u/stan_films

In 2014, Shahrukh Khan described his upcoming film Fan as something he wanted to do an intense, yet commercially viable film.

Looking back, that almost feels ironic, because the attempt to make the film more commercially viable is probably what hurt it.

The premise itself was fantastic. What happens when a superstar is confronted by a fan whose admiration crosses the line into obsession? It is one of cinema's most popular templates, and for good reason. The fan thinks he knows the star. The star doesn't even know the fan exists.

And Fan starts well.

Gaurav Chandna is interesting because he isn't an action hero. He's just a fan. He lives in Delhi, runs a small cybercafé, copies Aryan Khanna's mannerisms and knows everything about his films and career. Aryan isn't just his favourite actor. He has become a part of Gaurav's identity.

So when Gaurav goes to Mumbai to meet him and Aryan rejects him, he can't accept it. For Gaurav, this isn't just a superstar refusing to meet a fan. Aryan is rejecting a relationship that existed almost entirely inside Gaurav's head.

That's the most interesting part of the film.

But then the interval happens and the film starts becoming something else.

Instead of taking Gaurav's obsession further, the film turns him into an action/spy character. Suddenly he's travelling across countries, pulling off elaborate plans, escaping people and surviving things that feel completely out of character.

He basically becomes an Indian Ethan Hunt.

Gaurav should have become more dangerous psychologically, not physically. His obsession could have become more disturbing and unpredictable. He knows Aryan's habits, his public image and the way people around him behave. That could have made for a much better cat-and-mouse thriller.

Instead, the obsession becomes secondary to the chase.

And Aryan Khanna is another huge missed opportunity.

Shahrukh Khan playing both Gaurav and Aryan should have allowed the film to explore the difference between the celebrity a fan imagines and the actual person behind him. But we barely get to know Aryan.

Is he lonely? Is he tired of fame? Is he arrogant? Does he actually care about his fans? What does being worshipped by millions do to a person?

The film doesn't really explore any of this.

At times, it almost feels like Shahrukh Khan decided, "I'm Aryan Khanna." Instead of creating a fictional superstar who happens to be played by Shahrukh Khan, the film basically creates a fictional version of Shahrukh Khan.

The irony is that a film about a fan being obsessed with a superstar also becomes obsessed with its own superstar.

And this is also a bigger problem with mainstream Hindi cinema. We often change the movie at the interval instead of taking the same movie further.

The first half of Fan is a psychological story about obsession. The second half becomes an action chase. The instinct seems to be that the second half has to be bigger- more locations, more action, bigger set pieces.

But bigger isn't always better.

The second half should have taken Gaurav's obsession and pushed it further. Instead, it changes the entire nature of the conflict.

That's why Fan failed.

With the annual debate around India's Oscar submissions starting up again, I thought it would be fun to revisit some of the most baffling decisions in the history of the selection process.

I'm not saying every rejected film would necessarily have done better at the Oscars. But some of these choices raise serious questions about what the committee was looking for.

I've kept The Lunchbox (2013) out of it because it can make to different criteria of non-submissions that raised eyebrows.

3. Devdas (2002)- The Academy screening walkouts

After Lagaan made it into the final five, India selected Sanjay Leela Bhansali's lavish Devdas as its next Oscar entry.

It garnered criticism in India because the film was not well-recieved domestically- many called it a 'melodramatic bloated soap opera'.

And the Academy screening in Beverly Hills reportedly didn't go well. Academy publicist John Friedken said that “a lot of people walked out,” including himself. Another Academy member, Jerry Pam, estimated that roughly half of the attendees had left after the intermission.

They called it too melodramatic and over-the-top shouting, crying didn't go down well with Academy members.

2. Barfi (2012)- Sending a plagiarism controversy to Oscars

After Barfi! was selected, comparisons with Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The Notebook and Benny & Joon started circulating online. Several sequences were accused of closely reproducing scenes from international films. India Today even published a report highlighting the similarities.

It was an awkward situation for a film representing India at the Oscars- especially when Gangs of Wasseypur, Paan Singh Tomar and several other acclaimed films were among the alternatives that sparked debate.

Ranbir Kapoor famously went out of the way to defend the rejection.

1. Eklavya (2007)- When baffling selection ended up in lawsuit

Bhavna Talwar's Dharm, which lost by a single vote.

Talwar challenged the selection of Eklavya in the Bombay High Court, alleging bias in the process. The court observed that there appeared to be a prima facie case of bias.

