Udta Punjab

Storyline

Directed by Abhishek Chaubey and co-written by Sudip Sharma, 2016's black comedy crime drama Udta Punjab shook Indian cinema and survived historic censorship battles to become one of the most politically urgent, uncompromising, and critically acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Filmfare Awards. Tackling the crippling socio-economic epidemic of substance abuse in northern India, the narrative interweaves four disparate lives across rural Punjab. Shahid Kapoor stars in a manic, physically uninhibited turn as Tommy Singh, a hedonistic, cocaine-addicted Punjabi rockstar whose glamorous musical persona fueling drug culture collides with jail and self-reckoning. Alia Bhatt delivers a devastating, raw, and transformative performance as 'Bauria', an unnamed migrant farm laborer from Bihar who stumbles upon a discarded parcel of heroin and is brutally enslaved by local narcotics peddlers. Meanwhile, righteous police inspector Sartaj Singh (Diljit Dosanjh in his sensational Hindi cinema debut) teams up with dedicated activist doctor Preet Sahni (Kareena Kapoor Khan) to expose high-level political and pharmaceutical collusion feeding narcotics to Punjab's youth. Featuring Amit Trivedi's raw, electrifying Punjabi score, Udta Punjab is a gritty, courageous, and emotionally shattering indictment of systemic addiction and human resilience.