the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This week, Nithilan Saminathan’s Maharaja.

In Chennai, a barber stumbles into a police station with an unbelievable story. His home has been burglarised, but the only thing of value that the thieves stole was a trash can of huge importance to the man and his daughter. It quickly becomes clear that there is something more afoot, a more complicated narrative of revenge and betrayal spanning decades and culminating in an act of unimaginable evil.

At time of recording, it was ranked 218th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 8th June 2025.
• Maharaja on the Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDb 250 at time of recording.
• India Today reports on the success of Maharaja on Netflix, October 2024.
• Devansh Sharma writes at The Hindustan Times about the success of Maharaja in China, January 2025.
• Debarshi Dasgupta writes at The Straits Times about the success of Maharaja in China, December 2024.
• Asma Waheed writes at UK-China Film Collab about the increasing tight relationship between Chinese and Indian cinema, March 2025.
• Reuters reports on the border clashes between India and China, October 2024.
• Frederica Marsi writes at Al Jazeera about how India and China worked to de-escalate tensions following those border skirmishes, October 2024.
• Jessie Pang and Shivam Patel at Reuters report on attempts to normalise relations between India and China, January 2025.
• Rebecca Davis at Variety reports on China’s tightening of the number of foreign films that it will admit, January 2022.
• Catherine Shoard at The Guardian reports on China’s decision to restrict access of American films to the Chinese market, April 2025.
• David S. Cohen considers the portrayal of the Chinese government in Transformers: Age of Extinction for Variety, July 2014.
• Clarence Tsui writes at The Hollywood Reporter about the changes made to Iron Man 3 for the Chinese cut, May 2013.
• Benjamin Lee at The Guardian discusses how Hollywood studios have begun to tailor their output to appeal to the Chinese market, August 2020.
• BVS Prakash writes in The Deccan Chronicle about the growing popularity of the “rape-revenge” narrative in Tamil cinema, November 2024.
• Swathi P. Ajith writes at On Manorama about the ubiquity of sexual assault in contemporary Indian cinema, October 2024.
• Pathyush Parasuraman discusses the strange state of the censorship of Indian cinema for The Hindu, January 2025.
• Kevin Sharkey reports for the BBC on the woman who won the civil lawsuit against Conor McGregor for rape, November 2024.
• Mared Gwyn Jones at Euro News considers Conor McGregor’s bid for the Irish Presidency, March 2025.
• Aaron Blake at The Washington Post reports on the legal finding that Donald Trump is a rapist, July 2023.
• Gail Simone discusses the history and origin of the term “fridging” with ComicsAlliance, December 2014.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: diverse narratives, dual narratives, film, gender, imdb, indian, indian cinema, Maharaja, moral ambiguity, netflix, Nithilan Saminathan, podcast, rape revenge, representation of women, revenge, sexual assault, social justice, societal commentary, tamil, Tamil film, The 250, violence |