Films

Where to Start With Gujarati Cinema: A Beginner's Guide

The short answer

If you are watching one Gujarati film, watch Hellaro (2019), which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film outright and streams on ShemarooMe. If you want the easiest way in and do not speak Gujarati, watch Chhello Show, released internationally as Last Film Show, which was India's entry for the 95th Academy Awards and is on Netflix. If you want to understand the industry rather than sample it, watch in order: Kevi Rite Jaish (2012), Bey Yaar (2014) and Chhello Divas (2015), the three films that restarted Gujarati cinema. This page groups fifteen films by what a viewer actually wants, gives the runtime for each, and states where each one streams as checked on 29 July 2026.

Almost every guide to Gujarati cinema is a ranked list of the best films, which is useless if you have never seen one. Best is a judgement you can only make from inside. What a newcomer needs is a first film, a second film, and a reason why that order and not some other one. So this page is built the other way round: not by year and not by rank, but by what you actually want on the evening you sit down.

Fifteen films, six groups. Three to start with, four that the National Film Awards juries picked, two if you want to be gripped, two if you want to laugh, two if you want the pre revival tradition, and two that show you what Gujarat itself is watching right now. Every entry says how long the film is and where it streams, checked on 29 July 2026 against JustWatch's India offer data. Streaming rights expire and get resold constantly, so treat that column as a snapshot with a date on it, not a promise. The runtimes and the awards will not move. The platforms will.

The list at a glance

Credits, runtimes and awards from English Wikipedia film articles retrieved July 2026. Streaming checked against JustWatch India offer data on 29 July 2026 and subject to change.
FilmYearRuntimeWatch it ifWhere it streams, 29 July 2026
Kevi Rite Jaish2012128 minYou want the film that restarted the industryAmazon Prime Video
Bey Yaar2014150 minYou want the one that proved it was not a flukeAmazon Prime Video, or rent on Apple TV
Chhello Divas2015132 minYou want the film everybody quotesShemarooMe, ad supported
Hellaro2019121 minYou want the best film this industry has madeShemarooMe
Chhello Show (Last Film Show)2021110 minYou do not speak Gujarati and want the easiest way inNetflix
Wrong Side Raju2016130 minYou want a thriller with a real case underneathAmazon Prime Video, and ShemarooMe ad supported
Kutch Express2023134 minYou want a family drama with three National AwardsShemarooMe
Vash2023117 minYou want to be frightened, and to see the original firstShemarooMe
Jhamkudi2024153 minYou want horror and comedy in the same sittingShemarooMe
Gujjubhai the Great2015145 minYou want mainstream Gujarati comedy at full strengthShemarooMe, ad supported
Shubh Yatra2023132 minYou want the funniest film ever made about paperworkShemarooMe
Bhavni Bhavai1980135 minYou want the folk form the film schools teachNo India listing on the check date
Manvini Bhavai1993151 minYou want the classical literary tradition on screenNo India listing on the check date
Laalo: Krishna Sada Sahaayate2025135 minYou want to see what Gujarat itself is watchingSonyLIV
Umbarro2025137 minYou want the current mainstream at its bestShemarooMe

How this list was built

Recommendations here are argued, not aggregated. Every film had to satisfy three tests: it had to be verifiable, meaning the credits, release date, runtime and awards all come from the English Wikipedia article on the film and its cited sources, retrieved July 2026; it had to be findable, meaning we checked its India availability rather than assuming it; and it had to earn its slot in a group, meaning each entry states what kind of viewer it is for and why it sits where it sits in the order. Availability was checked on 29 July 2026 using JustWatch's India offer data, read from the structured offer records for each title rather than from the visible page furniture, which lists every provider JustWatch supports regardless of whether the film is on it. Two films, Bhavni Bhavai and Manvini Bhavai, returned no India listing at all, and they are still on the page with that stated plainly, because a guide that hides the hard ones is not a guide. The one exception to the streaming method is Laalo, where the SonyLIV placement was cross checked against the film's own Instagram account, scrape verified on 29 July 2026. Box office figures are trade reported and never audited, so every figure is labelled reported. On photographs: each entry carries a Commons image of a person genuinely credited on that film, and the alt text names both the person and the film. Where no free licensed photograph of a director, producer or lead existed, we used a verified writing or music credit instead, which applies to Hellaro and Umbarro, and said so here rather than quietly substituting somebody unrelated. Laalo has no Commons photograph of anybody involved, so it carries the film's own verified Instagram instead.

