Best Bollywood films in the First Half of 2015

Baby: Neeraj Pandey has mastered the art of making solid, Indianized issue based action thrillers which doesn’t molest our intelligence quotient and his partnership with Akshay Kumar proved fruitful once again after Special 26 with the spy thriller Baby that released on Republic Day this year. Baby was high on thrills, high on faux pax realism, high on action and high on patriotism. We would love to see the way Neeraj goes with Baby 2.

Badlapur: Very few people in India can make twisted, gory action thrillers the way Sriram Raghavan can. He gave us cult thrillers like Ek Hasina Thi and Johnny Gaddar in the past and made a strong comeback after the Agent Vinod debacle with the fantastic Badlapur. He knows to titillate the audience with intrigue. Badlapur turned out to be so good because the main leads Varun Dhawan and Nawazuddin Sidduqui did commendable jobs of their accord with their roles. The scene where Raghu gets his revenge by killing Harman and Kanchan with a hammer gave us goosebumps and is one of our favorite scenes of the year so far!

Dum Laga Ke Haisha: Ayushmann Khurrana turned around his luck one month after the debacle called Hawaizaada with this delightful, charming and highly nostalgic piece of cinema called Dum Laga Ke Haisha. We could all identify with the characters written by Sharat Katariya and the dialogues were so realistic that it sometimes felt like we were watching a documentary. It helped that the acting was phenomenal by all the actors and Bhumi Pednekar made the debut of the year so far with this feminist from small town Rishikesh, Sandhya. Go woman empowerment!

Piku: The reason Piku has struck a chord with everyone is because we all know a father and daughter pair like Bhaskor and Piku. We know the quirks that fathers tend to develop with age and how dependent they get on their daughters. Piku worked because of the conversational nature of the film where the dialogues were as realistic as it can get in Hindi cinema! We fell in love with Deepika Padukone even more after Piku and our respect for mega actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan rose even further. And it gave us the mantra of 2015: Motion se hi Emotion hai!

Tanu Weds Manu Returns: This is the Blockbuster of 2015. The craze for the film can be felt by the fact that the film’s dialogues have crept into real life after its release. Tanu Weds Manu Returns has worked on such a big level because it retained a funny tone throughout the proceedings and even when things got dramatic we cried with a tinge of smile in our eyes and lips. It elevated Kangna Ranaut as the fearless actress of her generation and made her the proverbial darling of the masses. It has made a special place for itself in the box office history books and if you still haven’t watched it, make sure you watch it at the earliest.

Special Mention: Gabbar Is Back, Court and NH10

Gabbar is Back was a well made remake of a well-liked South Indian film that did hit business in India. We liked Akshay’s look in the film and the way it highlighted few of the social perils of India through a commercial outlook.

Court was adjudged the Best Feature Film at the 62nd National Film Awards but it released only in 2015 for the mainstream audience. It is a well researched, perfectly acted and directed courtroom drama that should be seen by as many people as possible.

NH10 showed us that Indian film actresses can kick butt. In a year of strong female characters, Anushka’s Meera was perhaps the most important character. NH10 is a solid thriller that plays like a horror film where the ghosts are the men of India bound by age old thinking. NH10 exemplified that less is more.

Underrated: Dolly Ki Doli, Hunterrr and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy

Perhaps the most underrated and under seen film 2015 is Dolly ki Doli which suffered because of the wrong marketing campaign and the negative stigma attached with the image of the makers of the film. Give it a watch and you will be surprised at how entertaining it is!

Hunterrr was the sex comedy from the Anurag Kashyap stable which could have become a classic but got bogged down by inconsistent storytelling. Nonetheless. Hunterrr deserves a watch for the unique idea it tried to showcase.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy is not perfect and can even be labelled a bit self indulgent but it is much better than most of the drivel that passes for cinema in the Hindi film industry. Give it a try, if you like detective movies which are not spoonfed to you!

As we can see from the above list, 2015 has so far been a very good year for Bollywood when it comes to quality even though there hasn’t been a 200 crore earner in the first half. Let us know in the comments which where were your favorites movies and scenes/moments from the first half of 2015.