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Aligarh

Directed by Hansal Mehta, the 2015 biographical drama Aligarh is widely revered as one of the most tender, dignified, and heartbreaking masterpieces of Indian cinema, winning critical acclaim at the BFI London Film Festival and Busan International Film Festival. Manoj Bajpayee delivers what is universally cited as one of his greatest performances as Dr. Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, an elderly, reclusive professor of Marathi literature and linguistics at the prestigious Aligarh Muslim University. Siras's peaceful, poetry-filled life listening to Lata Mangeshkar songs over whiskey is violently shattered when university officials orchestrate a sting operation with local TV reporters, forcibly breaking into his private bedroom to film him in an intimate consensual encounter with a male rickshaw puller. Suspended and evicted from his campus home in humiliation, Siras is befriended by Deepu Sebastian (Rajkummar Rao in a sensitive, empathetic turn), a curious young Delhi journalist who champions his story. Together with human rights lawyers, Siras fights a landmark legal battle to overturn his suspension in court, only to face an enigmatic, tragic end. An unforgettable cinematic ode to human privacy and dignity.