Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In 1970s India, Sardar Khan vows to take revenge on the man who killed his father decades earlier.
Anurag Kashyap's sprawling crime epic is a landmark of Indian cinema — a multigenerational saga of vengeance, power, and coal-mining corruption rooted in real history. The plotting is dense and novelistic, the ensemble acting is exceptional (Manoj Bajpayee is electrifying), and the cinematography has a raw, gritty vitality that feels wholly original. Its voice, tone, and cultural specificity make it genuinely unlike anything else in world cinema. As Part 1 of a duology, the ending is necessarily open-ended and transitional rather than fully satisfying on its own, warranting a slightly lower score in that category.