As the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival revisits landmark works from its history, one major Indian filmmaker returns to focus: Mrinal Sen. The festival is screening Oka Oori Katha (The Outsiders, 1977), a reminder of a filmmaker whose politically charged, formally adventurous cinema reshaped modern Indian filmmaking.
For many younger cinephiles, Sen remains less widely discussed than Satyajit Ray or Ritwik Ghatak. Yet his significance in Indian cinema is immense. A leading figure of India’s Parallel Cinema movement, Sen pushed formal experimentation further than most of his peers, blending political urgency with irony, documentary textures and psychological inquiry. His films moved between intimate domestic dramas and fierce critiques of class, ideology and urban alienation, particularly in Kolkata during periods of political upheaval.
If Karlovy Vary has sparked your curiosity, here are 14 Mrinal Sen films currently available to stream.
Ek Din Achanak (1989)
Streaming: EPIC ON, NFDC Amazon Channel
A quietly devastating chamber drama about a professor who disappears without explanation, leaving his family to confront buried resentments and unanswered questions. One of Sen’s most psychologically precise and emotionally layered films.
Under the Blue Sky (Neel Akasher Neechey, 1959)
Streaming: Vi Movies & TV
An early Sen work set in colonial India, exploring friendship, exile and nationalism through the bond between a Chinese street vendor and a Bengali woman. Remarkable for its empathy and international outlook.
The Confined (Antareen, 1993)
Streaming: EPIC ON, NFDC Amazon Channel
Built largely around phone conversations between two lonely strangers, this late-career film is sparse, intimate and emotionally piercing. A masterclass in restraint and emotional subtext.
Over Again (Punashcha, 1961)
Streaming: Hoichoi
A relationship drama examining emotional dissatisfaction and middle-class anxieties. It hints at the modernist concerns and fractured relationships that would shape Sen’s later work.
Up in the Clouds (Akash Kusum, 1965)
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video, Hoichoi
One of Sen’s most stylistically adventurous films, following a young man who fabricates wealth to climb the social ladder. Sharp, playful and formally inventive, it feels strikingly modern even today.
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Streaming: ShemarooMe
Often credited with kickstarting India’s Parallel Cinema movement, this satirical tale of a rigid bureaucrat transformed by a rural encounter remains witty, humane and formally daring.
Interview (1971)
Streaming: Hoichoi
A young man’s desperate hunt for a Western suit before a job interview becomes a biting critique of postcolonial aspirations, consumerism and inherited class structures. Essential Mrinal Sen.
Calcutta 71 (1972)
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video, Hoichoi
Perhaps Sen at his angriest and most politically charged. Through interconnected stories across decades, the film dissects inequality, corruption and social unrest in Kolkata.
The Guerrilla Fighter (Padatik, 1973)
Streaming: EPIC ON, NFDC Amazon Channel
Part of Sen’s celebrated Calcutta Trilogy, this politically searching drama follows a fugitive radical confronting ideological disillusionment. Dense, reflective and intellectually provocative.
Chorus (Chorus, 1974)
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video
A wildly inventive political satire about mass unemployment and bureaucratic absurdity. Sen experiments boldly here, blending surrealism, theatre and agitprop into something uniquely his own.
The Man with the Axe (Parashuram, 1978)
Streaming: Vi Movies & TV
A darkly comic portrait of industrialisation and displacement, centred on a working-class man suddenly rendered obsolete by technology. One of Sen’s sharpest critiques of modernity.
And Quiet Rolls the Dawn (Ek Din Pratidin, 1979)
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video
When a working woman fails to return home one night, a middle-class family spirals into anxiety and social panic. A brilliant examination of gender, respectability and economic dependence.
The Case Is Closed (Kharij, 1982)
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video, Hoichoi
Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes, this devastating drama begins with the death of a child domestic worker and quietly exposes bourgeois complacency and moral evasion.
This, My Land (Amar Bhuvan, 2002)
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video
One of Sen’s final films, this gentle humanist drama about love, memory and coexistence offers a tender counterpoint to the political ferocity of his earlier work.
Where to Start?
If you are new to Mrinal Sen, begin with Bhuvan Shome, Interview, Calcutta 71, Kharij and Ek Din Achanak. Together, they offer a strong sense of his range: political, playful, formally restless and deeply attentive to the moral contradictions of modern India.
