Ahead Of Dhadak 2, 9 Films With Social Message That Forced Us To Introspect

The upcoming film Dhadak 2, featuring Siddhant Chaturvedi and Triptii Dimri, tackles the social issue of casteism. The storyline revolves around their characters, Neelesh and Vidhi, whose love story is hindered by their differing castes. The film opens with powerful slogans against caste discrimination and highlights the challenges they face due to societal norms. The movie is set to release on November 22, 2024.

Ahead of the film’s release, here are other OTT films with social messages that serve as mirrors for society, highlighting prevailing issues. Despite our claims of being developed and progressive, some societal issues persist. While we often overlook these problems, cinema does not. Films have consistently raised awareness about the shortcomings and challenges of our society that suffocate and trouble people. These films carried strong social messages, shedding light on societal repressions and troubles and opening our eyes to the realities around us.

9 OTT Films With A Social Message

Skater Girl

This Indian-American film that released on Netflix on June 11, 2021 showed the reality of dreams of rural India. People in rural areas have always struggled to make ends meet and this endless and vicious cycle engulfs generations into a trap that prevents them to progress and dream big. The rural children are bound by their duty towards their family and the traditions that keep them stuck in their village. The film follows the story of a little girl from a remote village in Rajasthan who dares to dream something unconventional and faces a hard choice between her dream and her family.

Sardar Udham Singh

The movie might seem as a usual biopic of a famous freedom fighter but Sardar Udham Singh displays the need to stand up against the injustice that prevails in the society. It reveals the emotions and dilemmas of the Indian public as they struggled to live their lives with freedom in the presence of the oppressive Britishers. The Amazon Prime movie shows a freedom fighter in a humane light who faces struggles, fear and anger but is determined to rebel to pave the way for a better future.

Rashmi Rocket

Sports has always been a highly unapproachable field for women. Even after years of evolution, we still see women facing stereotypes and discrimination. One such issue that female athletes face is the gender test which is an humiliation in itself to their athletic capabilities and this is raised in Tapsee Pannu's one of the best OTT films with social message. Zee5 movie Rashmi Rocket portrayed the story of one such athlete who was forced to take a gender test as her exceptional performance made everyone suspicious. Gender test was made non-mandatory for females in 1992 to condemn the physical criteria set for men and women in sports.

Bob Biswas

The intriguing side character from 2012 film Kahaani got his own film in 2021 where Abhishek Bachchan played the role of a day-time insurance agent and night-time assassin. Zee5's Bob Biswas is the story of an under performing insurance agent whose appearance is a disguise to hide his sinister deeds that he does after dusk. The movie reveals the depths of human character and the presence of deceptive appearances that mix with the crowd and are the least suspicious ones.

Jai Bhim

Released in November 2021, this Tamil film portrayed the lives of the marginalised community and their struggles. When the society progressed and started accepting Western culture, the tribal communities decided to hold onto their traditions because of which they were side tracked as outdated. Since then, their position in the society declined and they were subjected to humiliation and unjust behaviour. This Amazon Prime movie of South actor Suriya tells the story of the custodial death of a tribal man accused unjustly of robbery and a lawyer who fights to deliver justice to him.

Pagglait

The judgemental society has always thought that a women's happy life ends with the death of her husband. They have completely disregarded the individual existence of widows in the society and expect them to behave according to some stereotypical rules. Pagglait is an OTT films with social message that tells the story of a widow who decided not to give in to the norms and suppression of the society and live her life the way she wanted, following her dreams and desires.

Joji

The Malayalam adaptation of Shakespeare's play Macbeth, Amazon Prime movie Joji is the story of a family with a strong patriarch with 3 sons, the youngest of which might be considered the black sheep of the family but hides very dark thoughts behind his seemingly stupid face. The years of oppression and humiliation he received from his family turned him into a monster and is an example of how the judgemental and suppressing society can push people to dangerous limits. The movie also displays the battle for heirship that is common in every household these days and the extent to which greed takes people.

Mimi

Available on Netflix and Jio Cinema, Mimi raises many societal issues in 2 hours and 13 minutes and it is not just the normalisation of adoption and surrogacy. The movie shows the dreams of a small town girl that are big enough to not fit into the narrow minded society and her house's meagre income. The source that can take her to the film city Mumbai is by becoming the surrogate mother for an American couple. However, she is left broken when the couple runs away when they get to know that the child will be born with a disability. It shows the discrimination that people with disabilities face since birth, at times even by their parents.

Aakashvaani

This Telugu movie which was about a tribal village that found a radio one day and started worshiping it as the talking God. The story has a suppressing and abusive leader in the backdrop who harasses the villagers, that are isolated from the modern world, for his own benefits. The movie throws light on the superstitions that exist in tribal community and the injustice that occurs to them from the so-called civilised section of society.