One of the allegations was that jury member Ranjit Bahadur had edited The Making of Eklavya, a promotional film for the movie. The question was whether he should have disclosed that involvement and recused himself.

The controversy became serious enough for the Academy to reportedly seek clarification from the FFI. The film was ultimately retained as India's entry.

The real issue wasn't simply whether Eklavya was a good film. It was whether the selection process was transparent and impartial.

Which of these decisions do you find the most frustrating? And what other Indian Oscar snubs or questionable submissions still bother you?

PS: One fact I forgot to mention Ralph Fienees cried after watching Ekalvya in a screening and hugged Amitabh Bachchan.

I think we often use range and versatility interchangeably when talking about directors, but they aren't the same thing.

Range is the breadth of stories, themes and genres a director explores.

Versatility is the ability to adapt their filmmaking- tone, technique, visual language, pacing, performances, etc.- to different kinds of material.

In simple terms: range is about what you make; versatility is about how differently you can make it.

Genre versatility is often tough to master because an action set-piece requires different setup, escalation and execution than a horror jump scare or a comical scene.

Directors can be masters of one or two genres, but have enormous range. For ex., Yash Chopra mastered the romance genre, but his range of themes were wider.

• Obsessive Love- Darr (1993)
• Love vs Morality- Silsila (1981)
• Love vs social conventions- Lamhe (1991)
• Love as sacrifice- Chandni (1989) etc

I've not big fan of how it is explored in those films, but Chopra did made films exploring so many sides of love.

In contrast, I adore how Imtiaz explore themes of love and identity in his films, but have narrow range.

• Self discovery through love- Jab We Met (2007)
• Slef discovery through love and love in different times- Love Aaj Kal (2009)
• Art, pain, love and the suffering of it.- Rockstar (2011)
• Identity vs society, self discovery through love- Tamasha (2015) etc

Which Hindi film director has enormous range?

Anurag Kashyap

He masters three genres- procedural crime, psychological drama/thriller, black comedy. But his range is enormous.

• Black Friday (2004)- Terrorism, Instituional failure
• DevD (2009)- Self-destruction, toxic musculinity
• Gulaal (2009)- Political radicalisation, toxic musclinity
• Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)- Revenge and the cycle of it.
• Ugly (2014)- the uglyness of humans etc

Which Hindi film director has insane versatility?

This is probably one of the biggest weaknesses of Hindi cinema.

We have directors who are extremely good at a particular kind of cinema, but once they find their successful formula, they rarely have to reinvent their filmmaking language.

But still Vikramaditya Motwane stands out to me:

• Udaan (2010)- coming-of-age
• Lootera (2013)- period romantic drama
• Trapped (2016)- survival thriller
• Bhavesh Joshi (2018)- vigilante etc

It's not simply that these are different genres. It's that Motwane actually seems to change his cinematic grammar according to the material. Trapped has a completely different rhythm and visual strategy from Lootera, which is completely different from Udaan.

In the ’80s and ’90s, studios played a huge role in building stars like Tom Cruise, giving them major marketing pushes and eventually putting them at the center of big original movies. That largely disappeared in the post-2010s franchise-driven Hollywood.

So could the new Paramount/WB regime actually try to build Robert Pattinson into that kind of traditional movie star- giving him the marketing push and a shot at carrying $150M+ original films as the solo lead?

Do you think Pattinson has the potential to be the next true Hollywood movie star?

I think Rang De Basanti has one of the smartest and original screenplays in Indian cinema.

For almost 100 minutes, it's essentially a coming-of-age film. We watch these carefree, directionless guys grow closer while playing the revolutionaries for Sue's documentary. The historical story slowly starts reflecting their own lives.

Then Ajay dies- the inciting event which usually happens in first 15 minutes. In RDB, it happened after 100 minutes.

Because that's where the film almost changes genres. His death becomes the plot point for the political thriller that follows.

What's brilliant is that the second half doesn't feel like a separate movie. The first 100 minutes have prepared us emotionally for it.

That's such a simple idea, but the screenplay executes it beautifully. The coming-of-age story and political thriller eventually become the same story.

I think in last decade, Parasite (2019) probably pulled off the best plot point to switch genres when the film switches from black comedy to dark thriller.

I've always found Ridley Scott fascinating because he's one of the most visually gifted directors ever, but also one of the most inconsistent.

His greatest strength seems to be building worlds rather than building stories. Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven- even when the writing is uneven, Scott can make a world feel completely tangible.

The production design, lighting, architecture, costumes, atmosphere and sheer physicality of his films are incredible.

