WOMEN’S DAY SPECIAL: 12 Essential Indian Films of the 21st Century

By Pickle March 7, 2026

By Saibal Chatterjee

This list (in no particular order) of the most watchable and thought-provoking 21^st century Indian films that depict the many battles that women fight day in and day out in a conservative society is by no means a comprehensive one. But it certainly is a definitive selection of this critic’s favourite recent films that have foregrounded the female gaze in no uncertain terms. Each of these titles, in its own way, adds to and strengthens a conversation that is both urgent and illuminating, especially in an era dominated by blockbusters that thrive on the venom that invincible action heroes spew and the unbridled violence that they perpetrate. Want to detox? Watch these films if you haven’t. And if you have, watch them again.

GOYNAR BAKSHO (2013)

Aparna Sen’s directorial mastery is visible in every frame of this remarkable cinematic tapestry about a jewellery box that passes through three generations of women and serves distinct purposes in the lives of the recipients. A loose adaptation of a Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay novel, the wonderfully crafted film blends humour, solemn socio-political commentary and a ghost story, moving from one mood to another, one era to another, and one rebellion to another with phenomenal artistry and dramatic effect. The luminous performances from Moushumi Chatterjee and Konkona Sen Sharma provide the icing on the cake.

Streaming on : Hoichoi

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (2024)

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winning film homes in on two Malayali nurses in Mumbai and a woman who cooks in the hospital where they are employed. An exquisitely executed drama with a magnificent soundscape, it captures the daily struggles of the three women (brilliantly played by Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam) lost in the din of the metropolis. The husband of one of the women is absent. Another is secretly in love with a Muslim boy and the third fights to stave off the demolition of her chawl. The film follows and celebrates their desire to escape into a world where they would have control over their dreams and aspirations. An absolute gem.

Streaming on : JioHotstar

GARGI (2022)

Anchored by an outstanding performance by Sai Pallavi as the eponymous protagonist, the Tamil drama directed by Gautham Ramachandran explores the mind of a young schoolteacher from a modest background who does everything in her power to clear the name of her father who is, along with four other men, accused of assaulting a child. The female protagonist looks up to her father, who is a security guard in an apartment block. The public turns against them but the woman, helped by a small-time lawyer, puts up a fight that does not quite end the way she would have wanted it to. Watchable and though-provoking.

Streaming on : SONYliv

ULLOZHUKKU (2024)

Powered by the presence of two fine screen performers, Urvashi and Parvathy Thirovothu, Christo Tomy’s Malayalam film is set in waterlogged Alappuzha. With the location serving as a metaphor for what surrounds women in the world we live in, the film examines female agency and bonding through the story of a married woman whose perpetually ailing husband is bedridden. They live with the latter’s mother. The younger woman wants to leave the house and start a new life with her lover but her plans are thrown into disarray by floods caused by heavy rains that disrupt a funeral. The film has an affirmative core that is concealed beneath all the turmoil that destiny, desire and daring decisions unleash.

Streaming on : ManoramaMax

BAD GIRL (2025)

A girl raised in a conservative Chennai-based family struggles to steer her dreams and desires around societal constraints and parental pressures in first-time director Varsha Bharath’s Bad Girl, an infectiously vibrant coming-of-age Tamil film. The film does not wave the feminism flag from rooftops. Instead, it delivers its core message with a generous dash of free-spirited irony tempered with underlying humour. Bharath, erstwhile assistant to Vetri Maaran (the producer of this film), orchestrates a lively and takedown of patriarchy. It celebrates unapologetically the chaos and cacophony of a mind that is perpetually at odds with itself and a world enwrapped in its rigid ways. Thoroughly entertaining and yet sobering.

