Shaping Bollywood noir with Hitchcockian influences, Sriram Raghavan has built a career around cult favourite thrillers like Andhadhun, Johnny Gaddaar, and more recently, Merry Christmas. If you wish to get on a nail biting Sriram Raghavan binge, our streaming guide has you covered with everything you need to know about the director’s limited but impactful filmography and where to stream them.
Ek Hasina Thi: Starting with the basics
After dabbling in a few true crime documentaries, Raghavan made his Bollywood directorial debut with the gritty revenge drama Ek Hasina Thi. Urmila Matondkar, who had showcased terrifying range in many Ram Gopal Varma thrillers before, starred as a woman betrayed and murdered by her lover (Saif Ali Khan in an early experimental stage of his career). But when it turns out she isn’t dead, Matondkar’s femme fatale leads a bloody path to revenge.
In retrospect, Ek Hasina Thi is quite predictable when it comes to Raghavan’s future works. But it makes for an essential watch for audiences who wish to get into the director’s morally ambiguous, hyperviolent world.
Agent Vinod: The Guilty Pleasure
Raghavan’s sophomore collaboration with Saif Ali Khan was an attempt at giving Bollywood its very own James Bond. While critics called it a misfire, later viewings have been more gentle. Agent Vinod is a genre mishmash that borrows heavily from spy thrillers from the West. But despite its muddled substance, Agent Vinod oozes with style and proves yet again that if nothing, Raghavan’s thrillers always look classy.
Badlapur: Raghavan seeks bloody revenge again
Raghavan revisited the revenge thriller formula after Ek Hasina Thi with his 2014 hit Badlapur. With Varun Dhawan cast against type as a disgruntled vengeance-seeking lover, Badlapur finds his bearded antihero tracking down his wife’s killer (played with haunting charm by Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Amping up the revenge and drama from his directorial debut, Badlapur was a welcome return to form for its writer-director. Avenging one’s lover is a dated trope in Bollywood thrillers but Raghavan brought an underlying tragic arc for his protagonist, thanks to a committed performance by Dhawan.
Johnny Gaddar, Andhadhun, and Merry Christmas: The Sriram Raghavan Holy Trinity
Barring Agent Vinod, all of Raghavan’s films have enjoyed a cult following. But if there was one thriller that truly made him stand out as a modern auteur, it was the neo-noir Johnny Gaddaar. Featuring a mixed ensemble of new talents like Neil Nitin Mukesh and veterans like Dharmendra, the film was Raghavan’s take on the 1962 French thriller novel Les Mystifies and a tribute to vintage Mumbai-set Bollywood thrillers like Johnny Mera Naam (which inspired the film’s title).
Coming to influences and reinterpreting them, Raghavan achieved further cult status with the critically and commercially successful Andhadhun. A Hitchcockian crime thriller/comedy of errors, the film starred Ayushman Khurrana as a blind pianist who gets embroiled in a network of criminal conspiracies.
Merry Christmas followed Andhadhun a few years later, with Raghavan’s Tarantino-like pop culture obsession becoming more pronounced. The thriller that begins with a chance encounter between Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi’s characters, is filled with Easter Eggs alluding to Hitchcock classics (The Birds, Rebbeca), Vivaldi’s music, old Bollywood, and even Blade Runner.
And yet despite all of this, Raghavan retains his unpredictable storytelling and ability to bring out the best of his mainstream stars. While Sethupathi has already established himself as a character actor, the movie brought a never-seen-before dramatic range from Kaif.
Why is Andhadhun Sriram Raghavan’s best movie to watch?
Andhadhun is stylish, unpredictable, heavy on Raghavan’s usual tropes and boasts an impeccable ensemble cast with an even more impeccable soundtrack by Amit Trivedi.
Where can you stream Sriram Raghavan’s best movies?
Netflix, Prime Video, and Eros Now. Agent Vindo is also available for free on Jio Cinema.
