Often it is said that cinema, leave aside the artistic nuances, cinematic brilliance, soul-stirring music, captivating story-telling, social & nationalistic messaging, if so intended, has the sole purpose of entertaining the audiences, which invests in time, travel and resources, to get their money’s worth ! Quite true in the overall context, till OTT came along to make a big difference: the lack of big theatre ‘dolby’ feel is made up by excellent scripts, stories, actors with the flexibility of enjoying home-comfort and cheaper snacks !
As regular cinegoers in the past, we have shifted almost entirely to OTT platforms, sure that even those big screen blockbusters will one day descend down to our home theatre. Many of our Top Ten picks for 2025 have been watched on Neflix/Prime/Sony Liv/Zee etc that include some which were made exclusively as Web-Series & not for the theatres. The list below is not in ranking order but in chronological sequence as we saw them :
| Name of the Film | Lead Actor/Star | Themes Dealt | Platform | |
| 1. | I Want to Talk | Abhishek Bachan | A Man’s Fortitude | OTT |
| 2. | Sitaare Zameen Par | Amir Khan | Differently Abled | Theatre |
| 3. | Kaalidhar Laapata | Abhishek Bachan | Family Drama | OTT |
| 4. | Tanvi the Great | Anupam Kher | Autistic Courage | Theatre |
| 5. | Court Kacheri | Pawan Malhotra | Judicial Corruption | OTT |
| 6. | Jolly LLB 3 | Akshay/ Arshad | Courtroom Drama | Theatre |
| 7. | Thode Door Thode Paas | Pankaj Kapoor | Digital Detoxing | OTT |
| 8. | Humans in the Loop | Sonal Madhushkr | AI Workers of MP | OTT |
| 9. | Homebound | Ishaan/ Vishal | Migrant/Employmt | OTT |
| 10. | Saali Mohabbat | Radhika Apte | Thriller/Mystery | OTT |
We must add a caveat that we couldn’t possibly see all the films made in 2025 & some we avoided on grounds of excessive gore & violence. We didn’t see the mega-historical ‘Chaava’ which received great reviews as also ‘Dhurandhar’ which is still making waves. However, we did watch the runaway superhit ‘Saiyaara’ but weren’t greatly enthused !
Working on Living 