From a high-octane motorsport-action drama exploring the world of professional racing to a spooky thriller set in an Indian hill station, the lineup of new films hitting theatres this Friday offers a mix of action, drama, thrill and horror. Here’s everything you need to know.
F1 (English)
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris, Kate McKenna, Tobias Menzies
Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski trades fighter jets for Formula 1 race cars for his latest film F1 starring Brad Pitt as Sonny Haynes, a washed-up American driver pulled back into the world of F1 by his former teammate Reuben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who now runs the hopeless Apex GP team, which hasn’t scored a single point in two seasons. His last hope? Pairing Sonny with his young, talented, and hot-headed rookie, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), in a desperate bid to turn their fortunes around.
M3GAN 2.0 (English)
Directed by: Gerard Johnstone
Cast: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ivanna Sakhno, Jemaine Clement
A sequel to the 2022 sci-fi hit, M3GAN 2.0 sees the return of the titular rogue AI doll. Set two years after the events of the first film, Gemma (Allison Williams) is now an AI regulation advocate, secretly keeping a deactivated M3GAN (Amie Donald) doll. Trouble brews when a defense contractor uses M3GAN’s stolen tech to create AMELIA, an android trained in military combat that goes rogue. As AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno) goes out of control, Gemma’s niece Cady (Violet McGraw) urges her to revive and upgrade M3GAN to stop the new threat.
Parikrama (English)
Directed by: Goutam Ghose
Cast: Marco Leonardi, Chitrangda Singh, Cristina Donadio, Aryan Badkul
Goutam Ghose is back in the director’s chair with Parikrama, an English-language feature revolving around a migrant teenage boy, Lala (Aryan) and an Italian filmmaker, Alessandro (Marco Leonardi), who visited India to make a documentary on the Narmada river pilgrimage. The film focuses on themes like ecological threats, environmental damage and the battle for survival, against the backdrop of Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Maa (Hindi)
Directed by: Vishal Furia
Cast: Kajol, Ronit Bose Roy, Kherin Sharma, Indraneil Sengupta
Kajol and Kherin Sharma’s mother-daughter duo battle sinister forces in the fictional village of Chandarpur in Vishal Furia-directed supernatural horror Maa. A road trip through a forest turns sinister for them when the duo make a pit stop at a spooky hotel near a forest. Tensions rise as local girl Dipu vanishes after offering to show Kherin a haunted site. Suspicion soon falls on Kajol and her daughter as more secrets come to light. As the police investigate the case, Kajol delves deeper into the forest’s haunting mystery, uncovering chilling truths.
Kannappa (Hindi, Telugu)
Directed by: Mukesh Kumar Singh
Cast: Vishnu Manchu, Akshay Kumar, Prabhas, Mohan Babu, Kajal Aggarwal, R. Sarathkumar
Vishnu Manchu plays Bhakta Kannappa, an atheist-turned-believer, in the fantasy drama Kannappa, which features Akshay Kumar as Lord Shiva. The film also features Prabhas as an avatar of Shiva, who meets Kannappa and helps him understand that there is a power and energy that exists but cannot be seen. Produced under the banner of Twenty Four Frames Factory and AVA Entertainment, the film also stars Mohan Babu, Kajal Aggarwal, R. Sarathkumar.
‘Bhuto’ Purbo (Bengali)
Directed by: Kakoli Ghosh and Avinab Mukherjee
Cast: Rupanjana Mitra, Sandipta Sen, Suhotra Mukhopadhyay, Satyam Bhattacharya, Saptarshi Maulik, Amrita Chattopadhyay
‘Bhuto’ Purbo is a horror anthology film set in the 1960s, adapted from classic literary works by Rabindranath Tagore, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and Manoj Sen. The story begins when two strangers arrive at writer Bibhutibhushan’s home on a stormy evening. What follows is a series of conversations among the three men, each leading into a different story.
Mrigaya: The Hunt (Bengali)
Directed by: Abhirup Ghosh
Cast: Vikram Chatterjee, Ritwick Chakraborty, Anirban Chakrabarti, Saurav Das
Vikram Chatterjee’s Animesh, a young and determined cop, joins forces with Ritwick Chakraborty’s seasoned OC Debanjan Datta in Mrigaya: The Hunt, a gritty cop thriller directed by Abhirup Ghosh. The investigation into the gruesome murder of a woman forms the crux of the story. Saurav Das appears as a criminal, while Priyanka Sarkar plays Chaya, a sex worker from the bylanes of Sonagachi. The film has been penned by serving police officers Debasis Datta and Pallab Malakar