From attempts of risk-taking auteurs to festival-backed stories across industries, list looks beyond mainstream cinema to shine light on innovative attempts
As India looks ahead to 2026, the cinematic conversation will inevitably be dominated by big franchises, familiar stars, and opening-weekend numbers. But away from that glare, another kind of cinema is steadily gathering momentum.
These are films driven by ideas rather than scale, by filmmakers choosing complexity over comfort and storytelling over spectacle. Spanning industries and languages, they reflect a quieter but far more enduring movement within Indian cinema.
At The Federal, we believe cinema thrives when regional voices and creative risks are given space. Here’s a curated look at Indian films in 2026 that move beyond the mainstream and deserve close attention.
Creative reckoning in Bollywood
The Hindi film industry enters 2026 at a moment of self-examination, with filmmakers leaning into discomfort and moral ambiguity rather than safe formulas.
Anurag Kashyap’s Bandar, starring Bobby Deol as a man accused of rape by his former partner, signals a sharp, confrontational turn after Kennedy failed to resonate as expected. Premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, the film is already provoking debate despite its release date remaining unannounced.
Alongside it is Mayasabha, marking the long-awaited return of Tumbbad director Rahi Anil Barve. Slated for release on January 16, the film carries the weight of delayed recognition and feels like one that demands to be experienced in theatres, not discovered retrospectively.
Philosophical turns from Kollywood
In 2026, Tamil cinema’s most compelling work steps away from spectacle to embrace introspection and narrative experimentation.
Director Ram returns with Yezhu Kadal Yezhu Malai after the warmth of Parandhu Po, offering a radically different vision. Starring Nivin Pauly, Soori and Anjali, the film has already premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Early glimpses suggest a fantasy about an immortal man journeying across epochs — a meditative exploration of time, memory and existence that positions the film firmly outside conventional genre boundaries.
Mollywood’s genre experiments
Often regarded as India’s most consistently inventive industry, Malayalam cinema continues to interrogate society with precision in 2026.
Joe Baby returns with Ebb, a film that dissects male hypocrisy — even among those who see themselves as progressive — through the framework of an open relationship. Sharing space with it is Mollywood Times, which brings editor-turned-director Abhinav Sundar Nayak back after the acclaimed Unnimukundan Associates. Starring Naslen, the film’s theatrical run could determine whether critical praise finally translates into wider audience attention.
Adding a striking genre departure is Masthishka Maranam: A Frankenbiting of Simon’s Memories, a cyberpunk comedy thriller about a grieving father entering a virtual-reality memory game to reconnect with his lost child — ambitious, strange and long overdue in Indian cinema.
Quiet shifts within Tollywood
Beneath Tollywood’s mass spectacles and star-driven narratives, 2026 reveals quieter thematic shifts rooted in moral ambiguity and emotional vulnerability.
Alcohol, featuring Allari Naresh, in yet another image-breaking role, explores addiction, denial and the violence hidden behind social respectability. It is not a film about drinking, but about power, guilt and the intoxicating pull of destructive choices.
Offering a tonal counterpoint is Epic – First Semester, directed by Aditya Haasan and starring Anand Deverakonda and Vaishnavi Chaitanya. Rooted in humour, nostalgia and emotional honesty, the film deliberately steps away from excess, signalling a gentler, character-driven direction within the industry.
Hope after Sandalwood’s quiet year
After a strong showing by independent films in 2025, Kannada cinema looks relatively subdued in 2026 — possibly reflecting the underwhelming theatrical response to earlier indie successes.
Still, Vaghachipani, also known as Tiger’s Pond, offers cautious optimism. Directed by Natesh Hegde, whose earlier film Pedro struggled for visibility despite strong reviews, the film toured international festivals in 2025 and is expected to release in 2026. The hope is that it finally reaches the audience it deserves.
Borders, identity in Bengali cinema
Independent voices remain central to Bengali cinema’s relevance, continuing to engage with contemporary anxieties.
Filmmaker Q returns after a long hiatus with Dehslali, which follows Zewel, a young TikTok creator forced to flee across the India–Bangladesh border after his brother’s arrest. The film offers a raw exploration of youth, identity and borders — both geographic and emotional — firmly situating itself in the present moment.
Grounded storytelling from Marathi cinema
Marathi cinema remains one of India’s most rooted industries, drawing strength from lived experience and social reality. Nagraj Manjule returns with Khashaba, a biopic of wrestler Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav, India’s first individual Olympic medallist. After Jhund went largely unnoticed despite its merit, this film feels like both a reckoning and a reaffirmation of Manjule’s cinematic voice.
While franchises and star-driven spectacles will dominate box-office conversations in 2026, it is these films — across industries and languages — that quietly shape the future of Indian cinema. Great cinema does not always arrive with noise. Sometimes, it simply waits to be seen.
The content above has been transcribed from video using a fine-tuned AI model. To ensure accuracy, quality, and editorial integrity, we employ a Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) process. While AI assists in creating the initial draft, our experienced editorial team carefully reviews, edits, and refines the content before publication. At The Federal, we combine the efficiency of AI with the expertise of human editors to deliver reliable and insightful journalism.
