Dhadak 2 director Shazia Iqbal goes private after slamming Dhurandhar as “sinister” film promoting hate

Filmmaker Shazia Iqbal, known for her directorial debut Dhadak 2, has publicly criticised the spy thriller Dhurandhar, calling it “sinister” and asserting that “inciting hate and violence is in its DNA.” Her remarks, shared via Instagram Stories, have sparked debate within Bollywood and among audiences following the film’s successful run and recent Netflix release. Released in December 2025, Dhurandhar, directed by Aditya Dhar and featuring Ranveer Singh in the lead role, has become one of the highest-grossing Hindi films at the domestic box office. The action-oriented espionage narrative centres on an Indian spy embedded deep within a terror network, and includes a supporting cast of well-known actors such as Akshaye Khanna, Arjun Rampal, R Madhavan, Sanjay Dutt and Sara Arjun. Shazia Iqbal’s comments did not explicitly name the film in her initial post, but she paired her message with Dhurandhar’s title track, making clear the target of her critique. In her Instagram Story, she des...

The best films of 2024 … you may not have seen

From a Hitchcockian thriller to a shocking documentary, Guardian writers pick their lesser-known movies of the year

I can’t really blame anyone for not seeing Drugstore June in theaters, considering that scattered, super-limited run lasted just a few weeks. (I caught it in a near-empty cinema, on a weekday-afternoon whim, the day after belatedly seeing the trailer online.) But now that it’s streaming on Hulu in the US, you can check out one of the least-discussed but funniest mainstream comedies in ages. Built around the standup persona of comedian Esther Povitsky, Drugstore June is very much a throwback to a time when any emerging comic figure might be awarded their own thinly conceived vehicle. It wasn’t a great trend – Drugstore June’s director, Nicholaus Goossen, made Grandma’s Boy, to cite one example among many – yet here, revived absent big-studio attention (or maybe just with extra love for the game), it produces an idiosyncratic townie detective comedy, with sheltered, self-centered, snacks-obsessed June (Povitsky) trying to figure out who trashed the pharmacy where she (barely) works. Unlike its many Sandler-crew predecessors, Drugstore June has a genuine sense of place, a playful sense of generational self-satire, and an original persona at its center. It’s all the more miraculous at a time when studios big and small don’t care much for making comedies. Jesse Hassenger

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