#bollywood recs

[18butyouact80now]

movies recs based on the ones which I watched recently:

Bollywood:

Talaash- Thriller, murder mystery, mending broken relationships. Good plot twist (figured it out but still great to see it unfold), banging music, kareena<3. 8/10 for me.

Gangubai Kathiawadi- Biography, drama, full of emotions. Yes I watched it recently but wow. great movie, beautiful cinematography but also slb so fully went in expecting that, alia ma'am 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️. 9/10

Agent Vinod- Spy, romance. Re-watched it but always a fun ride. A bit non sense but hey it's a great fun watch. full vibes with a banging soundtrack. 7/10

Blurr- Drama, thriller. it's a tad bit messy both story wise and cinematography wise but still an interesting plot and the way it progresses is a bit slow. Like they could have wrapped it well enough in 1½ hrs but nice nonetheless. Tapsee acts amazingly here (it's a double role). 5/10

Hollywood:

Voyeurs- Thriller, drama. The name basically tells you what the movie is about (it means ppl who enjoy others do the deed btw) but still greatlyy done plot twist. 8/10

Murder Mystery 2- Well self explanatory name. If you want a comedy filled murder mystery movie go for it! Always a pleasure to watch Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston together honestly. Liked the first one better👍 6/10

[luxshine]

I see your posting alot of RRR. Can I interest you in the film 'ek ladki ko dehka to aisa laga' which is a mainstream f/f bollywood film that actually managed to succeed in straightbaiting its audience via ads etc. As well as the bollywood film Sholay 1975 which features an iconic song where two extremely close guy friends ride a motorcycle with a side car and sing about how they will never betray each other. That they would rather stop breathing than leave each other. Etc. Just in case they might tickle your fancy. The song is called 'yeh dosti hum nahi choringe' in case you would like to have a look

OMG, thank you! RRR was the first bollywood film I've ever seen and I loved it so much I want to see more of Bollywood now, but I had NO idea where to start. But hey, Those two recs sound like a perfect place to start!

(Also, I have seen gifs of Ram Charan and NTR in what looks like a different movie/series, with modern clothing? Can you guide me to which one is that? I would love to see them together in other roles :D )

[starryalpacasstuff]

Queer Indian Media: A Compilation

A couple of days ago, @impala124 sent @lurkingshan an ask about the lack of discussion about Queer Indian Media in fandom spaces. I wrote about it here, @neuroticbookworm here, and @waitmyturtles here (both of them have excellent points, I highly recommend you read their posts!). It's become quite apparent that people are willing to watch and engage in discourse about queer Indian media, it's just that the lack of popularity and accessibility makes it harder for people to start. So, I've decided to make a list tracking all of the queer Indian media I know of, and hopefully also any meta/discourse about it, which is an idea I've had floating in my head for months now.

This list is by no means comprehensive, so if you have recs, send them my way! Text me on DM, send an ask, tag me in your posts, whatever. And though it's not possible for me to watch everything on the list, I will be slowly going through as many of these as I can and writing about them, as well as hopefully finding more stuff and easier to access versions for the ones that are harder to access right now. This post is going to be a slow work in progress, but I'm hoping to update it regularly. So, if you'd like me to keep you updated, let me know through the tags/replies and I will tag you in future posts!

I've tagged the people who've recommended certain shows alongside each show. Everything on here is available online. The hyperlinked titles lead you to the media itself, meaning that it's available for free online with subtitles. Other details will be mentioned separately.

Disclaimer: The media I have watched/read have recommendation ratings (which will not always reflect my enjoyment of something, rather are based on how much I'd recommend it). While I did lightly screen everything on here, the criteria was 'has a trailer or otherwise showing queerness to be a central theme in the story' and 'is available online', so take that into account if you decide to pick something up, and definitely watch trailers and/or skim the wikipedia pages beforehand.

Movies

Fire | English | @neuroticbookworm 

Recommendation: 9/10 A 1996 movie surrounding a lesbian couple packed with commentary on religion, class, purity culture and more. Quick Pitch + Historical Context

Kapoor & Sons | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm

Available on Netflix, Prime, and paid on Youtube and Apple TV

Kaathal-The Core | Malayalam | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on Prime, also available grey without subtitles

Meta by @ineffable-opinions

Super Deluxe | Tamil | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on a paid streaming service called aha, grey on youtube

Dear Dad | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm 

This is grey on youtube without subtitles, available officially on Disney Hotstar and Amazon Prime

Recommendation: 7.75 Follows a father and a son on a road trip, during which the son accidentally learns that his father is gay. The son struggles with reconciling with the new information, leading to conflict.

