Best of 2025: Entertainment: OTT

Police Story

Paatal Lok, Season 2 | Director ›› Avinash Arun Dhaware | Cast ›› Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Tilottama Shome, Merenla Imsong, LC Sekhose, Nagesh Kukunoor | Prime Video

 He is large, lumber­ing and lethal. And yet when it comes to kindness, he can melt the coldest of hearts, whether it is instinc­tively protecting a child from his mother’s corpse or empathis­ing with his former partner’s closeted love life. Jaideep Ahlawat is a permanent resident of Paatal Lok and, in the second season, he brings elegaic poise to Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary, a man who is consistently trying to do his duty, rather than merely his job. This season takes the Dilli policewala to Nagaland, where, as his frenemy says, his gully cricket ways are tested in World Cup surroundings. No one really wins in the end, except a certain kind of honesty that keeps the complicated and in­herently nihilistic social structure afloat.

The Anatomy of Power

Maharani, Season 4 | Director ›› Puneet Prakash | Cast ›› Huma Qureshi, Vipin Sharma, Sohum Shah, Amit Sial, Kani Kusruti, Shweta Basu Prasad | SonyLIV

 A chief minister who gives up the chair for her daughter, and launches an audacious assault on Delhi. A prime minister who uses Central resources as a way to tame opposition governments. Opposition parties who come and go from coalitions depending on what inducements they are offered. When push comes to shove, does a politician choose her people or her family? When it comes to disbursing patronage, do parties ensure continuation of corruption? And how do some old foxes survive regime changes? The fourth season of Maharani, Subhash Kapoor’s fictional world of Bihar politics, was released almost at the same time as Assembly elections in the state. The similarities were stark.

Stages of Grief

Baramulla | Director ›› Aditya Suhas Jambhale | Cast ›› Manav Kaul,Bhasha Sumbli, Arista Mehta | Netflix

 How do you tell a story of a com­munity’s loss of a homeland? You can weaponise the pain, enter propaganda territory, or simply lay bare the wounds and expect them to heal by exposing them to the sunlight. Written and co-produced by Aditya Dhar, one among thousands of Kashmiri Pandits who lost their homes in the Great Exodus of 1990, Baramulla takes the audacious step of imagining the con­tinuing trauma in the Valley as cosmic retribu­tion. The ghosts of the Sapru family haunt the Muslim family that moves into an old villa, who, in an alternative horrorscape, are made to wit­ness their sudden leaving and terrible betrayal. It is a metaphor for the enormous vacuum left in contemporary Kashmiri society and the unfin­ished conversation between two communities who once lived together in co-existence if not integration. Worryingly, the film is also an act of vengeance, with the abandoned homes becom­ing feral and the children of the Kashmiri Mus­lims turning against their own. But if we don’t tell our stories, who will?

Behind the Scenes

The Ba***ds of Bollywood | Director ›› Aryan Khan | Cast ›› Bobby Doel, Lakshya Lalwani, Raghav Juyal, Sahher Bambba, Anya Singh, Gautami Kapoor | Netflix

 No one thought it could live up to the hype but it did, in spades. The Ba***ds of Bollywood, Aryan Khan’s star studded series was part hom­age and part takedown, both told with a nudge and a wink. Illegitimate children, self-ob­sessed stars, controlling managers, underappreci­ated actors and manipulative producers. The series was not merely entertaining but became a cultural phenomenon, launching the coolest bromance since Jai and Veeru; marking the resurgence of Emraan Hashmi; mocking the director’s drug ar­rest; and giving us a spectacular anti-hero in Karan Johar. A little Zoya Akhtar, a lot of Farah Khan, The Ba***ds of Bollywood was Khan’s love letter to the industry he grew up in, with a sting in its tail.

Holding Court

The Royals | Director ›› Priyanka Ghose and Nupur Asthana | Cast ›› Bhumi Pednekar, Ishaan Khatter, Zeenat Aman | Netflix

 Bare-chested maharajas, bodacious princesses, outspoken boss ladies, and lots of polo, poolside parties and palace balls. No this wasn’t Bridgerton, but The Royals, a 21st century version of every romcom fantasy. With a good looking cast that extended from Ishaan Khatter, car­rying on his mysterious ‘rich boi’ persona from The Perfect Couple, to the venerable Zeenat Aman instructing her daughter-in-law in the art of affairs, The Royals polarised audiences, but when have tiara tales ever gone out of fashion?