Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri

A year of paradoxes, where record-breaking box-office triumphs coexisted with a persistent creative unease. While familiar formulas dominated the multiplexes, Bengali cinema’s most rewarding achievements lay elsewhere: in intimate, risk-taking films marked by aesthetic rigour, emotional intelligence and quiet daring. Here is a personal selection of 2025’s finest. It has, by any measure, been a…