Bollywood’s mantra in 2025: If it bleeds, it leads

The times are coarse, unsettling and violent. So is anyone really surprised that some of Bollywood’s blockbusters in 2025 were coarse, unsettling and violent?

Two of the year’s biggest money-spinners had different themes, an actor in common – Akshaye Khanna as an antagonist – and a singular purpose: to pick at festering wounds and squeeze every bit of pus out of them. Several films in 2025 – among them Mohit Suri’s romance Saiyaara – beat the perception that Bollywood is losing audiences to dubbed films from the South or streaming shows. Chhaava and Dhurandhar went further.

They dialled up the anger, piled on the gore and made the case for righteous revenge against real and imagined foes. Even as they marshalled the same savvy and seductive storytelling techniques, though, they did not follow the typical beats of the average entertainer.

Instead, the films posed as serious, purposeful explorations of Indian history, both centuries-old and more recent. They consciously shrunk the gap between reality and imagination, captivating audiences in the bargain.

Let me tell you a story, these films said. The story will be unpleasant and even unbelievable, but trust us when we tell you that it actually happened – and we will show you what you were not allowed to see.

The films mirrored...

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