Start here: three films, in this order

Watch these three in sequence and the rest of Gujarati cinema stops being a pile of titles and becomes a story with a beginning.

1Kevi Rite Jaish (2012)

Abhishek Jain, director of Kevi Rite Jaish, photographed at the Gujarat Literature Festival in Ahmedabad

Watch it if: you want to understand why any of this exists · Director: Abhishek Jain, produced by Nayan Jain for CineMan Productions · Runtime: 128 minutes · Released: 15 June 2012 in India, 31 August 2012 in the United States · Streaming: Amazon Prime Video, subscription, checked 29 July 2026

Begin here because everything after it is a consequence. Kevi Rite Jaish is a satire about the Patel obsession with getting to America, made for a reported Rs 1.75 crore by a first time director, Abhishek Jain, with his brother Nayan producing under CineMan Productions. The subject was not invented: over half a century thousands of Gujarati Patels migrated to the United States and came to dominate its motel business, and the film is about a family that treats a visa the way other families treat a wedding. Rakesh Bedi, Anang Desai, Kenneth Desai, Tom Alter and Divyang Thakkar carry it, Mehul Surti and Vishvesh Parmar did the music, Pushkar Singh shot it.

As a film it is uneven, and you should watch it anyway, because it is the first Gujarati feature in decades that assumed an urban, English speaking, multiplex going Gujarati audience existed and was worth talking to as adults. That assumption turned out to be correct and every film below is standing on it. Ninety minutes into it you will notice something odd: nobody is performing rural virtue at you. For a Gujarati film in 2012 that was close to revolutionary. Start with this one and the rest of the list reads as a story rather than a pile of recommendations.

Photo: Gazal world, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

2Bey Yaar (2014)

Manoj Joshi, part of the lead cast of the Gujarati film Bey Yaar, photographed at the 55th International Film Festival of India

Watch it if: you want the one that convinced Gujarat the revival was real · Director: Abhishek Jain, written by Bhavesh Mandalia and Niren Bhatt · Runtime: 150 minutes · Released: 29 August 2014 · Reported box office: a reported Rs 8.5 crore on a reported Rs 2.25 crore budget · Streaming: Amazon Prime Video by subscription, plus Apple TV Store to rent or buy, checked 29 July 2026

Two years after Kevi Rite Jaish, Abhishek Jain made the film that settled the argument. Bey Yaar is about two childhood friends and what money, ambition and a bad decision do to a friendship that both men assumed was permanent. Manoj Joshi and Darshan Jariwala anchor it, Divyang Thakkar and Pratik Gandhi are the friends, Amit Mistry and Samvedna Suwalka fill it out, Bhavesh Mandalia and Niren Bhatt wrote it and Sachin-Jigar scored it. It opened on 29 August 2014, reportedly grossed Rs 8.5 crore on a reported Rs 2.25 crore budget, and stayed in cinemas for fifty weeks.

It was also the first Gujarati film the New York Indian Film Festival ever programmed, which mattered less for the prestige than for the signal: this was work that could be shown outside Gujarat without an apology attached. Watch it second, because it is the film where the new wave stops being a curiosity and starts being an industry with a house style, and because at 150 minutes it is the longest thing on the beginner's shelf and worth the sitting. If you only ever see two Gujarati films, make it this one and Hellaro.

Photo: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons.

3Chhello Divas (2015)

Malhar Thakar, centre, who broke through as a lead in Chhello Divas, with Siddharth Randeria and Pooja Joshi at a film premiere in Ahmedabad

Watch it if: you want to know why Gujaratis under 35 keep saying lines at each other · Director: Krishnadev Yagnik, for Belvedere Films · Runtime: 132 minutes · Released: 20 November 2015 · Reported box office: a reported Rs 18 crore on a reported Rs 2.8 crore budget · Streaming: ShemarooMe, on the ad supported tier, checked 29 July 2026

Eight friends in their final year of college, one long last day, and a screenplay that mostly gets out of their way. Krishnadev Yagnik wrote and directed it for Belvedere Films, Alex Mecwan shot it, Meghdhanush, Harsh Trivedi and Parth Bharat Thakkar handled the music, and it opened on 20 November 2015 to a reported Rs 18 crore on a reported Rs 2.8 crore budget. It also launched most of the faces you will keep seeing: Malhar Thakar, Yash Soni, Mitra Gadhavi, Aarjav Trivedi, Janki Bodiwala and Kinjal Rajpriya all came out of this one film.

