IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), a major cultural contribution to netizens’ community has come from OTT medium, significantly diverse in content with the real-time actors (not stars), vastly improving the cinematic experience. We suddenly have for viewing a ‘problem of plenty’ (like the battery of talented players available to our Team India thanks to the IPL !). Most of our evenings are spent in surfing through the big maze of OTT content on offer, all paid platforms (Netflix et al). Yes, we’ve been buffs from 70s when films were only screened in cinema halls.
There are often long deliberations between us about new films that are most talked about in our groups and deserve our immediate attention. For us, the serious & arty are for weekdays, frothy ones for weekends and gory thrillers are restricted to late night male viewing, if at all to be seen. Recently, I disagreed to agree watching ‘Archies’ on Netflix. I later found it was quite cute ! On a more serious note, we were bowled over by some brilliant performances over the last year. Happily we didn’t miss any acclaimed as ‘top-class’ as far as Hindi films on OTT went. Also we couldn’t wait for ‘Sam Bahadur’ to appear on TV & loved watching ‘Big Sam’ on the big screen ! We understand that it’s now to be aired on Zee 5, having had a inspired run in the theatres.
We listed out ten best male lead performers on OTT (Hindi) we saw last year, that include both films & web-series, but with no disrespect to the incredible show put up by versatile actresses in women-centric films but that needs separate discussion for the variety of roles enacted by them.
- Vikrant Massey in ‘12th Fail’ 2. Manoj Bajpai in ’Sirf Ek Banda Kafi Hai’
3. Jaideep Ahlawat in ‘Jaane Jaan’ 4. Kay Kay Menon in ‘The Railwaymen’
5. Abhishek Bachan in ‘Ghoomer’ 6. Sanjay Mishra in ‘Vadh’
7. Vishal Vashishtha in ‘Ghar Wapsi’ 8. Jitendra Kumar in ‘Panchayat 2’
9. Raghubir Yadav in ‘Panchayat 2’ 10. Savinderpal Vicky in ‘Kohrra’
There are many other powerful roles that should make the cut but these appealed to our taste and genres we follow : satirical comedies, family dramas, social themes, adventures & thrillers. Friends may pick up some of the ones they missed so far. Happy viewing in the New Year !
Working on Living 