Raees

Raees Alam, played by Shah Rukh Khan, builds an illicit liquor empire in Gujarat during the years of prohibition in the eighties and nineties. Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays Majmudar, the policeman who has pursued him for years, and the film's best passages are their encounters, mutually respectful and entirely unyielding. The story around the film is worth telling too. After the Uri attack in 2016 raised tensions between India and Pakistan, a political movement demanded a ban on films featuring Pakistani performers, and this one was a target because of Mahira Khan, the Pakistani actress in the female lead. The producers refused to remove her, but to keep the release peaceful it was agreed that she would not come to India for the promotional tour. It opened on 25 January 2017 and grossed two hundred and eighty-one crore worldwide against a budget of ninety-two. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian crime drama and Shah Rukh Khan in antihero roles. Who it is not for: anyone unaccustomed to a three-hour running time with songs between scenes.