In these dark times, my friends and I turn to Hera Pheri, the heist comedy that informed our childhoods. The Priyadarshan film is a bunch of guffaw-worthy skits, where the narrative is secondary. It has aged perfectly for the meme generation with our ten-second attention spans and voracious appetite for punchlines.

Shikha Malhotra, who was seen in the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Fan, has joined a BMC-run hospital to assist doctors fighting coronavirus. She has a nursing degree from Delhi.

Singer Kanika Kapoor of “Baby Doll” fame not only hid her travel history but also went ahead and decided to party with politicians Vasundhara Raje and her son Dushyant Singh. She has now tested positive for Covid-19, making her the most famous reckless Indian right now.

Unlike Hindi Medium, its sequel Angrezi Medium lacks originality. This is a comedy that feels hastily assembled with contrived sub-plots, crowd-pleasing one-liners, and emotional manipulation. But Irrfan Khan is impeccable and the film works best as a pean to his capabilities as an actor.

Sooryavanshi director Rohit Shetty received flak for his sexist remark against Katrina Kaif. After being trolled for his “no one’s going to look at you” comment, you’d think he’d apologise. Instead, he unfollows the actress on Instagram.

A Bollywood film is incomplete without a “side hero” – you know, the “hero ka dost”. But side characters have risen from the forgotten corners of history, and thanks to social media, often find their own audience. Sanjay Mishra’s Kaamyaab reminds us of the long road side characters have had to tread.

From Kahaani to English Vinglish, there have been few Bollywood films that have allowed their women characters to shine, rather than be used as mere props, devoid of any personality or agency. Ahead of Women's Day, let's look back at a few of these classics.

In Baaghi 3, Tiger Shroff attempts to make his facial muscles emote as diligently as his chest and calf muscles. Of course, he fails.

Hardik Mehta’s Kamyaab is filmmaking at its very best: an affecting acknowledgement of the innumerable artists in Bollywood, whose talent is constrained by an industry that treats them as disposable goods despite their indispensability. It’s also a boisterous love-letter to Sanjay Mishra, an actor who has never demanded the spotlight even when he deserved it.

Socha Na Tha takes us back to the time when Imtiaz Ali was a filmmaker who was interested in saying something, not repeating it. The film is predictable to a fault, but its sweetness is devoid of any pretension or baggage, a throbbing flaw in Ali’s recent outings.

Although it is backed by a compelling performance by Tapsee Pannu, Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad serves a crowd-pleasing definition of feminism that is more interested in making a statement rather than interrogating the status quo.

A film like Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan couldn’t have been conjured out of thin air. It was preceded by several underseen films that had to walk so that Ayushmanna Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar could run (and catch a Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge-inspired train).

Manmohan Desai would have turned 83 on February 26. The director and producer, who made an entire country laugh out loud catered to the lowest common denominator without prejudice or judgment. Desai was an institution who chose to belong to the masses.

There’s very little point to watching Bhanu Pratap Singh's Bhoot, apart from developing a fondness for the time Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu used to be chasing ghosts.

In Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan, writer-director Hitesh Kewalya reframes two people standing up for their love as two people also standing up for freedom to love whoever they wish to. It’s a gay romance that is equal parts thrilling and revolutionary.

It’s not clear why Govinda has decided to become a cringe-pop Hallmark greeting card on YouTube in 2020, but it does beg the question: Who are the 21k people who are listening to these songs and why haven’t they discovered Baba Sehgal yet?

In the 15 years since 15 Park Avenue came out, I doubt any other Indian film tailored sensitivity and accuracy with a poignant storyline on mental illness as beautifully as Aparna Sen managed to portray in 15 Park Avenue.

No Imtiaz Ali film is complete without a train scene. In Love Aaj Kal, a separation unfolds on a train ride and in Jab We Met, a relationship blooms through the course of the journey. But the most iconic train scenes in Bollywood remain Simran running toward Raj in DDLJ and Rajesh Khanna crooning “Mere Sapno Ki Rani” as Sharmila Tagore gazes at him from a coach.

The torturous 141 minutes of Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal, starring a grating Sara Ali Khan and a scared Kartik Aaryan, plays out like a multiple choice question paper: Love or sex? Career or relationship? Uber driver or bike? Stalking or women's safety?

In Shikara, Vidhu Vinod Chopra chooses to look at the Kashmiri Pandit exodus in isolation and not in relation with the continuous othering of the state by the governments of India and their armed forces. In that sense, not only does the film come across as visibly apolitical but also an incomplete narrative where quite a few pieces of the puzzle are missing.

Vijay Anand’s Guide stands out for being that rare Hindi film about adultery that also normalises the act of falling out of love, even in a marriage. The film refuses to demonise its characters for the decisions they take, driving home the point that love transcends all boundaries – even those considered as sacred as marriage.

Oscar-winning South Korean phenomenon Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-Ho, walks on a similar path as several Bollywood plots, focusing on ugly societal norms, class divide, and striking inequality. The only difference — our love for a sprinkling of masala.

What does patriotism mean today? Does it lie in adhering to the Constitution? Does it lie in fixing “anti-nationals” with a ticket to Pakistan for differing with the government? This Republic Day we revisit a few films that uphold the idea of democracy and the role we all play in its functioning.

Kabir Khan’s Amazon show The Forgotten Army is a welcome departure from hyper-jingoistic historical epics that have become par for the course today. But Khan never quite gets a grip on the complexities of the Indian National Army, which often clashed with its own countrymen who were part of the British army.

Only if Street Dancer 3D, starring Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, and Prabhudeva, focussed more on the dancing and less on trying to solve the refugee crisis, we would’ve had ourselves an entertaining movie.

Kangana Ranaut’s latest release Panga stands overshadowed by the theatrics on display during her film promotion on Thursday. Ranaut said that senior lawyer Indiria Jaising should be thrown in jail along with the 2012 Delhi gang rape convicts for suggesting that they be pardoned. For an actor who has carefully pitched herself as the champion of feminism, her comments against Jaising are deeply misogynistic.

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's Panga stars Kangana Ranaut as Jaya Nigam, a 32-year-old former kabaddi champion readying for a comeback after seven years. It's an effective crowd-pleaser that works better as a quiet ode to the self-sustaining nature of sisterhood.

Disco Dancer gave us a hero who picked up the guitar instead of the gun. It ushered in an era of Bollywood dance films, which peaked in the ’80s and early ’90s. However, few have earned the cult status as the Mithun Chakraborty film. Does Street Dancer 3D stand a chance?

Twenty years ago, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani that starred Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, featured a news channel that toed the government’s narrative and paid goons hired by a politician to orchestrate riots. It ends on a positive note where codes of democracy are honoured and protestors usher in a change. Today, as the entire country protests against the CAA-NRC, the film’s subtext has never been more relevant.