Film

Highway

Name: Highway
Genre: Drama, Romance, Crime
Released: 2014
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda, Durgesh Kumar, Pradeep Nagar, Saharsh Kumar Shukla

Drama
Crime
Very dark

Highway is a bold psychological drama that captures the perverse intimacy of captivity. Alia Bhatt's kidnapped bride finds unexpected freedom in her abductor's world, and the film unflinchingly explores what happens when violence and vulnerability collide. It's unsettling, sensual, and demands your full attention.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like road movies where the scenery and small silences do the storytelling, and you don't mind a love story that grows out of an unlikely, uneasy companionship.

Skip it if you want a taut thriller with a clock ticking, since the tension here is loose and the pace wanders across long, reflective stretches of its two hours and change.

What it asks of you: Expect a shape of gradual drift rather than escalation, with a runtime of roughly two and a quarter hours that rewards staying with quiet faces and open country.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Dil Se..1998

Mani Ratnam's obsessive love story between a journalist and a woman with a mysterious past shares Highway's willingness to make romance feel dangerous, beautiful, and entirely consumed by its own logic.

But The musical interludes may feel jarring if you want relentless forward momentum, and the ambiguous ending frustrates viewers seeking clarity.

Jism2003

A raw, steamy thriller about two strangers bound by desire and crime. Like Highway, it's unafraid of showing sex and moral compromise as central to the story, not decoration.

But The second half loses some narrative grip, and the sex scenes—though integrated into character—may feel gratuitous depending on your patience for that register.

Udta Punjab2016

Abhishek Chaubey (Highway's director) returns with a portrait of broken people in a broken landscape. The same unflinching eye on suffering and survival, but across an entire region rather than two people.

But It's bleak and shapeless in places; the sprawl sometimes works against it, and the social-realism register is relentlessly grim.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Highway

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Before Sunrise1995

Both films understand that captivity—whether by circumstance or choice—can reveal who we actually are. One uses violence; the other uses time and attention.

Two strangers meet and spend one night walking through Vienna, talking. Like Highway, it's about the intensity of human connection that feels both impossible and inevitable, but here the intimacy is purely conversational and philosophical rather than violent.

But Nothing happens. If you need plot, intrigue, or resolution, this is hell. It's ninety minutes of dialogue that demands you care about ideas more than events.

Atonement2007

Like Highway, it builds its entire emotional architecture on a single, binding act of violence and what grows between two people as a result. Visually ravishing and morally intricate.

But The final twenty minutes pivot the film's meaning in a way that may feel like a betrayal, and the pacing in the middle stretches patience.

Only God Forgives2013

Nicolas Winding Refn's neon-soaked nightmare explores similar territory: a beautiful, quiet woman and a man bound by violence, with sex as a language for things that cannot be spoken.

But Glacially slow, deliberately opaque, and fundamentally unsympathetic to its characters. If you want the story explained, you will leave angry.

Kabali2016

Rajinikanth's study of a man emerging from prison into a world he no longer knows touches similar nerves about freedom, identity, and the people we become when the world breaks us.

But The film's reverence for its star sometimes overshadows character development, and the supporting cast is thinly drawn.

Dark Water2005

Deepa Mehta's examination of widows in a spiritual prison parallels Highway's interest in women discovering agency within constraint, though in an entirely different key.

But The pacing is meditative to the point of stillness, and the film's emotional register can feel distancing if you need dramatic momentum.

Rang De Basanti2006

A group of young people are radicalized by circumstance and violence. Like Highway, it asks how ordinary people become capable of extraordinary things when pushed past their breaking point.

But The tonal shifts between youthful romance and political thriller feel jarring, and the film's moral stance becomes increasingly unclear as it progresses.

Raees2017

Shah Rukh Khan as a crime boss with an unexpectedly tender side. The film shares Highway's interest in what happens when morality becomes negotiable, and how intimacy survives in dark spaces.

But The plot is straightforward to the point of predictability, and the chemistry with the female lead never quite ignites the way Highway's does.

A Prophet2009

Both follow protagonists who are transformed—not rescued—by their captor or captivity. Both ask whether that transformation is liberation or corruption, and never quite answer.

A young man imprisoned becomes increasingly complicit in the machinery of the prison around him. Like Highway, it explores how intimacy and loyalty develop in transgressive spaces, and how someone can be simultaneously victim and perpetrator.

But French-language, subtitled, and deeply focused on the psychology of institutional power. If you want straightforward thriller beats, the film's pace will frustrate you.

Bombay1995

Both are love stories that exist outside the law and social sanction. Both ask what survives when two people are utterly alone together against the world.

Mani Ratnam's film about Hindu-Muslim lovers separated by communal violence. It uses the road and journey the way Highway does—as a space where social rules dissolve and only the couple's bond remains real. Musically sumptuous and structurally daring.

But The film's politics around communalism can feel didactic, and the narrative logic occasionally bends to accommodate set-pieces rather than character. Also, three hours.