Haider

Haider (2014) is an Indian crime drama from director Vishal Bhardwaj, and you can watch it online on iFILM. The film transplants Hamlet into the armed conflict of 1990s Kashmir, completing Bhardwaj's Shakespeare trilogy after Maqbool and Omkara. Shahid Kapoor plays the title role, Tabu his morally compromised mother Ghazala, and Irrfan Khan a quietly menacing fixer.

Haider comes home from college to find his father gone — taken during a military raid — his house in ashes, and his uncle already settled into the family home alongside his mother. The closer he looks, the clearer the betrayal becomes. Bhardwaj keeps the Hamlet skeleton intact but fills it with the specific weight of a disputed territory: enforced disappearances, informants, army checkpoints. It all lands because the political texture is never decorative — it is the reason the tragedy happens.

The film took home the National Film Award for Best Costumes and picked up three Filmfare Awards including Best Director. For Bollywood, this is a rare film that carries its literary ambition all the way through without softening the ending. Stream Haider (2014) online on iFILM.