Mar 08, 2026 1:51pm IST
International Women’s Day 2026: 7 Women-Centric Films That Deserved To Do Better
The recent release, “Assi” highlights the continuing menace of rape and its legal and social consequences for the victim and her family. It indicates that women are still considered objects of lust by some men who see nothing beyond satiating their baser instincts without a thought for how much the woman and her family will suffer. The film can be perhaps deemed necessary in today’s social context, but is currently underperforming at the box-office. Here, we look at women-centric movies that also deserved much better eyeballs and appreciation, based on the issues they illuminated.
‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’
This bittersweet romance brought out the travails of a transwoman. She wishes to reveal her past to her love, but when she does so, he completely alienates her. However, he is still in love with her and ultimately educates himself and accepts her in public. This sensitive film was directed by Abhishek Kapoor, co-written by him with Supratik Sen and Tushar Paranjpe and is another in the long list of Ayushmann Khurrana starrers of societal significance. Vaani Kapoor plays the transwoman.
‘Dor’
One of the best movies on woman empowerment, this Nagesh Kukunoor remake of the Malayalam “Perumazhakkalam,” continued his cinematic commitment to strong female characters. It made a solid feminist statement without sloganeering. Meera’s (Ayesha Takia) husband is killed in an accident caused by his roommate, who is Zeenat’s (Gul Panag) husband, while both are working in Saudi Arabia. Zeenat learns that the only way her husband can escape death by execution for murder is if she gets a maafinama (pardon) from Meera. Terrific performances by Gul Panag as Zeenat and Ayesha Takia as Meera, mark this film as a classic. The film, while a critical success, flopped at the box-office.
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‘Ek Hasina Thi’
The film marked Sriram Raghavan’s scintillating but commercially unsuccessful debut. Urmila Matondkar played a working woman framed by her boyfriend (Saif Ali Khan), who she does not know is a criminal, and sentenced to seven years in prison. She escapes, traces him and goes the whole hog to con him into believing that she is still sympathetic towards him. Urmila was outstanding and Saif Ali Khan, in his first negative role ever, was classily negative. The movie owes its existence to foreign sources, but vitally shows that no woman should be taken for granted.
‘Mili’
The sheer tenacity, intelligence and stubbornness of a woman to stay alive was brought out wonderfully in this survival drama that went nowhere commercially. Remade in 2022 from the same director Mathukutty Xavier’s Malayalam film, ‘Helen,” it showcased the ingenuity of a young woman escaping a storage freezer in a restaurant, minus her cellphone, after accidentally getting stuck inside through the night. Janhvi Kapoor’s character as Mili, graphically displayed her sheer willpower of a woman who will not give up even amidst insurmountable odds. The film was a commercial failure.
‘Nil Battey Sannata’
Director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s debut. A single mother, a high-school drop-out, works menial jobs, but dreams that her daughter, Apu, who is generally demotivated about studies and is poor in Mathematics, moves up in life. Unable to afford a tutor, Chanda takes recourse to actually enroll in her daughter’s class as a student to learn the subject so that she can tutor her on her own! Her daughter is embarrassed and ridicules her. A chain of events finally makes Apu realize her mistakes. A comment on how minds can be conditioned both ways by negativity as well as optimism, the story underscored the importance of both education and ambition among women who were social underdogs. The film, while critically acclaimed, failed at the box office.
‘Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video’
This film is a scathing indictment on the hypocrisy of society. A Physics teacher (Radhikka Madan) goes with friends on a birthday trip to Singapore, and has a great time there. Someone shoots a video with her partly inebriated in a pub and a storm erupts among her family, fiancé, friends and school colleagues. And then, she simply goes missing. The overtly “moral” expectations from a schoolteacher were spotlighted effectively while projecting a normal girl letting her hair down on a special occasion. The film sank at the box-office.
‘Tanvi - The Great’
Does an autistic girl have the right to make key decisions in her life? Can she choose a career that technically cannot be pursued by someone with her disorder? In Anupam Kher’s story, Tanvi, played by newcomer Shubhangi Dutt, dreams of joining the Army to fulfill her late father’s dream of hoisting the Indian Tricolor at Siachen, the world’s highest battlefield. Her character and the script highlights the complete normalcy and in some cases, superiority of thought in autistic individuals and showcases their inner strengths and creative faculties. But this poignant drama did not succeed in hoisting the flag of success at the box-office.
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