But sometimes it feels like Scott becomes so fascinated by the world he's creating that the screenplay and characters become secondary.

For example, Legend, because I think the Ridley Scott–Tom Cruise tension around that film says something interesting about both of them.

Cruise, who has reputation of 'never been a director's actor', reportedly wanted Legend to work more as an emotional, romantic fairy tale, while Scott was much more focused on the visual fantasy.

And that feels very revealing.

I'd put Scott below the very top tier when it comes to consistency of storytelling, but in terms of visual world-building and cinematic atmosphere, he's almost impossible to touch.

What do you guys think?

I've been thinking about what people actually mean when they say a director's "style is outdated."

I don't think it simply means their films look old or that they're bad filmmakers. I think it happens when a director keeps using a filmmaking language or storytelling devices that once worked, but audiences and cinema have moved on.

It can be action, editing, comedy, romance, dialogue, in Hindi cinema- star presentation, or even what the director thinks is supposed to feel "mass."

And this doesn't only happen to style-over-substance commercial directors. Even great filmmakers can become outdated if they stop evolving. For ex. Spielberg.

Spielberg is still relevant, has adapted to new cameras or visuals, and making good films though consistency & originality has gone for the toss. His visual storytelling is finest in last 50 years, but some of his storytelling sensibilities and emphasis on sentimentality aged in post-2001 filmmaking.

In Hindi cinema, my picks right now would be Rohit Shetty and Sidharth Anand.

Shetty's commercial grammar has become too familiar: hero entry, slow motion, punchline, cars, explosions, reaction shots, bigger hero entry, vibrant colors. The scale increases, but the underlying language rarely changes.

His comedy was never good or timeless. It was dumb, but it appealed to a specific time and I think we've way past it.

With Sidharth Anand, his films look extremely modern and expensive, but his action & cinema grammar feels increasingly dated to me. Lots of cutting, weak spatial geography and an emphasis on making the star look cool rather than making the action physically immersive.

Audience somewhere is demanding more gore, sense of realism, and less(or more subtle) hero worshipping from slick action films today.

This is why they are planning for King to be more brutual, but I don't think it alone fixes that. His filmmaking grammar overall is predictable and dated- backstory reveal, dance on beach, characters going from here to anywhere else etc.

What are your picks?

PS: Mohit Suri

War of the Worlds is probably my top pick in this category.

Spielberg + Tom Cruise had me expecting something special. Visually, it's stunning. I love Spielberg's move away from the old Hollywood three-point lighting to the softer, more natural look he developed with Janusz Kamiński in films like Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report.

But the movie itself became a massive snooze for me. It's among Spielberg's weaker films and one of Cruise's weaker ones too. And that silly ending... even Spielberg later admitted it didn't really work.

The film made a lot of money at the box office, but let's be honest that was always going to happen. It was Tom Cruise and Spielberg, two of the biggest names in Hollywood. The box office doesn't change how underwhelming the film felt to me.

One thing it also exposed, in my opinion, is one of Spielberg's biggest weakness. If a script connects with him emotionally, he'll make it, even if the overall screenplay isn't as strong as it should be.

I think Raiders of the Lost Ark is Spielberg's coldest masterpiece.

Unlike most Spielberg films, you don't really care about Indiana Jones on an emotional level. You like him because he's charismatic, clever, witty, and always gets himself into crazy situations. Even his relationship with Marion is mostly there to move the story forward. There isn't a big emotional arc like in Jaws, E.T., or Saving Private Ryan.

What makes Raiders special is how it changed the pacing of adventure films.

Before Raiders, many adventure films were slower and more character-driven. Spielberg and Lucas took the structure of an action movie and put it into an adventure film.

The structure is basically:

Action set piece followed by exposition followed by Action set piece followed by Exposition followed by Action set piece.

The film almost never slows down. Every action scene pushes the story forward, and every exposition scene quickly sets up the next adventure.

That rhythm has influenced action movies for more than 40 years. I think Mission: Impossible: Fallout is one of the best modern examples of this style.

Now, personally, Raiders and the Indiana Jones films are not among my favorite Spielberg movies. That's just my taste. I generally prefer action that feels more dangerous and intense, like Jaws, Jurassic Park, Minority Report, or James Cameron's films. Raiders has a lighter, more playful tone, and even the action is intentionally a bit goofy at times.

But my personal preference is separate from craft.

As a filmmaking student, Raiders is one of the films I would revisit the most.

