Superboys of Malegaon

10 Best Films of 2025

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Ellen looking to the heavens

In a year packed with 1990s revivalism, noir resuscitation and franchise exhaustion, these are the films I liked the most in 2025. I’ve attempted to avoid the obvious but not be wilfully obscure and have probably succeeded at neither. Without further ado, with links to full reviews, here goes – in 1-10 order. Dying (dir: Matthias Glasner) A German black comedy so bleak you might laugh out of desperation, following a pair of oldsters as they reach the end of the road, and their two appalling adult children. Superbly underplayed by a top-notch cast, it’s a novelistic, dense, all-enveloping wallow in human misery, three hours long and worth every minute of the grief. … Read more

Superboys of Malegaon

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Shafique as Superman

It’s pronounced “maa.lay.gao”, a screen note informs us, before Superboys of Malegaon gets properly underway. And that’s the tone of the entire film – nothing left to chance, a narrative that is laid out with one logical piece following another, nothing fancy, nothing tricksy, just the age-old “let’s do the show right here” tale, of an Indian guy in the small town of Malegaon in Maharashtra State, India, who decides to make movies – no money, no clue, just make them. It’s brilliant. Feelgood, funny, dramatic, tear-jerking, a feast of emotional manipulation by director Reema Kagti and co, who retell the true story first told in the 2008 documentary Supermen of Malegaon, which … Read more