Film

Thappad

Name: Thappad
Genre: Drama
Released: 2020
Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Kumud Mishra, Ratna Pathak Shah, Tanvi Azmi

Drama
Very dark

Thappad is a precise examination of how a single act of violence can crack open an entire marriage and force both partners to confront what they've accepted in the name of love. It's patient, intelligent cinema about a woman reclaiming her agency—not a revenge fantasy, but something quieter and more radical. For anyone who's ever wondered why leaving is harder than it should be.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like domestic dramas that examine one ordinary moment until it reveals the whole marriage, and you don't mind a quiet film that makes its argument through conversations rather than spectacle.

Skip it if you want brisk plotting or a steady stream of incident; this is a 144-minute film that lingers in kitchens, lawyers' offices and family dinners, and its pace can feel deliberate to the point of testing patience.

What it asks of you: Settle in for nearly two and a half hours of patient, observational scenes that build their case slowly, with a tone that stays measured and reflective rather than tearful or sensational.

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

If you liked this

Raazi2018

Alia Bhatt anchors a taut spy thriller about a young bride who becomes a covert asset for her country. Like Thappad, it's about a woman navigating impossible pressure with intelligence and moral clarity, though here the stakes are geopolitical rather than intimate.

But It's a more conventional thriller than Thappad—there are plot twists, high stakes, less space for the quiet character work you're craving.

Mulk2018

A widow fights to defend her family's honour and property after her son is wrongly implicated in a terror plot. Rishi Kapoor is extraordinary, and the film shares Thappad's interest in how institutions and prejudice corrode family bonds from within.

But It can feel preachy about communal tension in India, and the legal drama sometimes overshadows the human centre.

Badhaai Ho2018

A middle-aged couple's joy at an unexpected pregnancy embarrasses their adult son—but the film is really about how families misread each other's interior lives. Warm, funny, and genuinely moving in ways that sneak up on you.

But The comedy is very Indian in flavour, and if broad family humour doesn't land for you, large stretches will feel slow.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Worst Person in the World2021

Both ask whether a woman can hold her own life together when the structures around her—men, family, circumstance—are designed to unravel her agency. Both refuse to choose between comedy and seriousness.

Renée Zellweger in Joachim Trier's Norwegian tragicomedy about a woman moving through her twenties—relationships, ambition, accident, regret. It's formally playful (split-screens, chapter breaks), but the feeling is Thappad's: what does it mean to be complicit in your own smallness?

But It's arch and very cool in a way that some will find deflecting. The protagonist is sometimes infuriating, and the film doesn't soften that.

Article 152019

Ayushmann Khurrana plays a cop investigating caste-based crimes in rural India. It's angry and forensic about systemic injustice in ways Thappad is about interpersonal power—different scale, same clarity of vision.

But The violence is graphic and the rural landscape is bleakly depicted. It's heavier going than Thappad and offers no catharsis, only documentation.

Margarita with a Straw2015

Kalki Koechlin is luminous as a young woman with cerebral palsy navigating identity, desire, and family expectations. It has the same attention to small humiliations and private reckonings that make Thappad so cutting.

But It's quieter and more fragmented than you might expect. Some will find its narrative structure diffuse rather than elegant.

Pagglait2021

Sanya Malhotra is a widow navigating grief, in-laws, and the discovery of her husband's infidelity—often at the same time. It's tender, darkly comic, and asks hard questions about what women owe to the memory of men.

But The tonal shifts between comedy and seriousness can feel jarring, and the ending is deliberately ambiguous rather than resolved.

Court2015

A masterwork about an elderly folk singer's trial for sedition. It's a slow-burn legal procedural about how institutions grind down individuals, and Thappad shares its conviction that the personal is political and the systemic is intimate.

But It's austere and nearly three hours long. If you want emotional release or a clear verdict on anything, you won't find it.

Parched2015

Four women in rural India navigate widowhood, sexuality, and impossible choices. It's unflinching about female desire and complicity in patriarchy—themes Thappad explores but Parched articulates through even rawer circumstances.

But The subject matter is punishing. It's not a film for an evening when you want to feel lighter afterwards.

Kahaani2012

Vidya Balan as a pregnant woman searching for her missing husband in Kolkata. It's a thriller, yes, but it's really about female resilience and how women move through the world. The city is a character, the mystery is propulsive, and the intelligence is constant.

But Once you know the twist, it loses some of its architecture. It's very much a film that reveals itself over time rather than one that deepens on revisits.

Kes1970

Both are about the sudden, irreversible narrowing of possibility. Both trust their audience to understand that sometimes the quiet aftermath is the true subject.

Ken Loach's 1969 masterpiece about a Yorkshire schoolboy who finds brief transcendence training a kestrel. It seems a world away from Thappad until you realize they share an identical structure: the moment a world opens, how violently it can be slammed shut. The poetry here is in what is almost rescued and utterly lost.

But It's in black and white, made in 1969, and rooted in industrial Yorkshire. If you need emotional catharsis, this film offers only clarity and grief.