Geeli Puchi (Ajeeb Dastaans) | Hindi | @blorbingqls @neuroticbookworm 

Available on Netflix

Cobalt Blue | Hindi | @blorbingqls

Officially on Netflix, also available grey without subtitles

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga | Hindi | @fallsouthwinter @usertoxicyaoi @neuroticbookworm

Available officially on Netflix, but can also be found grey in two parts without subtitles

Recommendation: 8.5/10 What seems like a typical bollywood movie about a man falling in love with a girl who's family opposes their marriage takes a turn halfway through when it is revealed that the girl has a secret girlfriend. The protagonist then resolves to help the pair by convincing the family to accept them.

Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish | Bengali | @silverquillsideas @neuroticbookworm 

I believe it's available on prime, but you might need to do some digging. Also available grey on youtube without subtitles (the movie is in part Bengali, part English)

Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan | Hindi | @silverquillsideas @twig-tea @neuroticbookworm

Officially on Amazon, grey on youtube without subtitles

Maja Ma | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @silverquillsideas 

Available on Amazon Prime

Badhaai Do | Hindi

Officially on Netflix, available grey on youtube without subtitles

Loev | Hindi

Available on youtube with Spanish (I think?) subtitles

Margarita With A Straw | Hindi

I believe this is a cut version, it is officially on Netflix which is likely the uncut version

Recommendation: 9/10 A self-discovery story about an Indian woman named Laila with cerebral palsy with great rep and beautiful execution. Meta by @wen-kexing-apologist

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui | Hindi | anon

Available grey without subtitles, officially on Netflix

Amar Prem Ki Prem Kahani | Hindi | @flowerbeasblog @aneechan

Officially on Jio Cinema, also available grey without subtitles

Time Out | Hindi

Available on Netflix

My Brother…Nikhil | Hindi

Available on youtube without subtitles, also on Amazon Prime

My Son Is Gay | Tamil

Hindi dub available on youtube without subtitles

Little Hearts | Malayalam | @ineffable-opinions

Available officially on Amazon Prime

There's multiple storylines, one of which is queer Meta by @ineffable-opinions

Moothon | Malayalam | @non-beingnary

This is grey on youtube without subtitles, it's officially on Amazon Prime and Zee5, both need subscriptions

Aligarh | Hindi | @ayoungroyal

This is grey with subtitles, it says the subtitles are in hindi for some reason but they're actually in English. Officially on several subscription platforms: JioCinema, Zee5, Amazon Prime, Apple TV

Sisak | Hindi | @blorbingqls

Recommendation: 8.5/10 A fifteen minute silent film about two men who experience mutual attraction to one another while on the same train during their daily commute. It's impactful, and it says a lot without saying anything.

Shows

Romil and Jugal | Hindi | @anixknowsnothin

You do need a vpn if you're outside India to watch it with the above link, it's also grey on youtube without subtitles

Recommendation: 8.5/10 India's modern gay remake of Romeo and Juliet, five years before Bad Buddy Random thoughts

The Married Woman | Hindi | @a-not-knowing-bisexual-wizard

Dev DD Season 2 | Hindi

Legitimately no clue whether this and the prev are grey or official

Made in Heaven | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @non-beingnary @neuroticbookworm

Available on Prime

All About Section 377, Still About Section 377 | Hindi

The Story Tales S2 | Gujrati

Insomnia | Hindi

It's a streaming service I've never heard of before, not unlike Gaga, this is one of the darker shows on the list so please do check out the trailer beforehand

Amra 2GayTher | Bengali

Available on two streaming services here and here, both paid

Happy Family, Conditions Apply | Hindi | @non-beingnary

Officially on Amazon Prime, first episode available for free on the official youtube

As far as I know, it's a sitcom with a queer subplot, but I'm not sure how relevant it is to the story

His Storyy | Hindi

Officially on Zee5 for free but you do need to register, unsure of whether or not subtitles are available but guessing no

Murder In Mahim | Hindi | @soberbutsleepless

This is grey without subtitles, its available officially on JioCinema but you need a subscription

Mini gls from @twig-tea (og post here)

Firsts S3 | @tinyreadinglifelight

Neverland

Maaya 2

Last two eps do not have subtitles but the story is followable

The ‘Other’ Love Story @/silverquillsideas 

Just Another Love Story

Books

Memory of Light

Recommendation: 5/10 A historical book set during the colonial era, the lesbian romance is mostly a subplot that loses its way towards the end. It's kind of a drag, but the history component is somewhat interesting.

