Author: Vijay Varma

Anand Deverakonda and Vaishnavi Chaitanya, who became one of the more talked-about pairs after Baby, are back together with Epic – First Semester. Directed by Aditya Haasan of 90s Middle Class Biopic fame, the film moves away from the small-town setting and takes its characters to the UK, where student life, money problems, relationships and the whole idea of being independent start getting mixed together. At its best, the movie feels like a fairly easygoing look at young people trying to figure themselves out while living far away from home. It doesn’t always get the balance right, though. The Story…

After the success of Sardar, it was always going to be difficult for the sequel to live up to the expectations. Sardar 2 brings Karthi back with director P.S. Mithran, but this time the scale is much bigger. The film wants to be a proper globe-trotting spy thriller while also dealing with some very real issues around biological threats, synthetic meat and the overuse of antibiotics. There’s plenty happening on screen, and Karthi gives the film the kind of energy it needs, but the sequel doesn’t have the same tightness that made the first Sardar work so well. An Intricate…

The blood, politics and never-ending power struggles of Purvanchal have finally moved from our screens to the big screen. Mirzapur: The Movie, directed by Gurmeet Singh and written by Puneet Krishna, comes into theatres with a pretty huge amount of hype behind it, which was always going to make things difficult. The Prime Video series has a very loyal fan base, and there are certain expectations that come with that. The movie does manage to deliver when it comes to action, scale and those big confrontations, but it also feels like the filmmakers were trying to fit a world built…

After a huge theatrical run in Kerala, where it reportedly crossed ₹200 crore worldwide during the Onam 2026 season, the Malayalam romantic comedy Bethlehem Kudumba Unit has now reached Telugu audiences in a dubbed version. Mythri Movie Makers brought the film to theaters in the Telugu states, giving viewers a chance to see director Girish A.D. follow up his success with Premalu with another youth-oriented story. Nivin Pauly and Mamitha Baiju lead the film, and going by the response from Telugu critics, the movie works best when it keeps things simple. It’s a clean, light romantic comedy built more around…

The Telugu film industry has been seeing quite a few small-budget movies trying to speak directly to younger audiences, and Romanchakam clearly wants to be one of them. Presented by Sandeep Reddy Vanga under the Bhadrakali Pictures banner and directed by Venugopal Reddy, the film stars Sumanth Prabhas and Ananthika Sanil Kumar in the lead roles. It mixes dating apps, young friendships and a missing-person mystery into a comedy that is mostly interested in keeping things light. There are enough funny situations here to make the film work as an easygoing entertainer, but once you start looking closely at the…

Not every action movie needs a ₹100-crore-plus budget, a huge promotional campaign and months of hype before release to make an impact. Blast, directed by and starring veteran action hero Arjun Sarja, is a pretty good example of that. Made for a reported ₹18 crore (according to trade estimates from Koimoi), the Tamil action thriller went on to collect more than ₹77.01 crore worldwide during its theatrical run after its May release. That puts its estimated return on investment at more than 195%, which is a very healthy result for a film that didn’t arrive with the kind of massive…

Yash is back, and Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups is clearly not interested in making a quiet comeback. Directed by Geethu Mohandas, the period action drama drops him into a dark, strange and very stylish gangster world set in Goa around 1947, when the region was still under Portuguese rule and the opium trade was thriving. After the enormous success of the K.G.F films, expectations around Yash’s next movie were always going to be a little ridiculous, and Toxic knows it. It goes big on everything — production design, action, music, violence and, of course, Yash himself. But underneath…

Ravi Teja has spent most of his career playing heroes who make their presence known. They walk into a room, crack a joke, throw a punch, and before long everyone knows who the star of the movie is. Irumudi, directed by Shiva Nirvana, takes a noticeably different route. Ravi Teja plays a much quieter character here, and the film spends more time with him as a father than as a conventional mass hero. Set in rural Andhra Pradesh, the story revolves around family, faith, children and the fear that comes when the people and institutions supposed to protect them don’t…

Telugu (Tollywood) movie Korean Kanakaraju has completed eight days in theaters, and the Varun Tej-led horror comedy is shaping up to be a pretty solid box office success. Directed by Merlapaka Gandhi and also starring Ritika Nayak as the female lead and Satya as a comedian, the film hit theaters on August 7, 2026, and has held up well through its first week. The latest trade figures put its worldwide gross at around ₹31.10 crore, with the distributor share reaching approximately ₹17.04 crore. More importantly, the film has already crossed its reported theatrical recovery target, putting it on much safer…

Director Venky Atluri takes a noticeable turn away from the romantic stories he is usually associated with for Vishwanath and Sons, an emotionally driven family drama produced by Suryadevara Naga Vamsi under the Sithara Entertainments banner. The film brings together Suriya and Mamitha Baiju in an interesting cross-industry collaboration, with a story that mixes some very contemporary ideas with the kind of family drama Telugu cinema has been doing for decades. Single parenthood, surrogacy, generational differences and a race against time all come into play, but underneath all of that, the film is really about a father trying desperately to…