Guru

Guru (2007) is Mani Ratnam's Hindi-language drama, available to watch online on iFILM. A penniless villager named Gurukant Desai steps off the train in 1950s Bombay with nothing but nerve and an outsized hunger for power. Within two decades he becomes the country's biggest industrialist.

Abhishek Bachchan walks the character from street trader to empire-builder without softening his edges — Guru bends the rules, crushes rivals and burns the people who first backed him. Aishwarya Rai plays his wife Sujata, the one person who sees what the climb really costs. The role draws openly on Dhirubhai Ambani, the real founder of Reliance.

A. R. Rahman's score is reason enough to revisit it, the songs woven through the rise rather than parked between scenes. Ratnam isn't celebrating wealth so much as arguing over whether the ends excuse the means. Nearly three hours, and it holds. Stream Guru (2007) online on iFILM.