The A-Z Of Indian Entertainment: 2024 Edition

Rewind 2024: The A-Z Of What Defined The Indian Entertainment Industry This Year

Take a look back at the highlights of 2024 in the Indian entertainment industry with this roundup, showcasing the stories, talents, and trends that made the news this year. Ishita Sengupta writes.

EACH YEAR is different and also the same. A couple of things make news, some dwindle into oblivion and the months match forward to a sense of completion which is chaotic and puzzling with a sense of newness. 2024 has been all that, embedded with both renewal and reiteration. Here’s a quick A-Z of what and who made the news.

Action films & Alia Bhatt - It could have been the fact that 2023 opened with Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan or that the year came to be dotted with tentpole action films (Atlee’s Jawan, Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal to name a few) or that most of them yielded profits in an uncertain time but by the time 2024 arrived, the genre had become a staple. Anand returned with Fighter, Sidharth Malhotra headlined Yodha and Ajay Devgn walked under the assumption that he was fighting. And then in October, the politics of image-making altered. The silhouette of sculpted men fighting to save the country gave away to a diminutive woman fighting for her life. Except, her life resided with her brother. With Vasan Bala’s Jigra, Alia Bhatt did two things: she altered the discourse around action films and changed the way an action star is supposed to look. In the process, she traded survival with swag as a symptom of heroism.

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Bachchan - For most actors, their name assumes the weight of their legacy; for Abhishek Bachchan, his surname was a burden. Born to Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, the actor’s two-decade career has been mired in comparison with his father. And then came Shoojit Sircar’s I Want to Talk, a lyrical film about dying that platformed Bachchan delivering a career-defining turn. He played Arjun Sen, a cancer-riddled man who outlives the 100 days the doctors had allotted him by sheer perseverance. Abhishek is unrecognisable as Sen as he inhabited the role's physicality with the tenacity of his craft, and hid the burden of his surname behind the legacy of his name. 2024 is the year when Abhishek un-became a Bachchan.

Chhaya Kadam - It takes a special kind of an actor to play similar roles, as many as three times in one year, and make each iteration as memorable as the other. Chhaya Kadam started 2024 as Manju Mai in Laapataa Ladies, a voice of strident reason in a film designed on misadventures, followed this up with Madgaon Express, as Kanchan Kombdi, a hardened gangster running her own female gang of outlaws, and ended it with the sublime, All We Imagine as Light as the wise, migrant hospital worker, Parvaty, rendered an outsider in the maximum city overnight. Although seemingly disparate, they put together a vivid portrait of female sustenance, content with walking alone in an overwrought world.

Diljit Dosanjh - At this point, there is little that Diljit Dosanjh cannot do. On the one hand, the singer is headlining incredible shows from India to Canada and on the other, he is shouldering films and imbuing roles with evocative performances. Although he has been straddling both for a while, this year he catapulted to greater heights. His shows are all people can talk about on social media and his unforgettable turn as the contentious musician, Chamkila in Imtiaz Ali’s Amar Singh Chamkila sealed his reputation as an actor. In between, his riotous reels on Instagram have carved out another niche audience who adore him for his histrionics and not necessarily heroism. The audience is me.

ALSO READ | Diljit Dosanjh, Ananya Panday, Shalini Passi, Samay Raina: Cultural Icons Of 2024

Eclectic music - Hindi films were once known for their music, but of late it is difficult to come across original music albums. A trend of each outing having songs composed by multiple composers has exploded into a norm, culminating in a chaotic eclecticness that is more noise than sound. AR Rahman and Irshad Kamil challenged this with a fundamentally individualist album in Imtiaz Ali’s Amar Singh Chamkila. For a biopic on a musician, the songs became storytelling tools and ranged from elegiac to euphoric and withheld the true essence of eclecticism.

Feminism - In an ideal world, feminism would be an uncontested good word. In Hindi films, however, it is ambiguous (here’s looking at you, Kanika Dhillon). The prospect of making a film headlined by women has become an excuse to write underwritten female characters (here’s looking at you, Do Patti) and trade complexity for flimsiness. The point of contention is not that they are unlikeable women (heaven knows we need more of that) but that they are women unsure of their personhood in ways not different when they are placed as props in male-led films.

Goa - If Goa was a person, it would be the one that stayed behind. The pocket-friendly, modest place served as the backdrop for stories about friendship till the friends in the frame grew up with passports. It then made all the sense that when Kunal Khemu decided to segue as a director and tell an unlikely story about three friends through the eyes of the one left behind, he chose Goa as the site of their reunion. Madgaon Express (2024) is one of the most assured comedies in recent times but the outing also did something very few films did in the past. It humanised Goa and staged it as the setting where friendship was renewed and not reiterated.

