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.

June 20,2025 14:29:16 PM
Detective Sherdil movie review: There are enough adept actors in this ensemble, led by Diljit Dosanjh, for us to expect an engaging whodunit. But the treatment is flat, making the characters even flatter.
Fri, Jun 20, 2025
June 20,2025 10:10:38 AM
Sitaare Zameen Par Movie Review & Rating: This film wouldn’t have worked as well as it does if Aamir hadn’t been fully committed to putting himself out there as a hero-who-is-a-jerk.
Fri, Jun 20, 2025
June 13,2025 14:45:57 PM
Second Chance movie review: Music and myths are part and parcel of the land’s fabric, and the script weaves those in neatly without any exoticising.
Fri, Jun 13, 2025
June 13,2025 13:36:08 PM
Rana Naidu 2 review: Rana Dagubatti makes up for the show's shortcomings as the long, tall and strong titular character, who stays the last man standing in the face of all the murder and mayhem.
Fri, Jun 13, 2025
June 06,2025 20:00:25 PM
The Life Of Chuck movie review: The Life Of Chuck is a near-faithful cinematic adaptation which aims at giving us the warm fuzzies-in-this-dark-and-dismal-world, and succeeds, more or less.
Fri, Jun 06, 2025
June 06,2025 13:09:45 PM
Housefull 5 Movie Review, Rating: Compared to the previous Housefulls, this one has a slightly fuller house, but because no one expects anything else, it’s pretty much like the older ones.
Fri, Jun 06, 2025
June 05,2025 12:19:08 PM
Stolen movie review: While everything in Abhishek Banerjee's new film is clearly geared towards making the proceedings urgent, that crucial sense of urgency comes through only sporadically.
Thu, Jun 05, 2025
June 04,2025 08:00:59 AM
Honey Trehan says among 121 'non-negotiable' cuts demanded by CBFC include changing protagonist Jaswant Singh Khalra's name, dropping Indian flag's visuals, removing mention of Punjab police, and changing the name of the film. 'What is left then?’ he asks.
Wed, Jun 04, 2025
May 31,2025 08:07:33 AM
Filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan on capturing the voice of the marginalised in Homebound, the nine-minute standing ovation it received at the Cannes Film Festival, navigating his identity and how empathy and kindness are what the world needs right now.
Sun, Jun 01, 2025
May 30,2025 16:38:35 PM
Sister Midnight movie review: The film is a strong indictment of mismatched people yoked into marriages not of their making. And a big shout-out to finding your tribe.
Fri, May 30, 2025
May 30,2025 12:59:24 PM
Kankhajura review: While the show is filled with good performances -- everyone does their job well -- the writing doesn’t surprise as much as it could have. There’s also the standard difficulty of everything becoming a stretch.
Fri, May 30, 2025
May 30,2025 12:32:46 PM
Criminal Justice A Family Matter review: Pankaj Tripathi’s everyman-ness is his most endearing trait, but it can also become a much of muchness.
Fri, May 30, 2025
May 24,2025 14:30:04 PM
Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind can be described as a heist-gone-wrong, but it is not as interested in the act of stealing itself, as it is in the robber.
Sat, May 24, 2025
May 22,2025 20:28:25 PM
Homebound’s buddy film elements are placed on the highly volatile intersection of caste, class and gender, with religion added to the mix.
Thu, May 22, 2025
May 22,2025 09:00:10 AM
Jafar Pahani’s It Was Just An Accident, his second foray into Cannes competition, is about what happens when an unexpected incident rolls over into wholly unexpected territory. Destiny and chance are play, as is, we discover, righteous vengeance.
Thu, May 22, 2025
May 20,2025 14:49:15 PM
Satyajit Ray's classic Aranyer Din Ratri was screened at the Cannes classic section in a glowing restored version in the presence of Sharmila Tagore and Simi Garewal.
Tue, May 20, 2025
May 20,2025 07:00:48 AM
The Phoenician Scheme movie review: Even the non-stop array of Hollywood A-listers, who will show up for just the privilege of hanging around the set, don’t make us stop and gawp.
Fri, Jun 20, 2025
May 19,2025 07:00:54 AM
Very few filmmakers dig as deep into the ties that bind us in happiness and in sorrow as Lynne Ramsay does. Her Die, My Love was showcased at Cannes Film Festival.
Mon, May 19, 2025
May 18,2025 03:57:01 AM
Linklater’s film will make those who adore Breathless nostalgic. Set in 1969, it is black and white, but it’s not the luscious-lambent period black-and-white which could have distanced us; the matter-of-fact palette makes it all very life-like.
Sun, May 18, 2025
May 16,2025 23:54:43 PM
Loznitsa is in familiar territory, having given us glimpses into the labyrinthine workings of Russia and his native Ukraine in his earlier work
Fri, May 16, 2025
May 16,2025 20:48:20 PM
Two Prosectors doesn’t deviate from bleakness, but is possibly Sergei Lozintsa’s most accessible film in the manner in which he depicts a system, locked and loaded, against the less powerful.
Fri, May 16, 2025
May 15,2025 18:44:50 PM
With Sound Of Falling, we may have already seen the best film of the Cannes film festival, which has just begun.
Thu, May 15, 2025
May 15,2025 07:00:04 AM
Express at Cannes: One of the most anticipated events at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival was a centre-piece conversation with Robert De Niro.
Thu, May 15, 2025
May 14,2025 01:42:35 AM
Express at Cannes: French actor Juliette Binoche heads jury; Payal Kapadia, Halle Berry, French-Moroccan journalist Leila Slimani, and Italian actor Alba Rohrwacher are other women members
Thu, May 15, 2025





