You’ll wish weekends lasted as long as weeks after looking at Sukanya Verma‘s long, long list of recommendations on OTT this week.
Zara Hatke Zara Bachke
Where to watch? Jio Cinema
Language: Hindi
Desperate for their own space, a happily married couple in Indore devises a fake divorce to avail a government housing scheme in the watchable Vicky Kaushal-Sara Ali Khan rom-com.
Mission Raniganj
Where to watch? Netflix
Language: Hindi
Akshay Kumar returns to saviour mode as real-life hero Jaswant Singh Gill responsible for the great 1989 rescue of over 60 workers trapped inside a flooded mine of Raniganj in West Bengal in the fictionalised retelling of the drama.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Where to watch? Disney+Hotstar
Language: English
Harrison Ford’s fifth and final film as the swashbuckling archaeologist Indiana Jones is back in his element in the nostalgia-filled adventures, which involve retrieving a relic and dodging dangerous villains.
Joyland
Where to watch? Mubi
Language: Punjabi, Urdu (with subtitles)
Winner of the jury prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes and Pakistan’s entry for Best International Film at the Oscars, Saim Sadiq’s offbeat directorial debut chronicles the romance between a married young man and a trans woman against the patriarchy of Lahore’s lower middle-class.
Candy Cane Lane
Where to watch? Amazon Prime Video
Language: English
With the holiday season kicking in, it will soon start raining Christmas movies on OTT. Leading the merry pack is Eddie Murphy as a man so desperate to nab the neighbourhood’s annual most Christmas-y home contest that he makes a deal with an evil elf resulting in devious consequences.
The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday
Where to watch? Netflix
Language: English
The Bad Guys must undo all the mischief leading to ‘Christmas is Cancelled’ and restore its giving spirit in this cheerful spin-off.
Smugglers
Where to watch? Amazon Prime Video
Language: Korean (with subtitles)
One of South Korea’s biggest hits of the year, Smugglers captures the story and sisterhood of 1970s female divers taking to the smuggling business to survive in the seaside town of Guncheon.
Chithha
Where to watch? Disney+Hotstar
Language: Tamil (with subtitles)
Ever so gritty Siddharth shows his mettle in the role of a fatherly figure raising his niece until she suddenly goes missing and all hell breaks loose.
Dhootha
Where to watch? Amazon Prime Video
Language: Telugu (with subtitles)
What if newspapers became carriers of bad news predicting tragedies? Naga Chaitanya’s investigative journalist finds out at great risk in the supernatural thriller co-starring Parvathy.
Gran Turismo
Where to watch? Netflix
Language: English
Neill Blomkamp’s biographical sports drama recounts the true story of Britisher Jann Mardenborough’s journey from a Gran Turismo gamer to professional racer.
Shehar Lakhot
Where to watch? Amazon Prime Video
Language: Hindi
Created by the writer and director team of Manorama Six Feet Under, Devika Bhagat and Navdeep Singh, the eight-part neo noir series looks at a man’s woeful homecoming as he finds himself juggling between the demons of his past and proving his innocence to the present.
Sweet Home Season 2
Where to watch? Netflix
Language: Korean (with subtitles)
Following a ferocious bout of humans versus monsters in season one, Sweet Home returns for an ambitious sequel that promises to raise the stakes and the scares exponentially.
Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar
Where to watch? Mubi
Language: Hindi
Against the backdrop of a pandemic, an eloped couple are forced to evaluate their roles after romance and reality collide.
Family Switch
Where to watch? Netflix
Language: English
Relive the Freaky Friday feeling when a cosmic event results in a body swap between a set of parents and their teenage kids days before Christmas, setting off a chain of comedy and chaos.
Martin Luther King
Where to watch? SonyLIV
Language: Telugu (with subtitles)
A satire involving an anonymous man hotly pursued by two rival political parties after he acquires a voter ID and the power to cast an all-decisive vote in either’s favour.
May December
Where to watch? Netflix
Language: English
Todd Haynes directs Oscar-winners Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman in this dark dramedy of an actor digging into someone’s scandalous past as part of her research to play a woman who made headlines years ago over her romantic relationship with a minor, now husband.
Bhagavanth Kesari
Where to watch? Amazon Prime Video
Language: Telugu (with subtitles)
Good guys versus bad guys engage in action packed masala with Arjun Rampal’s Telugu cinema debut thrown in for novelty.
The Shepherd
Where to watch? Disney+Hotstar
Language: English
Based on Frederick Forsyth’s novella of the same name, The Shepherd chronicles the lucky escape of a Royal Air Force pilot around Christmas eve after his plane loses control.
Welcome to Samdal-ri
Where to watch? Netflix
Language: Korean (with subtitles)
Two friends — a weather forecaster and a fashion photographer — romantically reconnect when the latter returns to their picturesque hometown in Jeju Island.