If I want to learn pacing, staging, blocking, or how to make exposition scenes visually engaging, this is one of the best films ever made. Spielberg's visual storytelling is incredible. He makes even simple conversations feel alive through camera movement, blocking, and composition.

I may not love Raiders as much as some of Spielberg's other films, but I can't deny its craft. It's one of the greatest examples of pure visual storytelling ever put on screen.

Most people think the debate is just about "artistic freedom." I think it's much bigger than that. It's about culture and audience.

Tom Cruise fought against the studio to ensure Top Gun: Maverick received a proper theatrical release instead of going straight to streaming. At the film's global premiere, when he was asked why he had fought so hard for theaters, he replied:

"The cultural impact of movie theatres can't be matched."

It summed up most of the things because distribution shapes culture.

Whether it's the controversy around Satluj, or the endless calls to ban films like Kabir Singh and Animal, the conversation is usually framed as "this film shouldn't exist."

But what happens if we keep removing films that make some people uncomfortable?

You don't just censor a filmmaker. You reshape the audience. You decide which stories are allowed to enter public conversation and which aren't. You can remove an audience.

Indian television is a perfect example. As every major channel chased the same saas-bahu formula, they didn't just change programming, they alienated huge sections of the audience.

Many viewers, especially males, stopped watching regular TV altogether and only returned for shows like KBC or TMKOC. Television became culturally narrower because the variety disappeared.

Cinema works the same way.

A healthy film culture isn't built by making only fewer kind of films. It's built by allowing radically different films to coexist- commercial entertainers, uncomfortable character studies, political dramas, romances, art-house films, everything.

Once you start deciding that certain kinds of stories shouldn't even reach audiences, you're not just censoring films.

You're deciding what kind of culture gets to exist.

You're playing with cultural influence of movies.

>"To make a film is easy, to make a good film is war and to make a great film is a miracle"- Alejandro G Innaritu

I love this quote because I think it captures something people often overlook.

Whenever we talk about great movies, we usually credit one thing: the script, the director, or the acting. As if a masterpiece is just the result of one brilliant person doing their job well.

I don't think that's how filmmaking works.

Skill gets you into the fight. A talented cast and crew give you a chance. But making a truly great film requires an unbelievable number of things to go right.

Take Lagaan.

On paper, it sounds like a film that shouldn't work: a three-and-a-half-hour period drama about cricket, with songs, a huge ensemble cast, and massive production challenges. It was made under difficult financial and logistical conditions.

That's what Iñárritu means by "war" and "miracle."

Not that great films happen by luck, or that skill isn't important. Skill is the foundation. But filmmaking is one of the few art forms where hundreds of people, thousands of decisions, years of work, and countless unexpected problems all have to align.

If making a masterpiece were only about skill, every master filmmaker's film would be a masterpiece.

Instead, a great film feels like the rare moment when vision, execution, collaboration, and circumstance all align.

With the Digger trailer dropping tomorrow, I thought it was a good time to look back at Tom Cruise's entire career.

Whether you like him as an actor or not, and regardless of opinions about his personal life, it's difficult to find another Hollywood career that combines longevity, consistency, box-office appeal, critical recognition, and an ability to adapt to changing eras quite like his.

But every icon has their share of critics, and Cruise is no exception. Over the years, he's faced criticism and allegations ranging from an intensity that some collaborators have described as intimidating, to accusations that his level of creative control leaves directors with less authority than is typical for a leading actor, to public fights with studios, and, of course, his long-standing association with Scientology.

Despite all of that, his career remains one of the most fascinating in Hollywood

I. The Director's Actor Cruise Never Was (1981–1985)

Today, almost every great actor is praised for being a "director's actor." Whether it's young actors who completely submit to a filmmaker's vision or someone like Leonardo DiCaprio, who, even after becoming one of the biggest stars in the world, still treats the director as the ultimate creative authority.

This is why even today most actors said yes to Nolan's Odyssey without reading the script.

But Tom Cruise was never wired that way- neither today nor in his 20s.

Even in his early 20s, he wasn't content with simply showing up and delivering a performance. During Taps, while most of the cast wrapped for the day, Cruise reportedly stayed behind asking the director and cinematographer why they were using certain shots, lenses, and camera angles.

For Legend, Cruise and Ridley Scott reportedly clashed over the film's creative direction. Cruise believed its emotional core should be the love story, while Scott leaned toward a visually driven fantasy. Their disagreements even extended to how the movie should be marketed.

Whether Cruise was right or wrong isn't the point. What's fascinating is that, at an age when most actors are trying to earn a director's approval, Cruise was already challenging one of cinema's greatest visual filmmakers because he had his own ideas about story, audience, and filmmaking itself.