Streaming on : JioHotstar

UYARE (2019)

Helmed by debutant Manu Ashokan, the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Malayalam film stars Parvathy Thirovothu. The restrained melodrama pivots around as aspiring pilot who survives an acid attack by her toxic boyfriend. The film focuses on her fightback against a world that conspires to stop her in her tracks. She receives help from powerful quarters all right but it her own resolve that spurs her on to rise above adversity and soldier on. Buoyed by Parvathy’s performance, the melodrama presents the ups and downs of a woman of substance who must rank among the most memorable heroines of contemporary Malayalam cinema.

Streaming on : ManoramaMax

SECRET OF A MOUNTAIN SERPENT (2025)

Writer-director Nidhi Saxena’s second film is a piece of cinema that pushes the boundaries of the medium in quietly effective ways. It blurs the line between the dreamily ruminative and the entirely tangible to explore how far female desire can go when it is set free from society’s suffocating rules. A delicate yet assertive cinematic epigram crafted with care and precision to portray the journey of a woman in a hill town emptied out of its men who are away fighting in Kargil. As she makes her way from solitude to fulfilment, the consciousness-altering voyage is one as much of the mind and spirit as of the body.

Streaming on : MUBI

SECOND CHANCE (2024)

Subhadra Mahajan’s first film Second Chance was part of the Proxima Competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Rooted in the ethos of her home state of Himachal Pradesh, the meditative black and white film is a cinematic work of extraordinary quality. It is about a young woman who, after encountering an enervating emotional setback in the city where she works, retreats to her family home in the hills to heal and regenerate. The visually immersive film is a tender exploration of female pain and the process of coping with it in a way that opens the pathways to a second chance.

Streaming on : Available on Rent

STHAL (2023)

Set in a small town in Maharashtra not unlike the part of the state in which director Jayant Digambar Somalkar was raised, the Marathi-language film probes the indignities that are heaped upon rural women who have no say in arranged marriages approved by family and village elders. It follows a young girl who must give in to societal expectations and let her family find a suitable groom for her even as her cotton farmer-father struggles with dwindling returns and increasingly unfavourable financial circumstances. The girl pursues education and is independent-minded but even for one like her, the resistance to patriarchal impositions comes at a cost. The film portrays her struggles with all the gravitas and clarity that it calls for.

Streaming on : Z5

THAPPAD (2020)

In Anubhav Sinha’s powerful feminist drama, a Delhi homemaker takes a stand when a slap snaps her relationship with her husband, man for whom she has put her own aspirations on hold. The act of domestic violence and the demise of a marriage is what the film is about but there is much more to it. It poses pertinent questions about gender imbalances in a man-woman relationship without claiming to be in the know of all the answers. It is the heroine’s reaction to the humiliation she is subjected to and its emotional and social repercussions that the film is more interested in. Taapsee Pannu delivers a pitch-perfect performance that significantly enhances the impact of the film.

Streaming on : PrimeVideo

PINK (2016)

In this Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury-directed, Shoojit Sircar-produced a intriguing Hindi courtroom drama, a night out turns into a nightmare for three Delhi women (played by Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang). They are dragged into a legal battle centred on the questions of female agency, masculine entitlement and consent. Amitabh Bachchan plays a crusty lawyer. It touches upon themes that are great import although parts of the film, especially in climactic arguments in court, may appear to be unduly overcharged. But it does in the end have the desired impact. It makes the audience, especially segment of it, squirm in discomfort.

Streaming on : PrimeVideo

THE GREAT INDIAN KITCHEN (2021)

Jeo Baby’s widely applauded Malayalam film revolves around a newly-married woman in Kerala who is expected to be a docile and dutiful wife and daughter-in-law. The film takes sharp jabs at a system of patriarchy that thrives on relegating women to the kitchen and trapping them in unquestioning domesticity. The female protagonist is a skilled dancer who is expected to turn her back on her personal goals. Her refusal to tioe the line leads to the conflict that gives the film its dramatic spine. Nimisha Sajayan in the role of the woman wronged appreciably elevates the film and lends its social message the requisite heft.

Streaming on : PrimeVideo