across all fronts and genres, but this year could be seen as a slightly better outing for Bollywood. Thanks in large part to some small-budgeted fares that had minor ambitions and even minor Box office runs. However, for those of us who like to go out of our way to get to the core of such movies, it was a good time.

In the following list, I’d like to point out those movies that were competently made, had some kind of takeaway, and managed to connect with me on a personal level. Of course, this list of Best of 2024 Hindi movies is as subjective as all of art itself, but for those of you who like their movies to be a little extra, this list is for you.

Before we dive into the actual list, let’s also mention those movies that could have made it to this top 10 but missed due to some reason or the other.

First up is Imtiaz Ali’sAmar Singh Chamkila” which uses the somewhat fleeting story of the musical legend to tell a tale about cancel culture and censorship that’s becoming incredibly rampant in the contemporary world. Second, Varun Grover’s “All India Rank,” – a coming-of-age about the burden of forced dreams that’s dipped in bittersweet nostalgia. Third, Kunal Khemu’s directorial debut “Madgaon Express” – an uproaringly funny throwback to the mindless comedies that we all adored in the early 2000s. Fourth, Gaurav Madan’s “Barah by Barah” – an unhurried portrayal of the changing times, set in the oldest city in the country. And lastly, Karan Gour’s ambitious, magic realist drama “Fairy Folk,” which raises pertinent questions about gender, identity, and relationships with a satirical, existential touch.

10. Kill

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Kill” took everyone by surprise. I mean, who would expect a blood-splattering, face-smashing, punchathon by Dharma Production? Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s “Kill” which is set almost entirely on a moving train features a narrative that feels melodramatic from the offset.

Commando Amrit Rathod (Lakshya), who is onboard to get with the love of his life Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) – also traveling to Delhi with her family to get into a forced arranged marriage situation, is met with a gang of heavily armed thugs led by Fani (Raghav Juyal). Amrit and his colleague are sucked into a sticky situation that turns truly bloody when Fani decides to let his madness take over.

Featuring a star-making turn from Juyal, “Kill” works because it manages to keep the stakes high. The bad guys in “Kill” are not foot soldiers who can be sacrificed just because the film suddenly takes a 360 turn into relentless action. Director Bhat gives them just the right kind of character traits to make the back-and-forth interesting and intriguing. The action choreography is surprisingly neat, allowing lovers of the genre, to enjoy the film in all its gory glee.

9. Berlin

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I do not like spy stories, but Atul Sabharwal’s “Berlin” which is rich in its period details sucked me right into its post-Cold-War slow burn. Inspired by John Le Carre’s espionage tales that often focus on human errors and other inabilities rather than high-strung thrills, the film follows Pushkin (Aparshakti Khurana) – a sign language teacher forced into the shadowy world of spy intrigue.

Pushkin is recruited by the head of the Soviet desk, Sondhi (Rahul Bose) to retrieve information from a deaf suspect Ashok (Ishwak Singh) – the prime suspect of a possible assassination plot that could in turn result in something far dirtier in the name of government bureaucracy.

What works most in “Berlin” is the setting itself. Director Sabharwal peppers his story with elegant period detail that is never showy and always crystal clear about its aim. The interpersonal dynamics between the three leading men in the story is exceptional and the actors more than compensate for what can be considered flab for the story. The film, thus soars in its quiet moments of just noticing these men play against and for what they believe in.

Also, Read – The 20 Best Indian Movies of 2024

8. I Want to Talk

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How much pain can a human endure? This must be the question you would like to ask while witnessing Arjun (Abhishek Bachchan), the protagonist of Shoojit Sircar’s “I Want to Talk.” However, neither Sircar nor Arjun for that matter would be interested in that because this is a tale about human resilience – about withstanding life’s inevitability by carrying the shield of survival with you.

The story follows Arjun as he goes in and out of hospitals while his relationships suffer the load of his changing body. Things are stitched, taken out, and replaced by parts of his own body. In a way, this change also embodies how his belief system, which is occasionally monitored by his young daughter Reya – changes. So, to make the narrative feel more human, we are also offered to look at Arjun’s survival guilt and the hanging grief that the people around him feel.

This makes, “I Want to Talk,” a movie about skewing dependency by allowing oneself to keep going. For a film that is about the hanging balance between life and death, it also happens to be funny, and a large part of the success goes to Bachchan’s performance which is rock solid – despite the film not offering him to go against a traditional conflict of any sort.

7. Do Aur Do Pyaar

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Loosely based on the narrative hook from A24’s “The Lovers”; wherein two cheating spouses start cheating on their new lovers with each other, “Do aur Do Pyaar” is an interesting look at the complexity of modern relationships.