I don't know even today if some of the biggest stars have audacity to go against a top filmmaker.

That instinct to think beyond acting and toward the entire film would define everything that followed.

II. The King of Hollywood (1986–2006)

The late '80s changed Hollywood. Modern blockbuster cinema exploded with films like Top Gun, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rambo, and Commando.

Top Gun made Tom Cruise a superstar, but it also revealed how differently he thought about his career. He increasingly became involved in development, production, story discussions, and marketing. He wasn't satisfied with simply starring in movies he wanted to shape them. Rewriting Top Gun from war film to a more buddy picture including giving Maverick his character ark.

For Born on the Fourth of July, he took suggestion from Oliver Stone to temprorarily paralyse himself using medicine to bring believability into character.

Almost, on every film Cruise fought studio to change marketing strategy , bring global premieres and visit him Asian countries.

Mission Impossible was the film that had global premieres through which concept of 'international press tour' started.

While most movie stars before Cruise stayed in one lane, he started moving between action, sports drama, courtroom drama, romantic comedy, psychological thriller, epic historical films, and prestige cinema.

A playbook almost every movie star follow after him.

So, why couldn't studios or other directors stop him?

Because for nearly twenty years, it was one remarkable run after another. Blockbusters. Awards. Critical acclaim. Collaborations with Kubrick, Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Cameron Crowe, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, and many others.

He wasn't just Hollywood's biggest star. He was helping redefine what a movie star could be.

III. The Downfall (2006–2010)

Every great Hollywood career has a breaking point.

Cruise's public image unraveled almost overnight. His high-profile marriage, his association with Scientology, relentless tabloid coverage, and repeated media controversies all combined to damage one of the most bankable stars in the industry. His films no longer looked untouchable at the box office.

At the same time, many of his contemporaries were naturally transitioning into prestige films and character roles as they got older.

And everyone thought its end of road for Cruise and now he'll join them as well.

But Cruise made a comeback- the kind of comeback we hope from him.

IV. The Action Superstar: The Comeback (2011–Present)

Instead of becoming a character actor, Cruise reinvented himself as an event.

When reports emerged that he would actually climb the Burj Khalifa for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the stunt became the marketing. Suddenly, audiences weren't just buying tickets to a movie- they were buying tickets to watch Tom Cruise attempt something that sounded impossible.

That reinvention worked.

The stories about Cruise's intense creative involvement never disappeared. Whether collaborating closely with filmmakers or pushing for theatrical releases, he continued treating movies as experiences that deserved to be seen on the biggest screen possible. His insistence on a theatrical release for Top Gun: Maverick became one of the defining stories behind the film, and when it finally arrived, it became one of the biggest blockbusters of the decade.

Now, with Digger and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Cruise seems to be entering yet another phase. After decades of being the world's biggest movie star and then reinventing himself as Hollywood's premier action icon, he appears to be returning to prestige filmmaking.

That's what makes his career so fascinating to me. It isn't just the longevity. It isn't just the box office. It isn't just the awards.

It's that every decade, Tom Cruise found a completely different way to remain relevant

Whether history ultimately remembers him as one of the greatest actors is open to debate.

Whether it remembers him as one of the greatest movie stars and one of Hollywood's most influential creative force is much harder to argue against

Once someone reaches that top 1% of the 1%- whether it's the Khans, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, or others- years of selective storytelling create an impression that they're almost flawless human beings.

But people who actually work in those industries often know a much messier reality. Difficult traits, professional quirks, questionable decisions, and habits that insiders have learned to deal with.

I saw this question somewhere else and thought it would make a good Reddit post as well.

Few reasons.

1. He's already where the best scripts go.

DiCaprio is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Producers, studios, and agencies often send him scripts before most actors even hear about them because attaching his name helps get movies financed.

He has also spent most of his career in prestige dramas. If someone is making a serious film but still wants a big star who can sell tickets, DiCaprio is usually one of the first choices.

2. He's very picky about scripts.

DiCaprio once said something I really like:

>"If I read a script for the first time, and I know what to do with the character, I would say no because then that means its within my comfort zone. When I don't know what to do is when I'm interested."

He likes roles that challenge him instead of repeating things he's already done.

He has also said many times that the director is one of the biggest reasons he chooses a film.

A good example is The Revenant. He liked the script, but he didn't fully commit until Alejandro G. Iñárritu signed on to direct it. That shows he doesn't just look for a good script- he also wants to know the film is in the right hands.

