Women in Indian movies are often shown as perfect daughters, caring wives, or loving mothers. But real women are more than these roles. They make mistakes, have dreams, fall in love, get angry, and sometimes make choices that others do not understand.
Some of the best Indian films about women tell these stories without expecting their female characters to be perfect. They show women who want freedom, respect, love, and the right to make their own decisions.
From Queen to The Great Indian Kitchen, these movies explore marriage, family pressure, friendship, and finding your own voice.
How We Selected These Films
We selected these films based on their female characters, storytelling, critical reception, and how well they show the challenges women face. The ranking also considers how strongly each movie explores freedom and personal choice.
Here are 10 of the best Indian films that let women be flawed, free, and deeply human, ranked for their character development, storytelling, performances, and honest portrayal of women’s lives.
10. Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (2019)
Dolly and Kajal are cousins living very different lives around Delhi NCR. Dolly appears to have a normal married life, but she is unhappy with parts of her marriage and begins looking for something that makes her feel alive again. Kajal moves to the city hoping for freedom and independence, only to discover that city life brings its own problems.
The film does not try to make either woman perfect. Dolly lies, hides things from her husband, and makes choices that are difficult to defend. Kajal also makes mistakes while learning how love, work, money, and freedom actually work.
That is exactly why the film fits this list. Their freedom is messy. They are trying to understand what they want while dealing with family, desire, guilt, work, and judgment from other people. Netflix describes the story as two cousins finding their own roads to freedom.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Alankrita Shrivastava |
| Written By | Alankrita Shrivastava |
| Starring | Konkona Sen Sharma, Bhumi Pednekar, Vikrant Massey, Amol Parashar |
| Genre | Drama |
| Released | 2019, India |
| Runtime | 2h 6m |
| Rated | A (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 5.2/10 |
| Where to Watch | Netflix |
Why It Matters for Women: Dolly and Kajal are not written to be perfect role models. They are allowed to want things, make bad decisions, change their minds, and discover themselves. The movie shows that a woman’s life cannot always fit into simple ideas of right and wrong.
Life Lesson: Finding freedom can be confusing, but understanding what you truly want is an important part of building your own life.
9. Gatta Kusthi (2022)
Keerthi is a talented wrestler who has ambitions of her own. Veera, meanwhile, wants a wife who is quiet, less educated, has long hair, and follows traditional ideas about marriage.
Because of these expectations, Keerthi enters the marriage while hiding important parts of herself. The situation becomes harder when Veera discovers that his wife is not the woman he imagined.
Behind its comedy and wrestling scenes, Gatta Kusthi asks a simple question: why should a woman have to become smaller so that a man can feel bigger?
Keerthi is strong, but the film also lets her feel trapped and frustrated. She wants marriage, but she does not want marriage to erase the person she was before it.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Chella Ayyavu |
| Written By | Chella Ayyavu, Prince Kala |
| Starring | Vishnu Vishal, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Karunas, Munishkanth |
| Genre | Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sport |
| Released | 2022, India |
| Runtime | 2h 24m |
| Rated | UA (India) |
| Language | Tamil |
| IMDb Rating | 6.5/10 |
| Where to Watch | Netflix, JioHotstar, VI Movies and TV |
Why It Matters for Women: Keerthi’s story shows what happens when women are expected to hide their talents to look like the “right” kind of wife. Her strength is not the problem. The expectations around her are.
Life Lesson: A healthy relationship should not require you to hide the strongest parts of yourself.
8. Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016)
Lipstick Under My Burkha follows four women living in Bhopal who secretly want lives different from the ones society has planned for them.
Usha is an older widow who still has romantic and sexual desires. Shireen is a wife dealing with an unhappy marriage while secretly working as a salesperson. Leela wants passion and control over her future. Rehana is a college student who wants to enjoy music, clothes, and youth outside the strict limits of her family.
None of them behaves perfectly. They hide things, lie, take risks, and sometimes hurt themselves or others.
