International Women’s Day: The very best filmmakers in Indian cinema

Sudha Kongara, Shuchi Talati, Nandini Reddy, Payal Kapadia and Roopa Rao
| Photo Credit: The Hindu/ Reuters

For far too long, Indian cinema has predominantly been defined by the male gaze, but a new wave of women filmmakers have been rewriting that narrative with some of the boldest, most personal, and culturally rich stories to grace screens in the country. Across languages and industries, these women have pushed boundaries, challenged conventions, and given voice to characters, themes and socio-cultural issues that might have otherwise remained in the shadows or usurped and captured through the eyes of men.

On International Women’s Day 2025, we celebrate these visionary storytellers and their landmark work, that have continued to reshape the possibilities of Indian cinema with their talent, craft, and unrelenting spirit.

Zoya Akthar – ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’

A still from ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’

Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was a road trip movie that doubled as a cultural reset for Hindi cinema. With its picturesque Spanish landscapes, heart-thumping adventure sports, and a soundtrack that boasted Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s generational anthems, Akhtar infused each of her three male protagonists with vulnerabilities and insecurities rarely explored in mainstream Bollywood, that were unpacked through travel and some evocative lines penned by Javed Akhtar. Akhtar’s storytelling was personal yet universal, marking her as one of the most astute chroniclers of modern urban India, a distinction she continues to hold today.

Roopa Rao – ‘Gantumoote’

A still from ‘Gantumoote’

Roopa Rao’s Gantumoote was a quiet revolution in Kannada cinema — an unfiltered coming-of-age drama set in the pre-internet era of the 1990s. The film followed Meera, a studious high schooler who falls in love, only to learn that life’s greatest lessons often come with heartbreak. Rao, who had already carved a niche with The Other Love Story, India’s first web series on same-sex romance, brought a deeply personal perspective to Gantumoote. The film was a landmark in Kannada cinema.

Sudha Kongara – ‘Soorarai Pottru’

A still from ‘Soorarai Pottru’

Sudha Kongara made a statement with Soorarai Pottru. Inspired by the real-life journey of Captain G. R. Gopinath, the founder of India’s first low-cost airline, the Tamil biography was deeply cinematic. Kongara, who had previously explored underdog narratives in Irudhi Suttru, brought the same fire to Soorarai Pottru. Suriya’s performance gave the film its emotional core, but it was Kongara’s unflinching look at class disparity, the bureaucratic chokehold on innovation, and the sacrifices behind success, that elevated the story beyond a mere rags-to-riches arc. With multiple National Film Awards and a Golden Globe submission, Soorarai Pottru made Kongara one of Tamil cinema’s most fearless filmmakers.

Anjali Menon – ‘Bangalore Days’

A still from ‘Bangalore Days’

Anjali Menon’s Bangalore Days remains a benchmark for ensemble storytelling in Malayalam cinema, capturing both the charm and chaos of big-city dreams through the eyes of three small-town cousins. Menon, who had already impressed with Manjadikuru and Ustad Hotel, made use of romance, comedy and drama in a story that resonated across generations. The film’s strength lay in its characters — played by Nivin Pauly, Dulquer Salmaan and Nazriya Nazim — and Menon’s ability to write layered women characters rarely seen in commercial films was widely praised. Nearly a decade later the warmth of Bangalore Days remains unmatched.

Nandini Reddy – ‘Ala Modalaindi’

A still from ‘Ala Modalaindi’

Nandini Reddy’s Ala Modalaindi was a breath of fresh air in Telugu cinema. The rom-com felt light on its feet yet boasted an unpredictable structure and crackling chemistry between Nani and Nithya Menen. Reddy crafted a conversational screenplay that felt spontaneous and redefined the modern Telugu love story. The film’s success paved the way for a new wave of rom-coms, making Reddy a trailblazer in an industry as hypermasculine as Tollywood, where women directors were, and still are, a rarity.

Sandhya Suri – ‘Santosh’

A still from ‘Santosh’

A documentarian at heart, Sandhya Suri seems to be drawn to stories that looked at the resilience of the overlooked. With Santosh, her narrative feature debut, she moved into fiction, but her empathic instincts remain. Developed over years, from the Sundance Directors Lab to its world premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Santosh followed a young widow who steps into her late husband’s police uniform, only to find herself confronting the entrenched forces of gender and power in rural India. Anchored by Shahana Goswami’s performance, the film rose to popularity as the United Kingdom’s Oscar submission last year and a BAFTA nod for Outstanding Debut, making Suri an urgent new voice from India.

Shuchi Talati – ‘Girls Will Be Girls’

A still from ‘Girls Will Be Girls’

With Girls Will Be Girls, Shuchi Talati made a striking feature debut that bristled with the contradictions of adolescence. Set in a cloistered Himalayan boarding school, the film traces a young girl’s sexual awakening and the fraught mother-daughter dynamic it disrupts, rendered with a rare, playful honesty. Premiering at Sundance and winning the Audience Award, Talati’s film took coming-of-age storytelling and infused it with an immediacy that felt lived-in and refreshingly subversive. The AFI alum also went on to win the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for the film earlier this year.

Payal Kapadia – ‘All We Imagine As Light’

A still from ‘All We Imagine As Light’

Payal Kapadia’s cinema exists in the liminal space between the dreamlike and the hyperreal. If A Night of Knowing Nothing was a documentary haunted by memory, All We Imagine as Light marks her full-bodied embrace of narrative filmmaking, without surrendering her instinct for intimacy. The first Indian film in three decades to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Payal left the film festival with the Grand Prix. A tale of friendship and longing set against the churn of Mumbai, the film topped critics’ lists throughout the year, was named one of the top five international films of 2024 by the National Board of Review, received two Golden Globe nominations, and was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.