Put it third rather than first, because it works best once you know what came before it. Kevi Rite Jaish proved the audience existed and Bey Yaar proved the craft did; Chhello Divas is what happens when a director stops trying to prove anything and just writes people who talk the way his friends actually talk. That is also why the Hindi remake collapsed. Yagnik directed it himself as Days of Tafree in 2016 and it went nowhere, because the thing that made the original work was the exact texture that translation removes. We have the full account of that on our page about Gujarati films remade in other languages.

Photo: Nizil Shah, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

If you want the ones the juries picked

Four National Film Award winners, ordered from the most demanding to the most inviting.

4Hellaro (2019)

Saumya Joshi, left, who wrote the dialogue and lyrics for Hellaro, photographed in Ahmedabad in 1998

Watch it if: you want the best film this industry has made · Director: Abhishek Shah, in his first feature · Runtime: 121 minutes · Released: 8 November 2019 · Reported box office: a reported Rs 16 crore on a reported Rs 2.5 crore budget · Streaming: ShemarooMe, subscription, checked 29 July 2026

A group of women in a Rann of Kutch village in the 1970s, forbidden to dance, find a drummer collapsed in the desert and start dancing anyway. That is the whole premise and it is enough. Abhishek Shah directed it as his first feature, Prateek Gupta co-produced and co-wrote, the playwright and poet Saumya Joshi wrote the dialogues and lyrics, Mehul Surti composed, Tribhuvan Babu Sadineni shot it, and the ensemble is Jayesh More, Shraddha Dangar, Kaushambi Bhatt, Brinda Trivedi, Shachi Joshi, Niilam Paanchal and Tejal Panchasara. It opened on 8 November 2019 and reportedly grossed Rs 16 crore on a reported Rs 2.5 crore budget.

Then it won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film at the 66th National Film Awards. Not best Gujarati film, best film, the Swarna Kamal, against everything made in India that year. That had never happened to a Gujarati production. It also opened the Indian Panorama at the 50th International Film Festival of India. If somebody asks you for one Gujarati film and you can only name one, name this. It is the rare case where the prize and the pleasure point the same way: the garba sequences are genuinely thrilling to sit through, and you do not need a single word of context about Gujarati cinema to feel what the film is doing.

Photo: Chinu Modi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

5Chhello Show, released internationally as Last Film Show (2021)

Pan Nalin, writer and director, during the Rajkot shoot of Chhello Show, released internationally as Last Film Show

Watch it if: you want the one the rest of the world saw · Director: Pan Nalin, who also wrote it · Runtime: 110 minutes · Released: premiered at Tribeca on 10 June 2021, released in India on 14 October 2022 · Streaming: Netflix, checked 29 July 2026

A boy in Chalala, Saurashtra, discovers that light is what makes cinema and spends a year stealing enough of it to build his own projector. Pan Nalin wrote and directed it, Swapnil S. Sonawane shot it, Cyril Morin scored it, and Bhavin Rabari plays the boy opposite Bhavesh Shrimali as the projectionist who lets him into the booth. It premiered at the 20th Tribeca Film Festival on 10 June 2021 and reached Indian cinemas on 14 October 2022.

India then selected it as the country's official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, and it made the shortlist. That decision was argued about loudly, and the argument is beside the point for a first time viewer: what you get is 110 minutes, the shortest film on this list, about the specific hunger of wanting to make something before you have any idea how. It is also the easiest entry point on the whole page, because it needs no Gujarati context at all and it is sitting on Netflix. If you are recommending Gujarati cinema to somebody who does not speak Gujarati, start them here and work backwards.

Photo: Source Wide, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

6Wrong Side Raju (2016)

Pratik Gandhi, lead actor of the National Award winning Gujarati thriller Wrong Side Raju, backstage in Surat

Watch it if: you want a thriller with a real case underneath it · Director: Mikhil Musale · Runtime: 130 minutes · Released: 9 September 2016 · Award: Best Feature Film in Gujarati at the 64th National Film Awards · Streaming: Amazon Prime Video by subscription, plus ShemarooMe on the ad supported tier, checked 29 July 2026

A driver takes the blame for a hit and run he did not commit, and the film follows what a city's money does to a court case. Mikhil Musale directed it, Pratik Gandhi plays Raju opposite Kimberley Louisa McBeath, Asif Basra is the lawyer, Sachin-Jigar wrote the music and Tribhuvan Babu Sadineni shot it, the same cinematographer who would shoot Hellaro three years later. It opened on 9 September 2016 and won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Gujarati at the 64th National Film Awards.