Don't Let Him Know

Recommendation Rating: 7.5/10 with serious trigger warnings including rape. It's a brutally honest book designed to make the reader uncomfortable, so proceed with caution. I personally liked it quite a lot, but that's majorly because of how authentic the book felt.

Falling Into Place

Recommendation Rating: 8/10 A modern lesbian romance that follows similar beats to the typical thai bl/gl. A little underdeveloped in some places, but overall quite good.

My Magical Palace

Cobalt Blue

The Paths Of Marriage

Marriage Of A Thousand Lies

[eclecticwordblender]

hindi movie recommendation: The Buckingham Murders (streaming on netflix).

spoiler ahead.

the cold murder mastermind was a woman.

BUT BUT BUT!!

i absolutely adored the scene towards the end where kareena kapoor slaps that daljeet man and sets him straight.

this was one of the very few movies where the woman is in fact a terrible person who commits heinous crimes. however, her full personhood is fleshed out. she’s not simply evil. yes she is a bad person, but there is reason to her cruelty.

LOVED IT.

[valar-did-me-wrong]

Curated this to share with the 5 or so desi ROP fans out here (including me) ;_;

Romantic Bollywood songs for few ROP ships:

(English translations, incase someone wants to experience the Phenomenon that is bollywood songs in English xDxD )

Adariel

Translation

Translation

Haladriel

Translation

Elrondriel

Translation

Arondir x Bronwyn

Translation

Silvergifting

Translation

Isildur x Estrid

(post S2 sadness :c )

Translation

Mirendil

Translation

Celedriel

Translation

Earien x Kemen

Translation

Tried to find songs that aren't just generic romance but also go with the ships' dynamics a little :))

Will add more ships in reblogs when I find more fitting songs... Definitely want to find one for Durin x Disa, probably will need to listen to some old evergreen songs!

[sapphicbookclub]

Author Spotlight: Talia Bhatt

We're excited to highlight Talia Bhatt, author of the current club read Dulhaniyaa. Read on to hear how her identity and experiences informed her writing, and how queer love is a jailbreak.

“Desi trans lesbian” feels, sometimes, like an ephemeral identity.

I am situated nowhere transhistorically and barely transculturally, having to borrow the language, social trappings, and forms of identification of the nation(s) that colonized and impoverished mine to even express my embodiment and positionality coherently. In a world where Afsaneh Najmabadi can pose the question “Is any one of you a lesbian?” to a room full of Iranian transsexual women and get blank stares, as she relates in Professing Selves, or where Deepa Mehta notes in her groundbreaking lesbian romance Fire that Hindi lacks even a word to express the concept of a woman loving another intimately, romantically, carnally, I am unmoored and unfixed, an anomaly because I dare to imagine my transsexuality independent from men.

“Woman are for men”, assumes every culture with harsh patriarchal contradictions—which does not entirely exclude the West—and trans women doubly so, since the abhorrence of non-heterosexual modes of living and social organization leads many from cultures like mine to presume that a woman would only transition to be with a man. A profound loneliness dogs my very existence, alerting me to the wispy shadows of a shrouded past that barely had a record of women like me prior to the midpoint of the 20th Century, only whispers and rumors and sensationalist gossip scrawled in academic journal by Esther Newton, alluding to the idea of a “man” that, having availed of hormones and surgical interventions, now sleeps with lesbians—the scandal. 

No ancestors that are mine to claim.

Dulhaniyaa is not a particularly melancholy book, though a certain pensiveness pervades the opening chapters. There a story within the story written in subtext, in allusions and word choices and snippets of dialogue, that Esha and Billu and Dolly and others are aware of: my homeland, my motherland, my culture and my nation and my state—it is not a place for queer women. It is certainly, emphatically, not a place for a trans woman who fancies herself still attracted to other women, or even indelibly non-binary in a way. Women like us have no names, no pasts, and almost certainly no futures within the narrow confines of the constructed and stifling heterosexual hegemony.

