There were box-office successes and critically acclaimed films for Hindi cinema in the first half of 2026. But for every Dhurandhar 2, there was an O’Romeo, films that did not land. In an industry with an infamously high failure rate (90% of films that release do not recoup their budgets), there are more misses than hits. And even among the misses are films that make you pull your hair out and wonder - how was this greenlit? Here’s a ranking of the five films that made me question this the most this year:
The Kerala Story 2 makes it to the list.
Dishonourable mention: Toaster
This Rajkummar Rao film should be a case study in how to murder an interesting premise. What begins as a rather innovative setup descends into chaos, and not even the nice kind, where there are bizarre subplots and a confused mix of mystery and slapstick.
Toaster: Rajkummar Rao and Sanya Malhotra in the film.
But what really drowns this film is that it often feels like a one-line idea (a miserly man) never truly developed into a full script. It’s as if the makers felt: ‘Idea acha hai, baaki dekh lenge’. Well, dekha nahi gaya, honestly!
5. Aakhri Sawal
Hagiographies can be done well. Clint Eastwood managed this with American Sniper. But Indian cinema relies less on craft and more on emotion when it comes to propping up any agenda. Aakhri Sawal is just the latest in that line.
Aakhri Sawaal: Sanjay Dutt, Sameera Reddy, Amit Sadh and others star in it.
What could have been a fine film ends up being a tired mix of cliches, over-the-top lines, and some extremely questionable acting performances. The melodrama in the film transforms the dialogue into a loud performance act with no subtlety whatsoever.
4. Rahu Ketu
In what is essentially a two-hour-long prank video, Varun Sharma and Pulkit Samrat try to relive their Fukrey days. Except that, unlike Fukrey, Rahu Ketu has no heart. It has some fun moments, other bits with gravitas, and a scenic backdrop.
Pulkit Samrat and Varun Sharma in Rahu Ketu
But beyond that, Rahu Ketu relies too much on trying to recreate a template and fails to stand on its own, as an independent movie. When a comedy makes you cringe more than laugh, you know you're in the wrong theatre.
3. The Kerala Story 2
Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, and I won’t give you my money again. The Kerala Story 2 seemed like a tailor-made sequel to incite, provoke, and above all, be insufferably preachy.
The Kerala Story 2 uses more rhetoric than facts.
It is not a sin to take up an agenda. But turning it into rhetoric, devoid of all logic and finesse, is what makes this film so hard to watch. But perhaps The Kerala Story 2’s biggest flaw is how it tries to legitimise conspiracy theories and present them as facts.
2. Ginny Wedss Sunny 2
What do you get when you mix a bunch of stereotypes with tired, old tropes, add a sprinkling of tone-deaf comedy, and garnish it with a thick layer of chemistry-less romance? The answer is Ginny Wedss Sunny 2. Even the promising talent of Avinash Tiwary and Medha Shankr was not enough to save this yawnfest, which focussed more on regressive humour than character development.
1. Hai Jawani To Ishq Hona Hai
More than once we have all wished for the 90s to be back. Nostalgia is a heavy drug, after all. Except nobody told David Dhawan that we wanted the good parts from the decade.
Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai stars Varun Dhawan, Mrunal Thakur, and Pooja Hegde.
When he decided to bring the 90s back with this comedy, starring Varun Dhawan (who else), he resorted to dated humour, tropes that have been done to death, and the absence of a cohesive script. This film was so absurd that Kafka would have been befuddled if it were a comedy, a farce, or a tragedy.
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well.
A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism.
Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day.
Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More
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