Contrast to Christian Bale who would commit to a film if he likes the role despite the script is mid or director is untested.

3. He has built relationships with some of the best directors.

Over the years, he's worked with Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Sam Mendes, Danny Boyle, and Iñárritu.

That's probably one of the strongest groups of directors any actor has worked with, along with Tom Cruise.

The interesting thing is that DiCaprio trusts his directors. He gives ideas and asks questions, but he isn't known for trying to control the whole movie. He's very much a director's actor.

Tom Cruise is a good comparison. Cruise is also trusted by directors, but he's much more involved in the filmmaking process. He works closely on story, vision, production, and even character details.

DiCaprio's approach is different. He spends most of his energy choosing the right filmmaker first. Once he has made that choice, he focuses on giving the best performance possible and helping the director bring their vision to the screen. He's a director's actor.

That is something you can't say for Cruise who at 22 was telling Ridley Scott about how he should make Legend and why Scott's vision is wrong.

Prestige directors often value actors who submit to them.

>"I don't think that was about the Holocaust? That was about success, wasn't it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler's List is about six hundred who don't."

I don't think he was saying Spielberg made a bad film. I think he was simply talking from his own perspective as a filmmaker.

Every great filmmaker sees the world differently. Spielberg looked at the Holocaust through one man's journey. He made it a personal tragedy and a story about hope, redemption and humanity. Oskar Schindler was a complicated person in real life, but Spielberg shaped him into a movie character that fits his own view of the world. That's not a criticism- it was his artistic choice.

If Kubrick had made a Holocaust film, I don't think he would have focused on one man's redemption. He probably would have made a film about humanity itself, about systems, institutions, hypocrisy, and how millions of innocent people were allowed to die. Because that's the kind of films Kubrick made.

It also made me think about how different directors would make the same script.

Spielberg was once attached to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Tom Cruise before it fell apart.

I actually like Fincher's film even though I think it has pacing issues and becomes overtly sentimental & passive at times. But I've always wondered what Spielberg's version would have looked like. It feels like a story that naturally fits his style.

There's family, nostalgia, ordinary people living through extraordinary circumstance, and how Spielberg would've made an out-and-out love story.

That's why we love cinema because of perspectives.

I was thinking about this after reading Will Smith's autobiography.

We all know about Stallone vs Arnold. That was probably Hollywood's biggest rivalry.

But after them, I think Tom Cruise vs Will Smith has a strong case.

In his book, Will Smith says he looked at Tom Cruise as the biggest movie star in the world and wanted to beat him. He even studied how Cruise promoted his movies around the world and tracked his box office numbers.

From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, they were the two biggest global movie stars. Both could open original blockbuster movies just by putting their names on the poster.

Around the mid-2000s, Smith became Hollywood's biggest box office star. At around the same time, after a period of bad PR and losing his place as Hollywood's biggest star, Cruise reinvented himself by focusing almost completely on action blockbusters, changing from a drama-heavy superstar into arguably the biggest action star in Hollywood with the Mission: Impossible series.

It wasn't a loud public rivalry like Stallone vs Arnold, but it feels like both were chasing the same goal: becoming the biggest movie star in the world.

Do you think Cruise vs Smith is the biggest Hollywood rivalry after Stallone vs Arnold?

"Aamir Khan's switch with Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai might be the greatest an Indian movie star ever made."- Bharadwaj Rangan.

It's hard to appreciate today how risky Aamir Khan's choices looked in the late 90s.

He had become a star through romantic films. The obvious move was to keep doing safe commercial entertainers. Instead, he started moving toward films like Sarfarosh and Earth 1947.

At the time, many trade experts questioned these choices. Why wasn't he doing more conventional crowd-pleasers? Why wasn't he chasing easy box-office success?

The answer arrived in 2001- Lagaan.

On paper, it sounds absurd.

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It's such a ridiculuous idea on paper.. Yet 25 years later, it remains one of the finest examples of mainstream storytelling in Indian cinema.

The brilliance of Lagaan is that it uses the structure of a sports drama to tell a much bigger story.

The cricket match is only the surface. Underneath it is a story about colonial power, resistance, caste, religion, community, pride and self-belief.

An Oppressor vs a Resistor. A village divided by fear. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims standing together.

A man rejected because of caste becoming the team's greatest weapon. A love triangle unfolding in the middle of a political conflict.

Every subplot feeds the main story.

The film begins as a village drama turns into a story of oppression then a sports drama And finally, a war film disguised as a cricket match.