The film follows Kavya (Vidya Balan) & Ani (Pratik Gandhi) – a married couple living in the bustling center of the maximum city that is Mumbai; albeit estranged in their own little abode. When we first meet them, we are offered to see them with their respective extra-marital partners Nora (Ileana D’Cruz) and Vikram (Sendhil Ramamurthy), and it’s easy to confuse their new love as their one and only. However, a tragedy in Kavya’s life brings Kavya and Ani back together as they rekindle their desire for each other. The running away to get married, despite the clear indication of no support shown from their varied family backgrounds; soon makes complete sense.

The rekindling, however, puts the two at a very strange crossroads where they are forced to question themselves, their life choices, their wants and needs, and above all; how adding love to their equation might not be a final solution. Debutant director Shirsha Guha Thakurta’s outlook is fresh with keen observations and a low-key, homegrown indie vibe thrown in for good measure. What makes this worth watching is the crackling chemistry that Balan and Gandhi share. It’s hard to look away when the two of them are on screen together.

Also, Read – The 5 Best Bengali Movies of 2024

6. CTRL

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Black Mirror has been warning us about this for all these years. The machines, which are our own making, taking over our lives is not a narrative that’s new to us anymore. However, the threat presented in Vikramaditya Motwane’s film felt personal, pertinent, and dangerous – so much so that this articulation of the commercialization and monopolization of our minds that are perpetually online – doesn’t feel like a distant reality anymore.

“CTRL” follows Joe (Vihaan Samat) and Nella (Ananya Panday), an influencer couple who do everything together, and have no filter when it comes to sharing their lives online. That is until, Joe cheats on Nella, leaving her heartbroken. So, on one of her low days, Nella decides to take the help of an AI program to erase the digital footprints of Joe from her life – completely unaware that she is also slowly letting go of the agency she has on her real life.

Motwane is not just interested in this premise to uncover a deeper conspiracy at play. He is interested in our over-dependency on the medium to an extent where we slowly keep losing part of our identity – becoming something that suits everyone other than ourselves. Sure there is a cautionary look at corporate greed peppered into the narrative, but the more humane lens makes “CTRL” a movie that needs to be seen. It also helps that Ananya Pandey is really good as a naive and relatable protagonist who gets embroiled in a world that she assumes to be her savior; when it clearly isn’t.

5. Laapataa Ladies

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A lot of adoration from the masses, and movie lovers towards Kiran Rao’s “Laapataa Ladies” was diluted when it was selected as India’s choice to compete for the Best International Film category at the Oscars instead of the more deserving “All We Imagine as Light.” This and the fact that the film plummets into a male-savior narrative in the final leg of the film cannot take away the purity with which Kiran Rao has made her film. These characters are, for lack of a better word – cute, and their conflicts, despite the heightened outlook; grounded.

The premise is simple but funny, making its use all the more funnier. We follow two newlywed women who get exchanged when they are traveling on the same train, only because their respective husbands did not care to look beyond their veils. The veil is of course used to satirize how these oppressive, man-designed traditions can fall prey to their own design, it is also used to filter out these patriarchal norms in their most simplistic form – allowing everyone to understand how wrong they can be.

Rao’s movie is not a lesson, but if it were, I would use it as a template to make foolish people understand everything wrong with the society we live in. The film is full of small characters, and petite moments of joy and introspection – all of which are rooted in an adorable Bollywoodized gaze; making it impossible to come out of the film without having a smile on your face.

Read More – The 10 Best Malayalam Movies Of 2024

4. Girls Will Be Girls

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Shuchi Talati’s debut feature won 2 awards at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. It was a breakout hit coming from not just the first big festival of the year, but also one that I’d mostly relate to being the true champions of coming-of-age stories with a beating, indie heart. I mean, getting that kind of affirmation is more than anything for a budding filmmaker, but since we are talking about it one year later, there must be something truly unique about it.

Girls Will Be Girls” follows Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), an 18-year-old overachiever at a strict boarding school in the Himalayan foothills. Mira has just become the first girl prefect at her school, but, this year, her desires have gotten new wings that go beyond academia. Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), the new boy in her class catches her attention. He is a charming, mature version of the boys at her school, and she falls for his charismatic ways. But so does her traditional mother Anila (Kani Kusruti) who seems to have skipped her own coming-of-age years and likes the attention she gets from the young guy who is wise beyond his years.

Now, this is a film about Mira’s sexual awakening, her blistering emotions, and her need to perfect the first instance that makes her feel butterflies all over. Consequently, it is also about Anila — in another brilliant Kani Kusruti performance — that captures the essence of an ever-present desire in a person who is shaped by the ways of the world and is eager to impose the same on her daughter. Anila’s girlhood is as important as that of Mira and Talati’s film has a sensuous, gentle touch that never shies away from putting the two central characters in harm’s way. So, when the film reaches its epicenter of self-discovery, you applaud it for knowing that you have to let these girls grow – Yes, even the one who is now a mother.

