Screen Time: Dark, Gritty, and Unflinching!
Your binge list for summer nights: A small-town girl unravels in a haunted hostel room; a young man is on the run after a love story turns into a crime saga; an idealistic lawyer fights a broken legal system; a principled officer is bent on political revenge; and a no-nonsense investigator peels back layers of corruption.
Khauf (Hindi)
Amazon Prime Video
Creators Smita Singh, Pankaj Kumar, and Surya Balakrishnan deliver a chilling horror story with a twist that you won’t see coming. No need to cower under the sheets—it’s not that kind of a scare show. The horror lives and breathes in the streets of a post Nirbhaya Delhi where women are subjected to indignities on a daily basis. Madhuri (Monika Panwar), a small-town girl with Big City dreams, arrives in Delhi to inhabit a haunted room in a hostel. The previous occupant’s death under horrific circumstances and the strange behavior displayed by Madhuri’s hostel mates exacerbate her own fears and fragile mental state.
Trying to recover from a traumatic incident herself, Madhuri encounters a dubious healer (a spooky Rajat Kapoor) while also trying to hang on to her frayed relationship with her boyfriend. Panwar is electric as Madhuri. From being a wide-eyed newbie in a big, bad city to being possessed by an evil entity, she goes fully into her performance, especially where she has to physically distort herself. Geetanjali Kulkarni, as a cop looking for her missing son, and Shalini Vatsa, as the strict but caring hostel warden, deliver stand-out performances. Watch for the scene where they spar and an aquarium is shattered. This series is one for the ages. You might want to even re-watch this as I did.
Black, White & Gray–Love Kills (Hindi)
SonyLIV
This one, a bold and twisted take on true crime, is not only engaging but truly entertaining till the last frame. A clever mockumentary, this six-episode series is a story within a story about a foreign journalist, Daniel Gray, investigating a series of shocking murders. A young man (Mayur More from Kota Factory) is accused of killing the woman he loved (Palak Jaiswal), the daughter of a powerful local politician. A cab driver, a police officer, and a teenager are also killed in what appears to be a cover-up. The main suspect, now in hiding, wants to share his side of the story with Gray— and this is where the show’s title starts to make sense. Nothing is black or white; everything is unclear, including who's right, who's wrong, and what really happened.
The show has a stylish ’90s-inspired opening and includes moments of dark humor. With a strong mystery, clever satire, and lots of twists, it keeps you guessing and challenges you to rethink everything you’re watching. Deven Bhojani is unrecognizable as a menacing contract killer. I was conflicted when I began this series, but the audacious approach and treatment kept me binging till the wee hours of the morning.
Court: State vs A Nobody (Telugu)
Netflix
Ram Jagadeesh’s directorial debut is a stirring legal drama anchored in empathy and justice. Surya Teja (a fantastic Priyadarshi Pulikonda), a young and idealistic junior lawyer who dreams of making a name for himself, finds himself at the center of an intriguing case involving Chandrashekar, a 19-year-old teen from a poor family who finds himself wrongfully accused under the POCSO Act, which is intended to protect minors from sexual abuse.
Chandrashekar’s crime is falling in love with Jabilli, a 17-year-old girl from a wealthy, conservative family. Their relationship is innocent but frowned upon by Jabilli’s powerful uncle Mangapathi (P. Sai Kumar), who is obsessed with family honor. Mangapathi gets Chandrashekar arrested and branded a predator. Rather than just a courtroom drama, it’s a deeper look at how caste, class, and bias in the system can twist the idea of justice. Surya Teja’s effort to defend Chandrashekar turns into a larger fight against an uncaring system and the privilege of the powerful. The story builds tension slowly and avoids over-the-top emotion, letting the quiet pain and anger of the characters speak for themselves. The courtroom scenes are thoughtful and emotional, especially when Surya questions how society views love, consent, and fairness.
Costao (Hindi)
Zee5
Directed by Sejal Shah, this gripping biographical crime drama revisits a true story of courage and consequence. Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the titular role, the film follows the life of Costao Fernandes—a customs officer who risked everything to expose a powerful gold smuggling racket. The film begins in 1990s Goa, where illegal gold trade is still thriving. Fernandes, an honest customs officer, starts connecting the dots in a major smuggling operation. During one risky mission, he follows a tip and ends up shooting a man named Peter, a key part of the racket. At first, it seems like a clear case of self-defense—but everything changes when it's revealed that Peter is the brother of an up-and-coming politician. Soon after Peter’s brother wins the state election, Costao finds himself under attack. The same system he once served turns against him. Nawazuddin Siddiqui delivers a strong and quiet performance, showing both the courage and pain of a man caught in a battle for justice.
Khakee: The Bengal Chapter (Bengali/Hindi)
Netflix
Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, the standalone follow-up to Neeraj Pandey’s acclaimed Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, expands the franchise with a tense political action thriller rooted in Bengal’s underbelly of crime and corruption. Led by a powerhouse ensemble—Prosenjit Chatterjee, Jeet (in his Hindi debut), Saswata Chatterjee, Ritwik Bhowmik, Chitrangada Singh, Mahaakshay Chakraborty, and Aadil Zafar Khan—the show builds a multi-layered narrative of shifting loyalties and moral dilemmas.
At the heart of the series is Shankar Baruah, aka Bagha, a feared Kolkata-based gangster with deep ties to the ruling party. When political pressure mounts over increasing lawlessness, the government attempts damage control by deploying an upright officer, Saptarshi Sinha, to crack down on Bagha. But when Sinha is brutally murdered by Bagha’s men, the backlash forces the government to act decisively. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) is formed under Arjun Maitra (Jeet), who soon finds himself navigating not only criminal elements but a deeper nexus between politicians, police, and the underworld. Jeet is simply delightful as Maitra. I wasn’t aware of his superstar status in Bengali cinema, and I can’t wait to watch more of him!
Baisakhi Roy is a culture writer and journalist based in Ontario, Canada. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post Canada, Chatelaine, Broadview and CBC. Formerly a reporter with The Indian Express in India, Roy is an avid Bollywood fan and co-hosts the Hindi language podcast KhabardaarPodcast.com. Email: baisakhi.roy@gmail.com
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