It is inspired by a hit and run in Ahmedabad in 2013, and the film's power comes from how little it has to invent. Anybody who lived in the city that year recognises the shape of the story before the first act ends. Watch it when you want proof that Gujarati cinema after 2012 was not only doing comedies and weddings, and watch Pratik Gandhi in it specifically, four years before Scam 1992 turned him into a national name. This is where that performance was already fully formed.

Photo: Ravidesai22, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

7Kutch Express (2023)

Darsheel Safary at the premiere of Kutch Express, the Gujarati film in which he made his Gujarati cinema debut

Watch it if: you want the family drama that the juries and the audience both liked · Director: Viral Shah, produced by Parthiv Gohil and Manasi Parekh · Runtime: 134 minutes · Released: 6 January 2023 · Awards: three at the 70th National Film Awards, including Best Feature Film Promoting National, Social and Environmental Values · Streaming: ShemarooMe, subscription, checked 29 July 2026

A woman in a Kutch household decides she wants to work, and the film is about everyone around her adjusting or refusing to. Viral Shah directed it, Parthiv Gohil and Manasi Parekh produced, the story is Rahul Malick's, Raam Mori wrote the dialogues, Sachin-Jigar scored it and Dhawalika Singh shot it. Ratna Pathak Shah plays Baiji, Manasi Parekh takes the lead, and Darsheel Safary makes his Gujarati debut fifteen years after Taare Zameen Par, with Dharmendra Gohil and Viraf Patel alongside.

It picked up three awards at the 70th National Film Awards including Best Feature Film Promoting National, Social and Environmental Values, and unlike a lot of prize winners it is genuinely easy to sit through with a family in the room. Put it fourth in the awards run because it is the least demanding of the four and the one most likely to convert a sceptic. The Kutchi textile detail is not decoration either. The craft the film is built around is a real economy, and the script knows it.

Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

If you want to be gripped

One genuine horror film and one horror comedy, and a strong argument for watching the original before the famous remake.

8Vash (2023)

Janki Bodiwala, who plays the possessed daughter in the Gujarati horror film Vash, at an awards event in 2015

Watch it if: you want to be frightened, and you want to see the original before the copy · Director: Krishnadev Yagnik · Runtime: 117 minutes · Released: 17 February 2023 · Awards: Best Gujarati Feature Film and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Janki Bodiwala at the 71st National Film Awards · Streaming: ShemarooMe, subscription, checked 29 July 2026

A family on a hill station holiday meets a neighbour, and by the time they understand what he is doing to their daughter it is too late to leave. Krishnadev Yagnik wrote and directed it, Kedar and Bhargav scored it, Azwad Bhuiyan shot it, and the cast is small on purpose: Janki Bodiwala, Hitu Kanodia, Niilam Paanchal, Hiten Kumar and Aaryan Sanghvi. It runs 117 minutes and it opened on 17 February 2023. At the 71st National Film Awards it took Best Gujarati Feature Film, and Bodiwala won Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

The order matters here more than anywhere else on this page. Watch Vash before you watch Shaitaan, the 2024 Hindi remake with Ajay Devgn that reportedly grossed Rs 211.06 crore. The Hindi version has the budget and the stars; the Gujarati version has the thing that makes the story work, which is that the horror arrives inside an ordinary middle class family with no resources and no glamour and no way to explain what is happening to anybody who would believe them. Bodiwala plays the daughter in both films. Watch her do it the first time, in a film that cost a fraction as much, and then decide which one is scarier.

Photo: Avalazol, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

9Jhamkudi (2024)

Sanjay Goradia, part of the lead cast of the Gujarati horror comedy Jhamkudi

Watch it if: you want to be scared and to laugh in the same two and a half hours · Director: Umang Vyas, written by Heath Bhatt · Runtime: 153 minutes · Released: 31 May 2024 · Reported box office: a reported Rs 25 crore · Streaming: ShemarooMe, subscription, checked 29 July 2026

Jhamkudi is a ghost story played mostly for comedy, with Manasi Parekh in the title role, Viraj Ghelani opposite her, and Sanjay Goradia, Ojas Rawal and Chetan Daiya working the comic middle. Umang Vyas directed, Heath Bhatt wrote it, Parthiv Gohil and Manasi Parekh produced with Dhaval Thakkar co-producing, Titu Kumar Jena shot it and Rupam Entertainment released it on 31 May 2024. Reviews were mixed. It reportedly grossed Rs 25 crore anyway and finished as one of the biggest Gujarati films of 2024.

