Film

Lamhe

Name: Lamhe
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 1991
Cast: Anil Kapoor, Sridevi, Waheeda Rehman, Anupam Kher, Lalit Tiwari

Yash Chopra's 1991 masterpiece is a shimmering, gorgeous melodrama about obsession and time. Anil Kapoor's wealthy aristocrat loves a young woman, loses her to another man, then decades later finds her face again in her daughter. It's operatic, morally complicated, and visually ravishing—a film that asks uncomfortable questions while breaking your heart.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are happy to let a melancholy romance unfold at its own pace, where melodies and lush visuals carry the emotion more than the dialogue does.

Skip it if you want brisk storytelling, since at over three hours this is slow, sentimental and happy to linger on longing long after a tighter cut would have helped.

What it asks of you: Just over three hours at an unhurried pace, with long musical interludes and stretches of quiet longing that reward patience more than close attention.

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

If you liked this

Pakeezah1972

Nargis's luminous performance in this tale of a courtesan's daughter seeking respectability set the template for Chopra's own romantic epics. Gorgeously shot, deeply felt, and unafraid to make you cry.

But The pacing is glacial by modern standards, and its attitudes toward class and virtue feel dated, even as they're being questioned.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge1995

The other Chopra masterpiece: SRK and Kajol in a romance that defined a generation. It has Lamhe's visual beauty and emotional stakes, but makes space for genuine laughter alongside the heartbreak.

But It's romantic in a way some viewers find saccharine. The father's arc asks you to forgive things that take work to forgive.

Chandni1989

Sridevi again, also directed by Chopra, in a love story haunted by tragedy and fate. It shares Lamhe's preoccupation with beauty, loss, and the impossibility of letting go—but wraps it in a more accessible frame.

But The melodrama is turned up to eleven. If you find yourself irritated by characters behaving irrationally for love, this will test you.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Godfather1972

Both are masterworks about how desire—romantic or material—corrupts everything it touches, told through images so beautiful they feel like poetry.

Yes, really. Both films are three-hour epics about powerful men whose obsessions destroy everyone around them. Both use visual beauty as a kind of moral commentary—the gorgeousness makes the ugliness worse, not better. Both are about the impossibility of letting go.

But It's not a romance, it's a crime saga, and watching for love story parallels requires you to hold two very different registers in your head at once.

Kabhi Kabhie1976

Chopra's earlier meditation on time, memory, and the roads not taken. Four interwoven love stories across decades, with Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor giving some of cinema's most restrained, aching performances.

But It's structured as a poem, not a plot. Some sequences feel more like mood than narrative, which demands patience.

Umrao Jaan1981

Rekha's definitive role: a courtesan fighting for dignity in a world that won't grant it. Visually sumptuous, with songs that lodge themselves in your bones, and a moral complexity that deepens with every viewing.

But The second half slows considerably. Some viewers find the tragedy overwhelming rather than cathartic.

Silsila1981

Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan in an affair that's treated with rare honesty. It's sexy and anguished and refuses to simplify its characters, even when they betray each other.

But Its treatment of infidelity as romantic will frustrate viewers looking for moral clarity. The climax divides audiences sharply.

Devdas2002

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's maximalist remake of a classic, with Shah Rukh Khan as a man destroyed by obsessive love. If you want Lamhe's themes amped to operatic excess, this delivers it in colour-saturated abundance.

But The runtime is punishing. Some find Bhansali's visual style overwhelming rather than beautiful.

Dil Se..1998

Mani Ratnam directs Shah Rukh Khan in a meditation on love, politics, and self-destruction. It's structurally daring, beautifully shot, and unresolved in ways that linger.

But It's deliberately oblique and won't explain itself. The ending is ambiguous enough to frustrate viewers wanting closure.

Faasle1985

A quieter, smaller Chopra romance with Rajesh Khanna and Deepti Naval. It finds tenderness in restraint and asks what love means when circumstance makes it impossible.

But It's understated to the point of being forgotten. There are no big set pieces, no wild melodrama—just two people and the distance between them.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both explore how obsessive love can blur identity itself—and whether desire creates the person we love, or destroys them.

David Lynch's masterpiece about two women, identity, and obsessive love that warps reality itself. Like Lamhe, it asks whether the woman you love exists at all, or only in your need for her. Visually intoxicating, morally devastating.

But It's deliberately cryptic and non-linear. If you need narrative clarity, this will infuriate you. It's also sexually explicit and contains real violence.

Yi Yi2000

Both use rigorous, painterly cinematography to explore how time transforms people and relationships, and how we misremember what we loved.

Edward Yang's Taipei epic follows a family across decades, using the same visual strategy as Lamhe: showing how time and beauty and memory distort each other. It's warm where Lamhe is tragic, but the formal clarity is similar—nothing hidden, everything visible, nothing solved.

But It's three hours of Mandarin dialogue following multiple characters with no dramatic arc. It requires you to find meaning in small moments rather than plot momentum.