That is blockbuster storytelling at its best.

The match works because every emotional conflict has already been loaded into it. When the villagers take the field, they are not just playing cricket. They are fighting for dignity, identity and survival.

What is most impressive today is how well the film has aged. The writing, the direction remains, the performances still feel honest and grounded.

The songs still push the story forward instead of stopping it.

And unlike many spectacles, Lagaan never relies on scale alone. Its biggest strength is still its screenplay.

Twenty-five years later, the achievement feels even greater. Not just because it became a hit or because it reached the Oscars.

But because it proved that Indian mainstream cinema could be ambitious, emotional, political, entertaining, universally accessible and great cinema at the same time.

And perhaps that is why Aamir Khan's gamble mattered so much.

He didn't just back a film. He helped expand the idea of what a Hindi film could choose to make.

"In Indian cinema, if you are able to touch the emotions of people, your any idea or film will succeed"- Aamir Khan

I will write a separate post on how Aamir Khan's preference for realism over larger-than-life heroism became one of Lagaan's greatest strengths, grounding the film's epic story in a deeply human performance.

Shahid Kapoor recently said that he no longer hears script narrations alone and now has members of his team in the room while deciding films.

Ironically, I think this points to a bigger problem.

Bollywood is still heavily narration-driven. A writer or director often has to sell a film through a pitch rather than the screenplay itself. A great narrator can make an average script sound amazing.

The problem is that hearing a story and reading a screenplay are completely different experiences.

A narration sells the premise and emotions. A screenplay reveals the actual film. The dialogue, scene construction, pacing, character work, repetitive beats, weak acts- all of that becomes obvious only when you read it.

Another thing people miss is that actors usually read scripts from a character perspective. That's natural. They're actors.

Leonardo DiCaprio once said that if I read a script for the first time and I immediately knows how to play a character, I'd say no because its within my comfort zone.

That's a great way to choose roles. It's not necessarily a great way to judge the screenplay as a whole.

A great role, a great pitch and a great screenplay are three different things.

Now actors are increasingly involving managers, agents and personal teams in narrations. They may be useful for marketability and career decisions, but screenplay evaluation is a completely different skill.

Sometimes I feel Bollywood spends too much time evaluating the role and the pitch, and not enough time evaluating the script.

Maybe that's why we keep getting films with exciting loglines, great trailers and disappointing execution.

Long post, but bear with me:

In 2012, after the release of Talaash, Baradwaj Rangan wrote an article expressing frustration with the state of Indian film discourse. His complaint wasn't that people were discussing box office numbers. His complaint was that box office numbers were almost the only discussion happening around the film.

He pointed out that if Talaash had been a Hollywood film, there would have been articles about grief in cinema, detective archetypes, the portrayal of sex workers, Reema Kagti's authorship, Farhan Akhtar's dialogue writing, and countless other subjects. Instead, much of the conversation revolved around whether the film would enter the 100-crore club.

Rangan noted that while there was discussion around Lincoln's box office and whether it would become Steven Spielberg's, perhaps the biggest box-office draw ever, first $100 million non-franchise hit in years, there were also dozens of other conversations happening around the film. Articles were being written about Spielberg's evolving ideas, Abraham Lincoln's portrayal, DDL's legendary performance, the film's politics, its historical accuracy, and countless other aspects. The box office discussion existed, but it wasn't the entire discourse.

More than a decade later, the article feels relevant because it raises a larger question: why did serious film discourse never become mainstream in India despite the country being one of the largest film-producing nations in the world?

The common answer is star culture. While that certainly played a role, I think the reasons are much more structural.

1. India's economic development & Hero Worshipping Culture

The first factor is economic development. For much of the twentieth century, India was a poor country with low literacy rates and limited access to higher education. Cinema emerged primarily as mass entertainment rather than an intellectual or academic art form.

In countries where film discourse flourished, there was already a large urban, literate middle class capable of supporting magazines, journals, criticism, archives, and cultural institutions. Film criticism is fundamentally a reading-and-writing culture. It depends on audiences willing to engage with essays, reviews, books, and debates.

Another factor is Indians love to hero worship. Politicians, God-Men, Cricketers and Movie stars are demi-gods in the country. So, the discourse happened around what money the stars' film made, what they wear rather than their craft.

2. Lack of Strong Institutions

Countries such as France, the United States, Japan, and later South Korea built extensive ecosystems around cinema. They developed film schools, film journals, archives, cinematheques, university programs, and film festivals. These institutions created a middle layer between filmmakers and audiences. They produced critics, scholars, programmers, historians, and cinephiles. India certainly had film societies and film institutions, but they never became influential enough to shape mainstream culture.

