Year Ender 2023: 10 best Hindi films of the year

Recap 2023: OMG 2 is the kind of film that for all of its flaws, we need more of. (Screen grab)

2023 felt like a renaissance in terms of Hindi cinema. After clocking deplorable numbers in 2022, Covid anxieties persisting, the growing influence of OTT and a general dip in quality, the demise of Hindi cinema’s theatrical viewership had been proclaimed. Hope rested with them who had done it before. And so, in stepped the Baadshah of Bollywood, as Shah Rukh Khan returned to the big screen with Pathaan to blow open the doors that at one point seemed on the brink of closure.

The quality of cinema on offer may have been uneven, but distributed between OTT and theatrical, the year has produced some notable films, performances and an all-round promising pitch for the sustenance and expansion of a crucial organ of our being. Here is our flashback 2023 of the 10 best Hindi films of the year in no particular order.

Also read: Pathaan writer Shridhar Raghavan: Few people are as charming or funny as Shah Rukh Khan. We utilised those strengths

Gulmohar

Not only did Gulmohar boast an excellent cast, including the returning Sharmila Tagore and the always likeable Amol Palekar – in a role against type mind you – but it also brought to fore urban anxieties and turf wars being fought across doorsteps in India’s joint families. Graceful, elegant and affecting, this was a poignant little film about family ties and the inheritance of loss. Predictably, it also featured one of the many scene-stealing performances Manoj Bajpayee has delivered this year.

Lust Stories 2 (The Mirror)

It’s ironic that a short film, has managed to sneak its way into a list featuring full-length films, but such is the impact of Konkona Sen Sharma’s The Mirror; a provocative, insightful and maybe epochal film in the context of pleasure, class and the female gaze. Tillotama Shome and Amruta Subhash were abnormally good, in what is easily the boldest yet most subversive film of the year.

Tarla

Contrary to Lust Stories, Tarla is a straightforward underdog narrative. As a biopic, it largely operates in safe territory, but what makes it homely and comforting is the warmth and modesty with which a real-life story is treated. The highs of TV stardom feel like happenstances, the victories middling but satisfying. The real journey here is between the wife and her doting, supportive husband. Huma Qureshi and Sharib Hashmi are excellent in straightjacket roles that feel like people out of any middle-class kitchen.

Rocky Aur Rani kii Prem Kahaani

The death of the larger-than-life romance has been pronounced many times over in the past few years, and despite the acting capabilities of its starry cast, even Karan Johar looked frail and the nervy in the face of a blanket inference – that people could no longer be made to fall in love with the idea of falling in love. Not only did Johar succeed in reviving a genre he ruled two decades ago, he gave it intricate, progressive updates. More than Ranveer and Alia, it was this unexpected chemistry between Dharmendra and Shabana Azmi that kind of stole the show. Everything was grand, silly and felt pledged with the clarity of a teardrop. Just what we’d been missing.

OMG2

It’s refreshing to at least be able to mention an Akshay Kumar film in a best-of list. The prolific actor has delivered dud after dud, for no lack of trying. Ironically, in a film where he literally plays god, his nonchalance and groovy mannerisms came to the fore. But OMG2’s success is owed to the dependable Pankaj Tripathi and the courage of the creators to mainstream something that is widely considered taboo – sex education. It’s the kind of film that for all of its flaws, we need more of.

Jawan

You could place any of Shah Rukh Khan’s films from the year in this year end special 2023 list (including whatever Dunki throws at us). Or even his hilariously entertaining Twitter sessions. The man is blockbuster, in everything he does. While Pathaan was a slick actioner about a stylish patriot, Jawan practically blew the lid off of Khan’s stardom. This rough-talking, notorious macho man we had never seen looked precociously like a new incarnation; sexier and seductive like he never had before. It was the kind of film that can only really be experienced in a theatre, with people surrendering to its whimsies and well-curated mercies.

12th Fail

Vidhu Vinod Chopra returned to the screens with a film that though hardly publicised, offered a refreshing template for the underdog narrative. Vikrant Massey was stupendous in a film that refused to give into the triggering elements of a rags-to-riches story and simply stuck to the somewhat tragic arc of an earnest man with nothing to fall back on except his desperation to get somewhere. It’s easily one of the acting and maybe directing performances of the year.

Three of Us

Avinash Arun’s sombre, melancholic walk down memory lane is quietly perturbing and endlessly memorable. Arun has mastered the art of quietude, and here he takes us on the solemn journey of a woman revisiting a town where she buried a part of her, as an act of edifying that which she will no longer remember. Free of platitudes and small talk, this is a film that unfurls in the silence of its many images. Shefali Shah, Jaideep Ahlawat and Swanand Kirkire were all worth their pedigree in what is easily the most beautiful looking film of the year.

Animal

Hold your horses! Animal isn’t everyone’s cup of madness and provocation. It overdoes excess in places with the sole intent of rubbing a sub-set of critics, but it has, in all earnestness, delivered the acting performance of the year. Ranbir Kapoor goes from tough guy to madman in this film that punches you in places you didn’t know was possible in a film theatre. For everything he is rightfully judged, analysed for, Sandeep Reddy Vanga, is not a boring filmmaker.

Joram

Devashish Makhija’s latest film is a familiar tale of a cop chasing a culprit, except victimhood here is distributed by way of identity as opposed to intent. The ones imposing the law, look more beaten than the ones being incriminated by it. It’s the most political of this year’s films, and its cinematography and direction are astoundingly pure and immersive. It has another of those expected features – a superlative Manoj Bajpayee performance. But here the master actor is aided by a terrific cast, in no short measure by the equally stunning Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub.

Honourable mentions: Zwigato, Kathal, Farrey