Include it precisely because the reviews were mixed. If you want to understand an industry rather than just its trophy cabinet, you have to watch the thing its actual audience turned out for, and in 2024 that was this. It is 153 minutes long, which is the longest running time on this page, and it earns maybe two thirds of that. What it does have is a Gujarati comic register that no other cinema produces: the specific sound of a family talking over each other at maximum volume while something supernatural happens in the next room. Manasi Parekh is also, on the evidence of this and Kutch Express, the most versatile person currently working in Gujarati film.

Photo: Manojgevariya, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

If you want to laugh

The comedies pay for everything else in this industry, so understanding them is not optional.

10Gujjubhai the Great (2015)

Siddharth Randeria, right, star of Gujjubhai the Great, with Devarshi Shah at a film premiere in Ahmedabad

Watch it if: you want the mainstream Gujarati comedy at full strength · Director: Ishaan Randeria, who also wrote it · Runtime: 145 minutes · Released: 18 September 2015 · Reported box office: a reported Rs 15 crore · Streaming: ShemarooMe, on the ad supported tier, checked 29 July 2026

Siddharth Randeria has been playing Gujjubhai on the Gujarati stage since long before the film industry restarted, and in 2015 his son Ishaan Randeria wrote and directed the character into a feature. Jimit Trivedi, Swati Shah, Dipna Patel, Alekh Sangal and Sunil Vishrani fill out the cast, Parth Bharat Thakkar and Advait Nemlekar wrote the music, PVR Pictures distributed, and it opened on 18 September 2015 to a reported Rs 15 crore. Sequels followed and the character is now the closest thing Gujarati cinema has to a franchise.

You should watch it knowing what it is. This is not the arthouse column and it is not trying to be. It is a stage comic's timing transferred to film almost intact, and a large part of its pleasure is watching a man who has done these beats in front of live audiences for thirty years land them without visible effort. It is also, commercially, the load bearing wall: comedies like this one paid for the theatrical infrastructure that Hellaro and Kutch Express then used. Skip it and you will not understand how the money in this industry actually moves.

Photo: Nizil Shah, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

11Shubh Yatra (2023)

Darshan Jariwala, right, part of the lead cast of the Gujarati comedy Shubh Yatra, at an industry event in Mumbai

Watch it if: you want the funniest film about paperwork ever made in Gujarati · Director: Manish Saini · Runtime: 132 minutes · Released: 28 April 2023 · Produced by: Nayanthara and Vignesh Shivan through Rowdy Pictures, with Manish Saini · Streaming: ShemarooMe, subscription, checked 29 July 2026

A man needs documents in order to leave for London, and the documents need other documents, and the film turns the passport office into a slow motion humiliation machine. Manish Saini wrote and directed it, Malhar Thakar leads with Monal Gajjar, Darshan Jariwala and Hemin Trivedi, Kedar and Bhargav scored it, and it opened on 28 April 2023 at 132 minutes. It is a remake of the 2016 Tamil film Aandavan Kattalai, which starred Vijay Sethupathi, and it was produced by Nayanthara and Vignesh Shivan through their banner Rowdy Pictures.

The reason it belongs on a beginner's list rather than on a remakes list is the subject. There is no theme with a deeper hold on the Gujarati imagination than emigration, and this page opened with Kevi Rite Jaish for the same reason. Watching the two together is the best short course anybody could design in what Gujaratis actually worry about. Saini is also the most quietly interesting director in the industry: he won a National Award for Dhh in 2017 and has never made the same kind of film twice.

Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

If you want the roots, and are willing to hunt

Two films from before the 2012 revival. Both are important, and both are hard to find, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.

12Bhavni Bhavai (1980)

Om Puri, part of the cast of the 1980 Gujarati film Bhavni Bhavai, Ketan Mehta's first feature

Watch it if: you want to see where the tradition comes from, and you are willing to hunt for a copy · Director: Ketan Mehta, in his first feature · Runtime: 135 minutes · Released: 1980 · Awards: Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration, and Best Production Design for Meera Lakhia at the 28th National Film Awards · Availability: JustWatch's India catalogue carried no listing for it on 29 July 2026, so look to archive and festival screenings

Ketan Mehta's first film tells a story about untouchability in the form of a Bhavai, the Gujarati folk theatre that gives the film its title, complete with a narrator who keeps breaking the fourth wall to remind you that a story can end more than one way. Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Mohan Gokhale and Benjamin Gilani are in it, Gaurang Vyas wrote the music, the Sanchar Film Cooperative Society produced it, and the reported budget was Rs 3.5 lakh.

