Everything I Watched in 2016

Feature Films/Documentaries:

January '16

1	Munich	***1/2	2005	Steven Spielberg
2	Shame	***1/2	2011	Steve McQueen
3	Rush Hour	**	1998	Brett Ratner
4	Rush Hour 2	*1/2	2001	Brett Ratner
5	Rush Hour 3	*	2007	Brett Ratner
6	Crimson Peak	***1/2	2015	Guillermo del Toro
7	Phantom	*1/2	2015	Kabir Khan
8	Tunnu Ki Tina	*1/2	1997	Paresh Kamdar
9	The Walk	***1/2	2015	Robert Zemeckis
10	Wazir	***	2016	Bejoy Nambiar
11	Final Destination 3	*1/2	2006	James Wong
12	Sicario	**	2015	Denis Villeneuve
13	Dilwale	*	2015	Rohit Shetty
14	Meera	**	1979	Gulzar
15	An Affair To Remember	***	1957	Leo McCarey
16	The Hateful Eight	*****	2015	Quentin Tarantino
17	Avatar (3D)	***	2009	James Cameron
18	The Diary of a Teenage Girl	***	2015	Marielle Heller
19	Pratidwandi	***1/2	1970	Satyajit Ray
20	Aranyer Din Ratri	***	1970	Satyajit Ray
21	Dallas Buyers Club	***	2013	Jean-Marc Vallée
22	Changing Lanes	***	2002	Roger Michell
23	The Lone Ranger	*1/2	2013	Gore Verbinski
24	Elysium	***	2013	Neill Blomkamp
25	Bridge of Spies	***	2015	Steven Spielberg
26	The Sugarland Express	**	1974	Steven Spielberg

The Best of 2016

BEST FILMS 2016

10. Kapoor & Sons (Since 1921)

9. Neerja

8. Fan

7. Raman Raghav 2.0

6. Dear Zindagi

5. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

4. Udta Punjab

3. Aligarh

2. Pink

1. Dangal

Special Mentions:

Airlift, Nil Battey Sannata, Phobia, Waiting, Budhia Singh – Born To Run, M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story

BEST PERFORMERS (MALE)

8. Shah Rukh Khan (Dear Zindagi)

7. Rishi Kapoor (Kapoor & Sons)

6. Shah Rukh Khan (Fan)

5. Amitabh Bachchan (Pink)

4. Ranbir Kapoor (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil)

3. Sushant Singh Rajput (M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story)

2. Manoj Bajpayee (Aligarh)

1. Aamir Khan (Dangal)

BEST PERFORMERS (FEMALE)

8. Kalki Koechlin (Waiting)

7. Radhika Apte (Phobia)

6. Sonam Kapoor (Neerja)

5. Alia Bhatt (Dear Zindagi)

4. Shabana Azmi (Neerja)

3. Swara Bhaskar (Nil Battey Sannata)

2. Alia Bhatt (Udta Punjab)

1. Anushka Sharma (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil)

BEST SONGS 2016

10. Kaari Kaari (Qurat Ul Ain Balouch; Pink)

9. Saathi Rey (Arko; Kapoor & Sons)

8. Jag Ghoomeya (Neha Bhasin; Sultan)

7. Haanikarak Baapu (Pritam, Sarwar Khan, Sartaz Khan Barna; Dangal)

6. Sarsariya (Shashwat Singh, Shashaa Tirupati; Mohenjo Daro)

5. Just Go To Hell Dil (Amit Trivedi, Sunidhi Chauhan; Dear Zindagi)

4. Da Da Dasse (Kanika Kapoor, Babu Haabi; Udta Punjab)

4. Doli Re Doli (Shankar Mahdevan, Meme Khan; Mirzya)

3. Channa Mereya (Arijit Singh; Ae Dil Hai Mushkil)

2. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (Arijit Singh; Ae Dil Hai Mushkil)

1. Pashmina (Amrit Trivedi; Fitoor)

BEST SOUNDTRACKS 2016

6. Dear Zindagi (Amit Trivedi)

5. Dangal (Pritam)

4. Mirzya (Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy)

3. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (Pritam)

2. Udta Punjab (Amit Trivedi)

1. Fitoor (Amit Trivedi)

Books I Read in 2016

(in alphabetical order)

English

1. Animal Farm (George Orwell)
2. Coolie (Mulk Raj Anand)
3. Conversations With Mani Ratnam (Baradwaj Rangan)
4. Day Scholar (Siddhartha Chowdhury)
5. Diksha at St. Martin's (Siddhartha Chowdhury)
6. Guns & Thighs (Ram Gopal Varma)
7. Guru Dutt: A Tragedy in Three Acts (Arun Khopkar)
8. Mrs Funnybones (Twinkle Khanna)
9. Name Place Animal Thing (Mayank Shekhar)
10. Patna Roughcut (Siddhartha Chowdhury)
11. Sholay: The Making of a Classic (Anupama Chopra)
12. Stars From Another Sky (Saadat Hasan Manto)
13. The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
14. The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad (Twinkle Khanna)
15. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
16. Written by Salim-Javed: The Story of Hindi Cinema's Greatest Screenwriters (Diptakirti Chaudhary)

Hindi

1. 6 Crore Ka Murdaa (Surendra Mohan Pathak)
2. Guru Dutt (Nasreen Munni Kabir)
3. Hum Na Marab (Gyan Chaturvedi)
4. Katil Kaun (Surendra Mohan Pathak)
5. Mujhse Bura Kaun (Surendra Mohan Pathak)
6. Mujhse Bura Koi Nahi (Surendra Mohan Pathak)
7. Narak Yaatra (Gyan Chaturvedi)
8. Neem Ka Ped (Rahi Masoom Raza)
9. Os Ki Boond (Rahi Masoom Raza)
10. Rehan Par Ragghu (Kashinath Singh)
11. Singla Murder Case (Surendra Mohan Pathak)
12. Topi Shukla (Rahi Masoom Raza)
13. Short Stories (Satyajit Ray)
14. Short Stories (Amrita Pritam)

Cinema

Cinema means much more to me than it does to people I know. I live, eat, drink, breathe cinema.

I’m the sort of guy who will forgo a meal to watch a movie. In the past few years, I have spent a good portion of my time and money, gave up on my sleep and social obligations, and tried to satisfy my hunger for movies in every possible way.

Still, the more films I watch, the more I get the feeling that I have very limited understanding of cinema. I need to see much more. Even after watching more than three thousand movies, so far, I don't think my hunger is gonna be satisfied ever. I'm yet to explore a lot of great cinema. Call me mad, crazy or whatever, but sometimes I think, I should take a break from everything – for at least a year – and watch only films. And it doesn't really sound bad, as I'm free of responsibilities - now as well as in near future. And the interesting thing is: nobody, in my real life, knows my love for cinema; not even my family. Cinema is still a big taboo in my family. Over the years I’ve realised that your family and friends will never understand your craziness about movies. You can’t convince them. You shouldn’t even try. People think that there’s nothing that can be gained from Cinema. That’s why I love Twitter. I met some of the craziest cinephiles, there only.

Someday, someone will understand my madness. (In real life.) Hopefully, someday, I’ll do something related to it, as well. So far, I just could not figure out what I would really do, but there’s something else that is yet to come in my life; don’t know what, but I know I’m made for something else.

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