Content is King … said Bill Gates about 20 years ago.. and I believe it is true in all aspects of life… including what you work on, watch or get entertained by!!

This blog is in reference to the rise of success in Indian Movies, especially from South India in the last few years.

I wanted to give props to a few movies that I watched recently and wanted to review each and every one them individually, but got lazy or thinking it doesn’t matter… but I think it does… after all, content is King!!

RRR (2022) – A film made by a Telugu director (from my state and mother tongue)… and released in multiple languages in India and worldwide. It even won an Oscar this year for Best original song… well at least it got noticed.

If you haven’t seen it, it is on Netflix in Hindi and Zee5 in India in Telugu (original version). A few of my American friends said, they watched it and liked it. Why is it good? Content, Quality, dedication to each and every detail… I watched it multiple times and keep finding little gems of scenes still. My Rating 4.5/5 – just because the director had 500 Cr budget ($80 million USD approx.) to make it and took 5 years.

Then on my recent trip to India, I watched 2 movies that took my breath away!!

Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (2023) – Hindi

Manoj Bajpayee is an extraordinary artist… and his performance in the climax seen gives you goosebumps and a couple of tears. This movie was directly released to “OTT” (Streaming) in India and became such a popular movie, they had to release it in a few theaters later. It was 2 hours long and I can’t believe I didn’t want to even take a bio break. My rating: 4.75/5… because I heard there was some controversy on the original characters.

Then I saw 2018… no not the year…

2018: Everyone is a Hero (2023) – Malayalam

A Malayalam movie made with 20 Cr Budget ($2.5 million USD) made approximately 200 Cr. ($25 million USD). I tried to go to a theater to watch it and then couldn’t get to it in time and it was released on Sony LIV streaming platform.

Talk about Content … it has a whole lot of it. I watched it twice and still can’t fully appreciate the effort of what it took to make this. It was made with many top actors, no VFX, real effects with sets (the old way) and of course, a gripping screenplay. No wonder it is as successful as it is. My score (4.9/5) … as it is not available in USA to watch… Darn it!

There are a lot of other movies to recommend that I really enjoyed… but without overwhelming everyone, I will stop here.. South Indian movies stepped up a lot recently and it is an exciting time for viewers!!

Here are another top 5 recommendations from last year or so. My recommendation is to watch them in original language with subtitles for best experience.

Kantara (2022) – Kannada on Amazon Prime

PS-1 and PS-2 (2022 and 2023) – Tamil on Amazon Prime

The Kashmir Files (2022) – Hindi on Zee5

Pushpa Part 1 (2021) – Telugu on Amazon Prime

KGF 1 and KGF 2 (2022) – Kannada pm Amazon Prime

Please feel free to recommend other gems I might have missed… and enjoy these movies.