In contrast, Indian cinema's ecosystem was entirely built around box-office and gossip magazines.

3. Media Reporting

In much of the West, audiences gradually became familiar with filmmakers as artists. Conversations developed around directors, movements, genres, and cinematic techniques. In India, public attention concentrated overwhelmingly on actors. Discussions around films often became discussions around stars.

The media ecosystem reinforced this tendency. Film journalism evolved largely around interviews, celebrity coverage, gossip, and trade reporting. There is nothing inherently wrong with discussing the business side of cinema. The problem is that it frequently displaced other forms of discussion. As a result, audiences became accustomed to asking how much a film earned rather than how it was made.

4. Award Culture

Awards culture also contributed. American audiences grew up hearing about categories such as Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Production Design. Whether or not they understood those crafts in depth, they were repeatedly reminded that these aspects of filmmaking mattered.

Indian awards increasingly became celebrity-driven television events. The focus often shifted from filmmaking to stardom. This is why Indian awards have barely mattered outside of performances & used as PR tool for stars.

5. Film Critics

Perhaps the most revealing comparison is the place occupied by film critics themselves.

Roger Ebert became one of the most recognizable cultural figures in American cinema. He was not a filmmaker or a movie star. He was a critic. His sign-off, "See you at the movies," became part of movie culture itself.

Many younger audiences today associate that phrase with Tom Cruise's theatrical advocacy, but it originated with Ebert. The fact that a critic could become that culturally visible says something profound about the status of criticism within American film culture.

It is difficult to imagine an Indian film critic ever occupying a similar position in the public imagination.

This difference reflects a broader distinction between the two cultures. America, France, Japan, and several other countries built not only film industries but also cultures of film discussion. They produced critics, journals, festivals, and institutions that encouraged audiences to think about cinema as an art form worthy of analysis.

India built one of the most powerful movie-watching cultures in the world. It produced immense stars. What it never developed at the same scale was a mainstream culture of discussing cinema beyond stardom and commerce.

The internet has begun to change this. YouTube essays, podcasts, Letterboxd, Reddit communities, and independent criticism have created spaces where conversations about screenwriting, editing, cinematography, genre, and film history are increasingly common.

But even today, when a major film releases, discussions about collections, records, and box office performance often dominate the public conversation. More than a decade after Baradwaj Rangan wrote about Talaash, the question he raised remains relevant.

I watched Lootera recently, and before watching it, I read the script. While reading it, I was reminded of the English novels of the 19th and early 20th century. It had many of the qualities you find in those stories: class differences, romance, social expectations, tragedy, and characters whose lives are shaped by circumstances larger than themselves. It felt literary in a way that most Hindi films do not.

What I found interesting was that the script seemed to prioritize the story itself, almost like a novel. It was not trying to impress me with flashy moments or constant plot twists. In fact, the script was quite slow-paced. Usually, that would be a criticism for me, but here it felt like a deliberate choice by the creators. It felt as if they wanted the audience to live with the characters and absorb the atmosphere rather than rush through the story. After watching the film, I felt even more strongly that this was a conscious directorial choice.

I also liked how carefully the film is constructed.

For me, the first half was stronger than the second half. The second half is emotional and has some beautiful moments, but I felt it did not quite reach the level of the first half. Even so, the film remains engaging throughout and succeeds in creating a very distinct mood.

The performances were good across the board. I would not say anyone gave an all-time great performance, but everyone understood the tone of the film and fit naturally into the world Motwane was creating.

One reason I admire Vikramaditya Motwane is that he keeps exploring different genres. Whether it is a coming-of-age drama, a period romance, or a survival thriller, he approaches each genre with genuine genre conventions-pacing, editing, lighting etc- while still leaving his own stamp on the film. For me, he is the most versatile genre filmmaker of his generation.

Another thing I enjoyed was the cultural setting. Whenever I watch a film rooted in a specific time period or culture, I get excited because I know I will learn something about that world. Hindi cinema often falls back on the same cultural settings, so it was refreshing to see this culture portrayed with care and attention to detail. The setting never felt decorative; it felt like an essential part of the story.

Overall, I thought Lootera was a good film. It did not completely work for me in every aspect, but I admired its patience, literary quality, atmosphere, direction, and cultural richness. It felt like a classic novel brought to the screen by a filmmaker who trusted the audience enough to slow down and engage with it.