Horror Comedy - If one has been following Hindi films in recent times, one would know that almost every year a genre erupts and spawns at least a dozen similar films. Action films are having their moment under the sun so is horror comedy, which has proved to be a goldmine at the box office. It probably was the humongous reception that Stree 2 (2024) received, the exceedingly profitable horror-comedy universe Maddock Films has put together or that Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022) resuscitated the Hindi film industry during post-Covid uncertainty. But the way it stands now is that the admixture of horror and comedy has been decidedly viable. On a broader scale, it fulfils the possibility of marrying commerce with commentary, and on a psychological level, it speaks volumes about our dwarfing attention span which is tied to our resistance to feeling too much.

ALSO READ | Maddock Films Didn't Just Follow Trends In 2024 — They Set Them

India - It is difficult to pinpoint when it happened but as it stands today, India has become the invisible protagonist in Hindi films. Every month at least two films are released where the hero is doomed to protect the virtue and principle of India, preserve its vanity and avenge its humiliation. There is little context here except political propaganda. It is all too tiring and if India was a character who could talk, it would probably ask the makers to stop.

Jigra- Something was off. Weeks before Vasan Bala’s Jigra was slated to release, conversations around the film had transformed into a din. A stray comment from the filmmaker snowballed into a controversy and the lead actor, Alia Bhatt, was subjected to fresh accusations of nepotism. The noise was so much that everything drowned under its force — the music, the blistering last 30 minutes, a turn from Bhatt that history will be hopefully kinder to. One can debate about its merits but this much is certain: little about the film was spoken and a lot around it happened — in the midst, Jigra fell through the cracks.

ALSO READ | Jigra: Alia Bhatt In & As The Angry Young Woman

Kani Kusriti - In any other year it would be impossible to ignore Kartik Aryan. He headlined two big commercial films and became the outsider to ace the mainstream game. But 2024 has been unlikely because of how lightly the rules were altered and how completely Kani Kusriti dominated our screens and collective imagination. She featured in the Netflix show Killer Soup, Amazon show Poacher and then was stirring and evocative in Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls and Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, and with every turn she staked a claim in the mainstream without playing the game.

ALSO READ | The Laapataa Ladies Of All We Imagine As Light

Laapataa Ladies - The year witnessed Kiran Rao return to direction after 13 years with Laapataa Ladies, a charming film championing equality with humour bursting at the seams. With her sophomore outing, Rao crafted a feminist satire that was accommodating and not combative, discreet and not forceful. The premise appeared as a neat spin-off on Rabindranath Tagore’s 1906 novel Noukadubi (Boat Wreck) as Rao and writers Sneha Desai and Biplab Goswami fleshed out confusion and chaos in India caused by the accidental switching of two brides in a train. The root of the problem, as if often the case, was the veil.

Merry Christmas - Sometimes while watching a film, you know — just know — that it is going to be your favourite film. It happened to me early this year with Merry Christmas, Sriram Raghavan’s love letter of a thriller that will go down as one of the most swooning romances in recent times. The premise is dreadfully simple: two strangers meet on Christmas Eve and spend the night in Bombay. Raghavan reimagines this as a crushing love story where neither of them wins yet both of them do. The yearning was underscored by the unlikely pairing of Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi, and brought to life by the most unforgettable last 15 minutes of any Hindi film this year.

Nimisha Sajayan - Richie Mehta’s ecological thriller Poacher had a terrific ensemble of actors but none shone like Nimisha Sajayan. As Mala, the Kerala range officer tasked with busting an elaborate poaching racket, the actor delivered an immensely physical turn that needs to be seen to be believed. Her empathy for animals stood in stark contrast to her loathing for the perpetrators, and the counterbalance resulted in one of the most evocative performances this year.

Oscar - It could be the vague process India deploys to select India's official entry for the Academy Awards or the bizarre slip-ups The Film Federation of India (FFI), the body responsible for taking the decision, has committed year after year (in 2013 Ritesh Batra’s widely-acclaimed The Lunchbox was snubbed, in 2022 Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show was chosen over SS Rajamouli’s crowd-favourite RRR) but Oscar has been an enduring conversation topic in India. This year the noise got amplified when Payal Kapadia’s luminous feature film debut All We Imagine as Light, currently making waves in the award season, was overlooked and Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies was selected. But it is the citation that takes the cake. A group of 13 men sat together and justified their choice, a charming film in its own right, with a killer opening line, “Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance.” Okay, sirs.

