GoT spinoff House of the Dragon Season 2 release date: Coming to JioCinema on June 16

Game Changer: A political action thriller directed by Shankar. Ram Charan has been paired alongside Kiara Advani and pitted against the wonderful Prakash Raj in this film.

RC 16: Charan’s 16th film, directed by Buchi Babu Sana, also features Hindi cinema’s rising star Janhvi Kapoor. It is a romantic thriller with music by AR Rahman.

RC 17: Next year, Charan will collaborate with Pushpa director Sukumar for his 17th motion picture.

5. How Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff stole the show with high octane act for the IPL 2024 opening ceremony: From the long list of performers on stage it was Bade and Chhote Miyan who set the stage on fire. Both Kumar and Shroff entered the field on motorbikes, with the tricolour in hand. They then proceeded to take a survey of the entire field, encouraging the Chepauk crowd to join in. It’s easy to forget that Kumar is pushing 60, but he looks as fit as a fiddle. The duo danced on songs like Jai Jai Shiv Shankar, Main Tera Hero, Hare Ram Hare Krishna, and Mast Malang. To star alongside is one thing, but to match him step for step, and high-adrenaline action proves Kumar’s longevity as a consummate performer. No wonder the Chepauk crowd was in awe of the duo’s breathless performance.

6. AR Rahman made time stand still in IPL 2024 Opening Ceremony: At the IPL 2024 Opening Ceremony, Sonu Nigam and Mohit Chauhan performed alongside Rahman. It was exactly what the Chennai crowd wished for, and responded to with loud, approving cheers. Chaiya Chaiya, maybe Rahman’s most iconic tune, got people off of their seats. An AR Rahman performance is near unmissable as a principle, but as the curtain raiser for one of the most anticipated sporting events of the calendar year, it was the perfect entrée.

7. Oscars 2024 Best Picture nominees: If Barbie – Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of the world’s most popular doll – was nothing short of inspired, Anatomy of a Fall – about a woman suspected of having murdered her husband – was masterful. In the end, Oppenheimer won – it was the frontrunner for best picture. The biopic of Robert Oppenheimer has been described as the most un-Christopher Nolan film by the famous director of films like Inception and The Dark Knight trilogy.

8. Oscars 2024 records that might have been reset, but weren't: Lily Gladstone could have become the first indigenous woman to win an Oscar for acting. Jodie Foster could have joined the select group of actors who have won the award three times, if she had won Best Supporting Actress for her excellent performance in sports drama Nyad. As it turned out, there were a few important firsts: Godzilla won the VFX Oscar - the first Academy Award for the nuclear lizard out to save the world. And Justine Triet became the first French woman to win Best Screenplay.

9. Oscars 2024 Acting Nominations and the Frontrunners: We called it | Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) – Easily the frontrunner for the win, this is a performance for the ages, so wholesome and affective, especially with those giant IMAX cameras. Emma Stone (Poor Things) – Possibly the most physically and intimately demanding of all the performances on offer. In any other year, Stone would have cakewalked this.

10. Shah Rukh Khan’s all-time favourite role only paid him Rs 25000: Khan’s lead role in Kundan Shah’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa which turned 30 this year, was a matter of accident. In an interview in 2006, Khan claimed that he was so enamoured with the film and its treatment that he wished he had made it as a ‘producer’. In the film, Khan played a plucky musician with a never-say-die attitude in love with Anna (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi), something that echoes his own personal journey from the relatively unremarkable landscape of urban New Delhi to the highs of Mumbai’s skylines. Incredibly, Khan was paid a mere Rs 25000 for the film, that the director of the film Kundan Shah claimed was a minor miracle.

11. 5 Things you need to know about Shahrukh Khan’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa: Khan’s film had its fair share of hiccups, uncertainties and near miraculous moments of recovery. Shah Rukh Khan wasn’t first choice for the film. Director Kundan Shah had first approached Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla for the lead roles. Apart from this film, Ashutosh Gowariker and Khan have worked together in Swades and Chamatkaar (alongside Naseerudin Shah). Suchitra Krishnamoorthi played the apple of Sunil’s eye in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, which remains the actress’ most notable work till date. In a first, Khan went to the Gaiety cinema in Mumbai to sell and sign tickets as keepsakes. The film was made on a meagre budget of Rs 1.4 crore, and didn’t even shoot in places it wanted to. The crew stayed at tourism guest houses in Goa, couldn’t afford any luxuries and failed to recover its cost for at least a decade.

12. The Making of Shah Rukh Khan’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa: Shah Rukh Khan’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa is not just a film ahead of its time but also led by an unlikely cast that almost didn’t work together. In interviews following the release of Kundan Shah’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, the director has repeatedly claimed that the film almost didn’t get made. Initially titled Albela, Shah’s film was unique to say the least. It followed Sunil (Khan), a spirited but also hopeless romantic in love with Anna (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi). A far cry from the love stories of yore, the film readjusted the image of the mainstream hero, a larger-than-life trope of Indian cinema. Understandably, there were sceptics who thought it wouldn’t work.
The film though it was almost ready in 1992, couldn’t be released until 1994, because Khan wasn’t yet recognised as a star. Once Baazigar became a hit, distributors picked up a film that flipped many conventional rules of Hindi cinematic romances. The hero lacked charisma and the confidence that we’d related to mainstream leads and he routinely resorted to petty methods to woo his woman. Made on a negligible budget, the film almost didn’t happen because it was practically put together on the fly. Deepak Tijori’s role was first offered to Mamik Singh, Shah Rukh’s to Aamir and Suchitra’s to Juhi Chawla. It’s essentially a film made from second-choice parts that sort of became a first-rate cult classic, maybe because of the lack of baggage. Decades later, Khan’s Red Chillies bought the rights to the film and may one day produce a modern update that it deserves.