Film

Yuva

Yuva weaves three separate stories of ambition, corruption, and moral compromise across India's class divides. A bridge accident becomes the hinge connecting a slum kid, a political heir, and an idealistic engineer—each racing toward power through increasingly murky means. It's Mani Ratnam at his most sprawling and didactic, more interested in social anatomy than character intimacy. For viewers who love films that think big about how systems corrupt.

TMDb rating3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like sprawling ensemble stories where class, politics and loyalty pull friends in different directions, and you don't mind a film that lets its characters wander before it tightens the knot.

Skip it if the three-hour runtime is real, and its middle stretches can feel talky and loose, so if you want a lean thriller with a clean spine, this will test your patience.

What it asks of you: Nearly three hours of patience, a slow first half, a large cast to keep straight, and a tone that moves from campus high spirits toward something far grimmer.

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

If you liked this

Rang De Basanti2006

Three friends discover activism through an idealistic film project, then face the gap between righteous anger and actual consequence. Sharp, urgent, and wickedly funny about young India's contradictions.

But It can feel preachy once the plot thickens, and the climax asks you to accept a lot on faith rather than logic.

Rang De Basanti poster

Chandni Bar2001

Madhuri Dixit in a role that shattered her image—a nightclub dancer navigating Mumbai's criminal underworld with clear eyes and no redemption arc. Brutal, unsentimental, artfully shot.

But Sexually explicit and unrelentingly dark. It doesn't soften anything for comfort, and some scenes remain genuinely disturbing.

Chandni Bar poster

Jai Bhim2021

A lawyer and a marginalized man pursue justice against a rigged system that barely acknowledges his existence. Mani Ratnam's DNA—epic scope, structural ambition, rage built into the architecture.

But Three hours and forty minutes of accumulated injustice. Not cathartic; designed to sit heavy with you long after.

Jai Bhim poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Rang Rasiya2014

Both show ambitious men climbing toward power and discovering the cost is their own humanity. Yuva's three men race toward systems; Rang Rasiya's painter races away from them, but both are about the price of wanting.

A painter in 19th-century India chooses art over caste, family, and survival, with every choice stripping away another layer of belonging. Visually sumptuous and morally uncompromising—ambition as self-immolation.

But Slow, painterly, often more interested in composition than narrative momentum. The historical setting keeps it at distance.

Rang Rasiya poster
More like this (8)

Haasil2003

Two rivals fighting for political supremacy in a small college town, where idealism gets slowly poisoned by competition. Raw, violent, and genuinely interested in how easily conviction tips into cruelty.

But The sexual violence is sudden and shocking rather than earned by narrative. Some viewers will find it exploitative rather than purposeful.

Haasil poster

Natrang2010

A man obsessed with theater loses everything to his ambition, told with the energy and artifice of the stage itself. Marathi cinema at its most inventive and heartbreaking about the cost of art.

But Structurally disorienting by design. If you need clarity and forward momentum, this will frustrate you.

Natrang poster

Khosla Ka Ghosla!2006

A middle-class family wages war against a corrupt developer over their land. Funny, clever, and genuinely angry about the small corruptions that eat through ordinary life.

But Comedy-drama hybrids are tricky; the tonal shifts won't work for everyone, and some jokes have aged past their shelf life.

Khosla Ka Ghosla! poster

Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 12012

Two crime families locked in generational war across decades in a coal-mining town. Epic, vicious, darkly hilarious about how power cascades and corrupts through blood and violence.

But Nearly five hours across two parts, unrelenting brutality, and dialect-heavy Hindi that subtitles sometimes struggle with.

Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 1 poster

Bollywood/Hollywood2002

A woman hired to impersonate someone's girlfriend at a wedding becomes the catalyst for everyone's masks slipping. Smart about identity, class, and what we pretend to be versus who we are.

But The romantic plot threads wrap up too neatly, undermining the sharper social observations the film had been making.

Bollywood/Hollywood poster

Jism2003

A woman seduces a man into killing her husband, then everything spirals into paranoia and counter-betrayal. Stylish noir that's interested in how desire and crime twist together.

But Dated in its softcore sensibility and often feels more interested in surfaces than the actual psychology of its characters.

Jism poster

Kal Ho Naa Ho2003

Both examine how people use noble ideals as cover for control. Yuva's men claim to want justice while consolidating power; this film's hero claims to want happiness while orchestrating everyone's choices.

A dying man orchestrates his neighbors' happiness before he goes, mastering their lives for their own good. Soppy, manipulative, emotionally devastating in ways that feel almost shameful.

But Absolutely sentimental and built entirely on melodrama. If you despise emotional manipulation, this is cynicism disguised as wisdom.

Kal Ho Naa Ho poster

Bombay1995

Mani Ratnam made both films, but more importantly: both use personal stories to ask how systems—economic in Yuva, religious in Bombay—deform individual choice. Both are about the infrastructure that shapes what we become.

An inter-faith couple and their twin sons navigate communal violence in Mumbai, told with Mani Ratnam's characteristic visual brilliance and a refusal to simplify religious conflict. Operatic and deeply felt.

But Made in 1995 during heightened communal tension; some critiques felt it was irresponsible then and it hasn't aged differently. The romance sometimes overwhelms the political stakes.

Bombay poster

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