The Last DVD is an independent magazine on cinema and adjacent arts — music, dance, theatre, culture — based in India, publishing internationally.https://thelastdvd.com/https://thelastdvd.com/s-janaki-amma-a-singer-for-generations/https://thelastdvd.com/s-janaki-amma-a-singer-for-generations/To me, Janaki Amma was the voice that carried me through exams, bus rides, heartbreaks, and joySun, 16 Aug 2026 11:00:00 GMTSubhashini Ramachandranhttps://thelastdvd.com/a-pakistani-afterlife-for-les-miserables/https://thelastdvd.com/a-pakistani-afterlife-for-les-miserables/What arrives in Salakhain is therefore not quite the novel but its afterlife: a familiar arrangement of misfortune and moral arithmetic portable enough to cross languages, industries, and continents.Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:00:00 GMTManahil Tahirahttps://thelastdvd.com/blueness-on-the-waiting-shore-sirai-and-the-carceral-sangam/https://thelastdvd.com/blueness-on-the-waiting-shore-sirai-and-the-carceral-sangam/In Sirai, the Tamil song becomes the precise space where the nation’s carceral suspicion is answered — not with polemic argument, but with radical intimacyWed, 29 Jul 2026 11:00:00 GMTSwarnavel Eswaranhttps://thelastdvd.com/inside-ifai-the-collective-taking-on-indias-distribution-crisis/https://thelastdvd.com/inside-ifai-the-collective-taking-on-indias-distribution-crisis/When we sat down with Kanu Behl on the day Agra opened in Indian theatres, it felt like one of those moments that might precipitate something bigger. Fortunately for Indian independent cinema, something bigger has precipitated.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMTAbhinav Jainhttps://thelastdvd.com/frankenstein-film-star-vijay/https://thelastdvd.com/frankenstein-film-star-vijay/When a film star becomes too powerful to be vulnerable, does cinema itself suffer? A critical look at Vijay and the star system.Sat, 27 Jun 2026 10:50:00 GMTNiveditha K Prasadhttps://thelastdvd.com/on-my-grief-of-failing-to-be-a-cars-2006-retrospective/https://thelastdvd.com/on-my-grief-of-failing-to-be-a-cars-2006-retrospective/On Growing Up with Lightning McQueenWed, 24 Jun 2026 13:45:27 GMTKrishna Natesanhttps://thelastdvd.com/sr-praveen-has-seen-the-reels-turn-a-conversation-on-malayalam-cinema/https://thelastdvd.com/sr-praveen-has-seen-the-reels-turn-a-conversation-on-malayalam-cinema/SR Praveen about his book, Ticket to Kerala, film reviewing, and more.Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:50:00 GMTNiveditha K Prasadhttps://thelastdvd.com/from-ragamala-paintings-to-hindi-film-songs-spring-as-a-time-for-love/https://thelastdvd.com/from-ragamala-paintings-to-hindi-film-songs-spring-as-a-time-for-love/The piece show how spring has been visualised as a narrative tool to show different stages of love–from yearning to the culmination of loveMon, 04 May 2026 15:48:23 GMTEshna Benegalhttps://thelastdvd.com/getting-lost-in-the-city/https://thelastdvd.com/getting-lost-in-the-city/Running away from home and homecoming in Ritwik Ghatak’s Bari Theke Paliye (1959) are metaphors for the cataclysm of PartitionFri, 17 Apr 2026 11:00:00 GMTUttaran Das Guptahttps://thelastdvd.com/the-impossibility-of-middle-brow-hip-hop/https://thelastdvd.com/the-impossibility-of-middle-brow-hip-hop/There is no real debate on hip-hop’s place within the general culture. Most think of hip-hop as being a low-brow art form and even many hip-hop fans do not attempt to defend hip-hop’s cultural status. Yet, all these analyses…Sun, 12 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMTAnthony David Vernonhttps://thelastdvd.com/three-films-a-note-on-motion-and-stillness/https://thelastdvd.com/three-films-a-note-on-motion-and-stillness/How do you see the world if you don’t move through it? Perhaps, you see it as it moves while you remain still.Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:55:30 GMTAtreyee Majumderhttps://thelastdvd.com/the-transcendental-cinema-of-arby-ovanessian/https://thelastdvd.com/the-transcendental-cinema-of-arby-ovanessian/If the spectator of Chechmeh could live the transcendental content of the film, the film itself could give the spectator the poetic depth that he/she wishes to see.Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:32:03 GMTRamin Jahanbegloohttps://thelastdvd.com/kids-on-bikes-a-stranger-things-retrospective-part-ii/https://thelastdvd.com/kids-on-bikes-a-stranger-things-retrospective-part-ii/By taking the humanity out of the monsters and backdrops of the TV shows and presenting audiences with increasingly computer generated landscapes and monsters, viewers become distracted by spectacle and are less able to relate their…Tue, 24 Feb 2026 15:58:28 GMTEsmé Warmuth-Poppitihttps://thelastdvd.com/kids-on-bikes-a-stranger-things-retrospective-part-i/https://thelastdvd.com/kids-on-bikes-a-stranger-things-retrospective-part-i/The subgenre levels with young viewers and allows them to admit, even if subconsciously, that being bullied or saying goodbye to childhood does feel horrific on the same level as having your life threatened, and it effectively allows these…Sat, 21 Feb 2026 14:35:59 GMTEsmé Warmuth-Poppitihttps://thelastdvd.com/hungry-for-meaning-the-visual-power-of-food-in-tarantinos-universe/https://thelastdvd.com/hungry-for-meaning-the-visual-power-of-food-in-tarantinos-universe/Tarantino’s movies are not typical ‘food films’. One cannot say food forms an essential part of the plot in his movies. Nevertheless, food forms an integral part of his storytelling, be it the setting, the foreshadowing it creates, or the…Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:13:07 GMTNavaneeth M Shttps://thelastdvd.com/listening-for-politics-in-tamil-rap/https://thelastdvd.com/listening-for-politics-in-tamil-rap/Artists like Arivu do not distance themselves from popular rhythm in order to signal seriousness; they lean into it.Sun, 08 Feb 2026 12:17:12 GMTRohith Jyothishhttps://thelastdvd.com/the-end-of-hollywood-unipolarity/https://thelastdvd.com/the-end-of-hollywood-unipolarity/Multipolarity is a word that has escaped lot of lips for a few years. Claims are abound that the world order based on American unipolarity in the age of neoliberalism is no more.Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:30:00 GMTRalph Leonardhttps://thelastdvd.com/the-movies-the-internet-and-insincere-consumption/https://thelastdvd.com/the-movies-the-internet-and-insincere-consumption/On the Internet everything I experience, I do it alone. ‘The movies’ for me are as private as it gets. I close my curtains because I do not want to be seen when I am sitting crawled up with my laptop stuck somewhere between my thighs.Wed, 24 Dec 2025 14:00:00 GMTSarthak Virdihttps://thelastdvd.com/the-cinemas-of-india-memory-and-loss/https://thelastdvd.com/the-cinemas-of-india-memory-and-loss/In almost 7 years, I have driven in excess of 60,000km through 21 states of India and photographed over 1250 Single Screen Cinemas in more than 1000 towns and cities. Of these, at least 750 have been erased permanently.Tue, 23 Dec 2025 11:00:00 GMTHemant Chaturvedihttps://thelastdvd.com/between-two-screens-golcha-delite-and-the-vanishing-public-life-of-delhi/https://thelastdvd.com/between-two-screens-golcha-delite-and-the-vanishing-public-life-of-delhi/The city knows how to protect Mughal and colonial structures; it can speak the language of monuments and empire. But it struggles to comprehend mid-century public architecture, and the cultural worlds they housedSun, 21 Dec 2025 11:44:30 GMTDr. Kanupriya Dhingrahttps://thelastdvd.com/kanu-behl-wages-a-war/https://thelastdvd.com/kanu-behl-wages-a-war/“For nine years, nine long years, at every step, literally at every step, I had to fight to get this film (Agra) made. I wouldn’t be lying if I say that I had even thought of quitting filmmaking.”Wed, 19 Nov 2025 14:13:11 GMTtldradminhttps://thelastdvd.com/inside-rituparnos-camera/https://thelastdvd.com/inside-rituparnos-camera/I was yearning for some sort of home, literal or metaphorical, that I found in these films. Rituparno slowly came to be “home”.Fri, 17 Oct 2025 12:39:19 GMTAtreyee Majumderhttps://thelastdvd.com/land-of-wolves/https://thelastdvd.com/land-of-wolves/Sicario is about the dehumanisation of war and the inevitable degradation of morality and the rule of law in war.Fri, 17 Oct 2025 12:28:09 GMTRalph Leonardhttps://thelastdvd.com/gods-on-film/https://thelastdvd.com/gods-on-film/What happens when the possession is replicated over thousands of screens everyday for weeks?Fri, 17 Oct 2025 12:18:36 GMTNiveditha K Prasadhttps://thelastdvd.com/found-in-translation-why-homebound-needs-a-subtitle/https://thelastdvd.com/found-in-translation-why-homebound-needs-a-subtitle/Homebound is a good film that could have been great.Fri, 17 Oct 2025 02:08:26 GMTAbhinav Jainhttps://thelastdvd.com/on-the-cold-open/https://thelastdvd.com/on-the-cold-open/The classic Cold Open is perhaps building a bridge for people to continue engaging with long-form contentWed, 15 Oct 2025 14:13:05 GMTDyuvan D Machaaranda