3. Santosh

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“Santosh” is technically not an Indian film. But since we are talking about the Best Hindi movies of 2024, the list will be incomplete without including it here. Parallels with Abhinav Sinha’s “Article 15” are obvious but Sandhya Suri’s film takes a smearing approach towards its protagonist’s understanding of the oppressive and communal divide that surrounds her.

The film follows the titular character played by Shahana Goswami, a recently widowed young woman who inherits her husband’s job as a police constable. The first major case she finds herself embroiled in is the murder and rape of a young lower-caste Dalit girl with the suspect being a Muslim boy. Santosh, who, with time, starts to get carried away by her upper-class privilege, unknowingly becomes a part of the systemic way in which power and control are exercised on those who are less fortunate.

In the director’s Suri’s vision, which slowly builds to a haunting realization for Santosh, the woman is not a victim. However, when her moral compass is propelled into the consistent injustice that keeps rattling our system left right, and center, we notice her being completely helpless to come out of it. Her situation thus mirrors hundreds and thousands of us who choose to sit on the sideline with our apolitical gaze, letting the oppression wash over us. Goswami embodies this character like a cloak and carries it to a bleak finish with a performance that is among the year’s best.

2. LSD 2: Love, Sex aur Dhokha 2

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I would have preferred if Dibakar Banerjee had not put his newest film under the disguise of being a spiritual sequel to his 2010 film. While both of them do share a voyeuristic approach to noticing the messy lives of the people in it, “LSD 2” is somehow more unique and haunting. The film, which deals with three different stories like its predecessor uses two important ideas that are ruling the world that’s perpetually on screens – sexual identity and the perils of overexposing our personal life.

The satirical edge that Banerjee is known for works through the center of all three of these stories – although they are slowly inching towards a more cynical approach that is just angry. The first story is about a transgender woman named Noor (Paritosh Tiwari) who is partaking in a reality show that requires her life to be presented on TV at all times, getting an odd update when her mother enters the show. The second is about a transgender worker named Kullu (Bonita Rajpurohit) whose job at a metro station gets under scrutiny when their sexual assault case gets out of hand. The third is about an 18-year-old gamer named Shubham (Abhinav Singh) whose influencer stardom threatens his identity as a teenager when something quite personal to him comes out in the open.

Now, unlike the first film, this version of LSD (Like, Subscribe & Download) treats its subjects with the same edge that they now relate to. Their lives are intercut with memes, half-baked running commentaries from self-proclaimed pop-culture experts, and designed news flashes that echo the sentiments of the real ones that are no less dramatic than the online versions they implicate. Thus presenting a unique, urgent, and unfiltered reality that treats us like subjects, objects, and extensions. If we think that just peeping into other people’s lives will help us stay away from the mess, we are so wrong.

1. Merry Christmas

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January is usually considered the month when the designated garbage is dumped into movie theatres so that they can get little to no traction they deserve. When Sriram Raghavan’s“Merry Christmas” was postponed multiple times, along with the titular date being snatched away from it, no one paid attention to it. The underwhelming trailer did not help either. However, when it is Raghavan at play, you can only be one step away from him as he runs 5 steps ahead.

At the onset, the film feels like a proper meet-cute. Set in 1980s Bombay, it follows Albert (Vijay Sethupathi) released from prison after seven years of imprisonment. He meets Maria (Katrina Kaif) at a local restaurant after his loneliness on Christmas Eve made him feel for her who was abandoned by her date with her mute daughter Annie. The two of them walk around, hang out, dance, and sparks fly like anything. However, the night ends with a tragedy that resets the equation completely.

Now, considering this is a Sriram Raghavan film, you are always aware that it will take a darker turn somewhere. What you do not expect from him is how the romance in his film will be so pronounced that the thrilling aspects would feel pale in comparison. I don’t want to make a tall claim but this is one of the best romantic thrillers you will ever see, with the claim coming full circle on a climax that’s for the ages.

Raghavan uses the truths that trap these characters to help them escape the confines of their world. What they cannot escape is the great fiction that they have set up for themselves. It’s a brilliant story that might not let you absorb what it means, but the breathlessness it offers is not mere thrills; it stays, chokehold, and eventually manifests – making “Merry Christmas” an emotionally moving romantic thriller that has to be the most memorable Hindi movie of 2024.

Read More – The 30 Best Films of 2024

The 10 Best Hindi Movies of 2024 (2025)
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