Propaganda - If making such a list was an annual thing, propaganda would have regularly topped it in the last four years. Hindi films with an agenda might not be a new thing but there is little precedence of the vindictiveness with which most outings unfold of late. Take any list from the last couple of years and a film not chastising the neighbouring country or otherising a minority community in the country wouldn't be hard to find. The rot is deep.

Qute boys - Bearded, middle-aged men firing guns at each other might all be the hype now but 2024 also ushered in some clean-shaven boys scared to the sound of a falling cup. Abhay Verma from Munjya, Vedang Raina from Jigra and Rohit Suresh Saraf from Ishq Vishk Rebound are some examples. Seeing them scuttle on hearing a loud thud or waiting for their elder sister to rescue them offered a nice counter-narrative to the unfeeling alpha men (except SRK, of course) crowding the screens.

Raat Jawaan Hai - The Hindi language streaming space has been clogged with adrenaline-addled shows for a while now. That is why Sumeet Vyas’ directorial debut Raat Jawaan Hai was such a wonderful addition to the roster. A show about friendship is hardly a rarity but Raat Jawaan Hai is as much about three friends navigating parenthood as it is about three parents navigating friendship. The culmination is a sobering portrait of a relationship that is prone to be burdened with sentimentality.

Shalini Passi - At this point, it is difficult to remember a world where Shalini Passi or her unusual nuggets of wisdom did not exist. The socialite came into our lives with the second season of Netflix’s Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives and infiltrated conversations, memes, and aspirations. There is little about her that is not to like — her expansive museum-lookalike house in Delhi, her indifference to everything and everyone around her, her allergic reaction to the sun and her skincare routine: “The only reason I don't hold grudges against other people is because it affects my skin." Honestly, a fan.

Tauba Tauba - In July this year, lives were changed when Vicky Kaushal scraped his shoes ever so lightly on the dance floor and chimed, 'Tauba Tauba'. One could say he was floating and the rest would buy it. There is little contention about Kaushal’s acting skills but with the song, he brought forth a certain joy where his skill set married his passion and what emerged was a scintillating dance-song that made one stop short and admire.

Unabashed grandeur - If Sanjay Leela Bhansali made his streaming debut in 2024, can grandeur be left behind? Bhansali made his long-awaited streaming debut with Heeramandi and it was a spectacle to behold. The eight-episode series witnessed the filmmaker reiterate his penchant for heightened drama through the splintered hearts of courtesans. The plot was vacant but the intricate worldbuilding offered up as a worthy distraction.

Vivek Gomber - Most actors have that one year which transforms their careers. Gomber probably has that year coming but 2024 came goddamn close. He starred in Lootere, a fascinating hijack drama, as a hustler in Somalia and essayed the role of anti-hero with precise conviction. But by the time the year drew to a close he featured as another outsider, an Indian-origin police officer in the fictional country of Hanshi Dao, with no redemptive quality. Gomber was terrific in both roles, amping up the camp when necessary and lending an inexplicable vanity to the characters in their knowledge of the camera being on them.

WhatsApp University - This is obvious but it’s hard to not acknowledge WhatsApp University, a pejorative term for misinformation, as one of the writers in Hindi films currently. Much of how volatile information without being verified is swiftly dispensed through WhatsApp, Hindi films like The Sabarmati Report and Swatantrya Veer Savarkar are doing the same and strengthening fake news under the guise of biopics and fiction, both of which have come to be bastardised at the moment.

X - The microblogging site is much past its expiry date of being likeable. At this moment, there is more hatred than frivolity in X (formerly Twitter) but filmmaker Payal Kapadia joining the site and tweeting about aspect ratio and subtitles before and during the release of her film, All We Imagine As Light instilled new life in the website and reminded us why we had joined it in the first place. We love to see it!

Yodha - On the surface, Pushkar Ojha and Sagar Ambre’s Yodha comes in the long line of nationalistic films too busy saving India. And while the film does that with mixed results, it comes bearing other unlikely gifts. For one, Yodha had one of the most ingenious action set pieces (by Sunil Rodrigues and Craig Macrae) that were fun and engaging in equal measure, thereby introducing a levity in the muscle flexing that has been long missing. Again, except SRK.

Zzzzz - Forgive me for this but 2024 has been particularly dreadful in its lack of inventive stories. Every other film looks alike and is mounted on a scale that feels determined to outdo the latter. At this stage, it is all too disillusioning and sleep-inducing. Here’s hoping next year has some tricks up its sleeve.

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