This Is Your Post-Holi Watchlist
Your post-Holi plans are sorted with these picks
There is a very specific kind of exhaustion that only Holi can produce. It’s a really weird mix of social, sunburnt, with your eyes burning and aching for a nap.
By 2 p.m., you’ve nearly been assaulted by strangers and danced monstrously in the lawns. You’ve showered so many times your skin feels morally exfoliated, your bathroom probably looks like a modern art installation in fuchsia and toxic green. Someone has passed out diagonally across the sofa. Gujiya crumbs are everywhere. McAloo Tikki wrappers surround you.
And this is it. This is the moment you think to yourself, you know what I need right now? An excellent movie followed by a nap on the couch.
Here are all the movies we’re watching on Holi this year.
Sholay
It opens in colour and celebration. The drums, laughter, that iconic Holi song, and then reminds you that joy in Indian cinema always comes with consequence. It’s loud, iconic, endlessly rewatchable.
Silsila
Yash Chopra put his three biggest stars in a love triangle so scandalously close to real life that the whole country held its breath. Amitabh, Rekha, Jaya — the mustard fields, the poetry, the longing. Cinema as gossip, gossip as cinema. Also, we love the holi song.
Mohabbatein
Shah Rukh Khan in a turtleneck, violin under his chin, locked in a battle of wills with Amitabh Bachchan. Six love stories, one ridiculous rulebook, and an ending so unabashedly sad you'll cry into your gujiya.
Karwaan
This underrated indie movie has become a favourite of mine over the years. A road trip nobody asked for, a friendship nobody planned, and a grief so quietly handled it sneaks up and guts you. This is that typical feel-good movie you watch curled up on your couch.
Queen
Another feel-good classic. After Kangana Ranaut gets stood up at her own wedding, she decided to take the honeymoon herself. Her one solo trip to Paris feels like the most radical act of self-reclamation in Hindi cinema. If nothing else, watch this movie for the unexpected places life takes you to and the friends you make along the way.
Wake Up Sid
Ranbir Kapoor being spectacularly useless and accidentally finding himself, with Konkona Sen Sharma as the sharpest, most self-possessed woman in any coming-of-age film of that decade.
Band Baaja Baarat
A business partnership, a terrible mistake, and then the slow, inevitable, glorious mess of falling in love with your best friend. Ranveer Singh announced himself to the world here, and honestly, best announcement ever.
Jaane Tu.. Ya Jaane Na
This movie is obviously all sweet and sun-dappled and the perfect Holi guilty pleasure. What's more fun than watching two best friends ruin the friendship?
Dil Chahta Hai
Three best friends, three completely different ways of loving someone, one Goa trip that basically invented the blueprint for every modern bromance.