Rang De Basanti

Rang De Basanti (2006) — watch online the Indian historical drama directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, with Aamir Khan leading an ensemble that includes Siddharth, Kunal Kapoor, and Sharman Joshi. A British documentary filmmaker named Sue arrives in Delhi with her grandfather's colonial-era diary and a plan to shoot a film about India's independence fighters. Short on budget, she recruits a group of university friends who have no particular interest in history or politics.

As the students step into the roles of early-20th-century revolutionaries — Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their circle — Mehra cuts between past and present until the two timelines start to bleed into each other. Then corruption kills someone close to the group, and the line between playing a revolutionary and becoming one collapses.

The film screened at the Berlin International Film Festival and became one of the defining works of Indian popular cinema of the 2000s — not for its spectacle but for the discomfort it put at its centre: the question of what it actually costs to act on your convictions. Stream Rang De Basanti (2006) online on iFILM.