It won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration and Meera Lakhia took Best Production Design at the 28th National Film Awards. It was programmed at the Museum of Modern Art and it took the UNESCO Club Human Rights award at the Three Continents Festival. It is also the hard one to watch: JustWatch's India data listed no streaming or rental offer for it on 29 July 2026, so you are looking at archive prints, retrospectives and the occasional restoration screening. Chase it anyway. Everything Hellaro does with folk form forty years later, this film did first, and with fewer resources.

Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

13Manvini Bhavai (1993)

Upendra Trivedi, director and lead actor of the 1993 Gujarati film Manvini Bhavai, at the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad in Anand

Watch it if: you want the classical Gujarati literary tradition on screen · Director: Upendra Trivedi, who also plays the lead · Runtime: 151 minutes · Released: 1993 · Source: Pannalal Patel's 1947 novel Manvi Ni Bhavai, set during the 1899 to 1900 famine · Availability: JustWatch's India catalogue carried no listing for it on 29 July 2026, so look to television broadcasts and archive prints

Pannalal Patel's 1947 novel is one of the two or three books every Gujarati household claims to have read, a love story between Kalu and Raju set against the famine of 1899 to 1900 that Gujarat still calls the Chhappaniyo Dukal. Upendra Trivedi, the most prolific actor Gujarati cinema has produced and a man known as Abhinay Samrat, directed the 1993 film and played Kalu in it himself. Anuradha Patel, Arvind Pandya and Chandrakant Pandya are alongside, Gaurang Vyas wrote the music, and it runs 151 minutes.

Watch it after Bhavni Bhavai, and notice that Gaurang Vyas scored both, which is a small piece of continuity holding the pre-revival era together. This is the register that Gujarati cinema mostly abandoned after 2012 and has only recently started reaching for again in films like Kasoombo: unhurried, literary, rural, and completely unembarrassed about melodrama. It is also, like Bhavni Bhavai, difficult to find; JustWatch's India catalogue had no entry for it on 29 July 2026. Our page on Gujarati books that became films covers the novel's own life in more detail.

Photo: Chirag Umakant Thakkar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

If you want what Gujarat is watching right now

The biggest hit in the history of the industry, and the film that shows what a mature version of it looks like.

14Laalo: Krishna Sada Sahaayate (2025)

Laalo: Krishna Sada Sahaayate (2025)@laalothefilm.officialView profile

Watch it if: you want to see what Gujarat itself is watching · Director: Ankit Sakhiya · Runtime: 135 minutes · Released: 10 October 2025 in Gujarati, 9 January 2026 in a Hindi dubbed version · Reported box office: a reported Rs 120 crore worldwide on a reported Rs 50 lakh budget · Streaming: SonyLIV, confirmed against the film's own verified Instagram on 29 July 2026

A devotional drama about faith and a child's relationship with Krishna, directed by Ankit Sakhiya, written with Krushansh Vaja and Vicky Poornima, scored by Smmit Jay, starring Reeva Rachh, Shruhad Goswami, Karan Joshi and Mishty Kadecha. It opened on 10 October 2025 and did almost nothing. Then word of mouth caught, the third week was bigger than the first, and it kept climbing until it became the first Gujarati film to reportedly cross Rs 120 crore worldwide, on a reported budget of Rs 50 lakh. A Hindi dubbed version followed on 9 January 2026.

You may not like it. Plenty of people who love Hellaro do not. Watch it anyway, because a beginner's guide that only lists the films critics approve of is describing a cinema that does not exist. Laalo is the largest thing that has ever happened at the Gujarati box office and it happened without stars, without a studio, and without a marketing budget, on the strength of an audience telling each other to go. The film's own Instagram account, which we checked on 29 July 2026, carries 145,214 followers and points its link button straight at SonyLIV.

Instagram: @laalothefilm.official (verified 2026-07-29).