A reviewer was kind enough to sum up Dulhaniyaa for me better than I ever could, stating triumphantly that “Queer love is a jailbreak.” It’s a quote that has stuck with me both for how simply it states a core theme that I certainly labored to convey without necessarily consciously meaning to, as well as for how profoundly vast and unencompassable the prison I find myself in is. My shackles are Time and Language itself, my cell the land I was born in, my wardens its people. I am a refugee in a sense that many, many queer and especially trans people tend to be, evicted and disowned and erased from hearth and homeland.

I wrote Dulhaniyaa because someone broke me out of that cell. She saw the woman I was as well as the woman I could be, and helped me bridge the gap between the two. She is now my wife.

Queer love is a jailbreak. Get your pickaxes ready.

[whenthegoldrays]

i watch kdramas. recommend me something else instead, like bollywood or something. (that is accessible somewhere not on the dreaded netflix and such) 👀

okay, a thousand apologies because these are on Netflix, but hopefully you can still find a way to watch them 🥹

1. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, the CLASSIC. amazing blend of camp and earnestness, peak 2000s vibes, top tier music, dare I say even kdrama vibes?? downsides: if you didn’t like Im Sol, you probably won’t like the female lead Anjali (and you almost certainly will hate the second FL Pooja). on the other hand, SRK and Kajol invented romance, so. it could go both ways.

2. Kal Ho Naa Ho, my favorite Bollywood movie so far!! every song hits. like. EVERY ONE. the story is beautiful and gripping and actually unpredictable (at least it was to me!) and there’s never a dull moment. also, SRK again!! <3 downside: you gon’ cry. sorry 🤧

[turtleneckjeans]

main character in a bollywood romcom 🪷🛺🕊️📜🪔🪞🦢✨🦚💗

[desipotterhead18]

In case you want to explore bollywood, these are my favorites ❤️🔥 you will surely love it

[lucifers-simp]

I'm still seeking the high I got from watching Badhaai Do, Ek Ladki KO Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui (thank you India), 23.5, Ayaka is in love with Hiroko....

Like, so many english movies feel like torture porn, there's a reason why there's so many articles named "lesbian movies where they don't die at the end"

All the love to But I'm a Cheerleader and Imagine Me & You (a bit too 2005, but still good) though

[crookedneighbour20]

"You're just like an angel, your skin makes me cry You float like a feather in a beautiful world I wish I was special, you're so fuckin' special"

-Creep, Radiohead

[silverselfshippingchaos]

one thing about ash and j.oongi is that they're avid movie watchers together. they've had so many movie nights (especially superhero movies) and are regulars at the theater (they're holding hands the whole time)

and it made me think about how since he's dating a desi girl, he's probably been subjected to so many bollywood movie nights

[sarcastic-sue]

Heya! What are your favorite Bollywood films?

Hello anon. Most of my fav Bollywood movies are actually just SRK movies. I'll tell you my top 5 -

Main Hoon Na (will forever be my no.1. Love the chemistry btw srk and Sushmita and just everything about this movie. Music album is also a banger)

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (I will forever defend this movie. I believe that years of friendship can later on turn to love as well {people believe in the love like WHEN HARRY MET SALLY but reduce Rahul and Anjali's love to "she got hot so he fell in love". WHY? fuck people}. Album is once again a banger)

Om Shanti Om (what can I say about this movie that hasn't already been said and dissected at length. Best Farah Khan movie. Everyone should watch it once in their lifetime. My all time fav song is also in this movie. SUCH A GOOD MUSIC ALBUM, kisses kisses kisses)

Chennai Express (my fav rom-com of bollywood. Love the recreation of the iconic srk train pose. Love the dynamics btw Deepika and Srk in this one)

Happy Bhaag Jayegi (abhay deol *muah* just the amount of pinning by him knowing he loves someone who's in love with someone else and even if she wasn't there was no way in hell they'll be allowed to be together. Overall loved it for its comedic aspect, ALI FAZAL and JIMMY SHERGILL)

[niteskysx]

NEED fanfics of my man.

(If you’re pakistani, ykyk 😩)

[anonymouse5]

my goodness my playlist sucks, please send song recs

[soracities]

hello! if you’re still looking for hindi movie recs here’s some of my favourites (although quite a few have been mentioned already):

talaash, jab we met, dil dhadakne do, rab ne bana di jodi, taare zameen par, dilwale dulhania le jaayenge (a classic) and raman raghav 2.0

i hope you don’t mind :) also i was so happy to see you loved 3 idiots. i love that movie to death lol.

i think i am actually going to rewatch 3 idiots off the back of all these recs bc it was SO long ago but genuinely it was one of my favourite films ever for a long long time 💗