15Umbarro (2025)

Mehul Surti, composer of the score for the Gujarati film Umbarro, at the Gujarat Literature Festival

Watch it if: you want the current mainstream at its best · Director: Abhishek Shah, who made Hellaro · Runtime: 137 minutes · Released: 24 January 2025 · Reported box office: a reported Rs 13.3 crore on a reported Rs 4 crore budget · Streaming: ShemarooMe, subscription, checked 29 July 2026

Nine women get on a plane to London and come back different. Abhishek Shah directed it six years after Hellaro, co-writing with Keyu Shah and with Hemant Dhome, who had directed the Marathi film Jhimma that Umbarro is remade from. Mehul Surti scored it, Everest Entertainment and Iraada Studioz produced, and the ensemble runs Vandana Pathak, Kaajal Oza Vaidya, Suchita Trivedi, Deeksha Joshi, Tarjanee Bhadla, Tejal Panchasara, Vineeta Joshee and Aarjav Trivedi. It opened on 24 January 2025 and reportedly grossed Rs 13.3 crore against a reported Rs 4 crore budget.

End the list here, because Umbarro shows you the industry at its current working level: a National Award winning director making a commercial film with an all women cast, co-written with the man who made the original in another language, and finding an audience for it. That is a mature industry doing normal things well, which is a much rarer condition than a single great film. If you have gone through this list in order, you will also notice Mehul Surti's name attached to Kevi Rite Jaish at the start and Umbarro at the end, thirteen years apart, which is as good a measure as any of how short this whole story still is.

Photo: Imfarhad7, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

What the numbers say

How much of your evening each film asks for, shortest first

Chhello Show (Last Film Show)the easiest way in110 min
Vashthe horror original117 min
Hellarothe one to watch if you watch one121 min
Kevi Rite Jaishwhere the revival starts128 min
Wrong Side Rajuthe thriller130 min
Chhello Divasthe one everybody quotes132 min
Shubh Yatrathe visa comedy132 min
Kutch Expressthe family drama134 min
Bhavni Bhavaithe folk classic135 min
Laalo: Krishna Sada Sahaayatethe record holder135 min
Umbarrothe current mainstream137 min
Gujjubhai the Greatthe franchise comedy145 min
Bey Yaarthe friendship film150 min
Manvini Bhavaithe literary classic151 min
Jhamkudithe horror comedy153 min

Runtimes are the theatrical figures carried in each film's English Wikipedia infobox, retrieved July 2026. Nothing here is under 110 minutes, which is worth knowing before you plan a quick evening: Gujarati cinema does not really do the short feature.

Questions people actually ask

What is the best Gujarati film to start with?

If you speak Gujarati, start with Kevi Rite Jaish (2012), because everything after it is a consequence of it, then Bey Yaar and Chhello Divas. If you do not speak Gujarati, start with Chhello Show, released internationally as Last Film Show, which is on Netflix, runs 110 minutes and needs no local context at all.

Which Gujarati film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film?

Hellaro, in 2019. It won the Swarna Kamal at the 66th National Film Awards, competing against every Indian film of that year rather than in a regional category, which had never happened to a Gujarati production before. It was Abhishek Shah's first feature and it streams on ShemarooMe.

Where can I watch Gujarati movies with subtitles?

ShemarooMe carries by far the largest Gujarati library and eight of the fifteen films on this page sit there. Amazon Prime Video has Kevi Rite Jaish, Bey Yaar and Wrong Side Raju, Netflix has Chhello Show, and SonyLIV has Laalo. All availability here was checked on 29 July 2026 and streaming rights move, so verify before you subscribe for one title.

Should I watch Vash or Shaitaan first?

Vash. It is the 2023 Gujarati original, it runs 117 minutes, and Janki Bodiwala plays the same role in both films. Shaitaan, the 2024 Hindi remake, has Ajay Devgn and a reported Rs 211.06 crore gross, but the story works better at the smaller scale where the family has no resources to fall back on.

Are there good Gujarati films from before 2012?

Yes, and they are harder to get hold of. Bhavni Bhavai (1980) and Manvini Bhavai (1993) are the two on this page, and neither had an India streaming or rental listing when we checked on 29 July 2026. Ketan Mehta's Bhavni Bhavai in particular was programmed at the Museum of Modern Art and is worth chasing through archives and retrospectives.

Sources and image credits

All photographs are free-licensed files from Wikimedia Commons, reused with the attribution each licence requires. No press agency or studio photographs are hosted on this site. Instagram content is linked or embedded from the official account, never re-hosted.