The film’s point is not that every decision they make is right. It is that women have private desires, dreams, and weaknesses too, regardless of their age or marital status.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Alankrita Shrivastava |
| Written By | Alankrita Shrivastava, Gazal Dhaliwal, Suhani Kanwar |
| Starring | Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra, Plabita Borthakur |
| Genre | Drama, Dark Comedy |
| Released | 2016 festival premiere; 2017 theatrical release |
| Runtime | 1h 57m |
| Rated | A (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 6.8/10 |
| Where to Watch | Amazon Prime Video, Amazon MX Player |
Why It Matters for Women: The film refuses to say that desire belongs only to young, unmarried women. Its characters want love, sex, money, work, independence, and excitement, even when society tells them they should not.
Life Lesson: Women do not stop having dreams and desires simply because society gives them a role to play.
7. Pagglait (2021)
Sandhya becomes a widow only months after getting married. Her family expects her to be heartbroken, but there is a problem: she does not feel the grief everyone expects from her.
Instead of pretending, Sandhya slowly starts questioning her marriage, her feelings, and what she wants to do with the rest of her life.
Her reaction makes people uncomfortable because society already has an idea of how a widow is supposed to behave. Sandhya does not fit that picture.
As she learns more about her late husband and her own marriage, she begins making decisions for herself instead of allowing relatives to decide her future.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Umesh Bist |
| Written By | Umesh Bist |
| Starring | Sanya Malhotra, Ashutosh Rana, Sheeba Chaddha, Shruti Sharma |
| Genre | Comedy, Drama |
| Released | 2021, India |
| Runtime | 1h 54m |
| Rated | U/A 13+ (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 6.9/10 |
| Where to Watch | Netflix |
Why It Matters for Women: Sandhya shows that there is no single correct way for a woman to feel. She does not owe other people the emotions they expect from her.
Life Lesson: Your feelings do not become wrong just because other people do not understand them.
6. Tumhari Sulu (2017)
Sulochana, better known as Sulu, is a homemaker with a cheerful personality and a habit of entering competitions. She has not built the kind of career that her successful sisters respect, but she refuses to believe that her story is already finished.
Her life changes when she unexpectedly gets a job as a late-night radio host.
Sulu loves the confidence and independence her new work gives her, but balancing her job, marriage, child, and home becomes difficult. Her success also creates tension inside her family.
The film works because Sulu is not turned into a perfect working woman who handles everything without trouble. She gets excited, makes mistakes, struggles with responsibility, and learns as she goes.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Suresh Triveni |
| Written By | Suresh Triveni, Vijay Maurya |
| Starring | Vidya Balan, Manav Kaul, Neha Dhupia, Vijay Maurya |
| Genre | Comedy, Drama |
| Released | 2017, India |
| Runtime | 2h 20m |
| Rated | U (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 7.0/10 |
| Where to Watch | Amazon Prime Video |
Why It Matters for Women: Sulu proves that becoming a wife or mother does not end a woman’s right to discover new talents. She can care about her family and still want something that belongs only to her.
Life Lesson: You do not have to have your whole life figured out before trying something new.
5. Margarita with a Straw (2014)
Laila is a young woman with cerebral palsy who leaves India to study in New York. There, she explores independence, relationships, sexuality, and her attraction to both men and women.
What makes Margarita with a Straw especially important is that Laila is not presented only as a person with a disability who needs sympathy.
She can be loving and funny, but she can also be selfish, confused, dishonest, and hurt people close to her.
That makes her feel human.
Kalki Koechlin’s Laila is allowed to explore attraction and make romantic mistakes in a way that female characters with disabilities are rarely allowed to do on screen.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Shonali Bose, Nilesh Maniyar |
| Written By | Shonali Bose, Nilesh Maniyar, Atika Chohan |
| Starring | Kalki Koechlin, Revathi, Sayani Gupta, William Moseley |
| Genre | Drama, Romance |
| Released | 2014 festival premiere; 2015 India release |
| Runtime | 1h 40m |
| Rated | A (India) |
| Language | Hindi, English |
| IMDb Rating | 7.2/10 |
| Where to Watch | Amazon Prime Video; rent/buy on Apple TV Store |
Why It Matters for Women: Laila is allowed to be sexual, confused, independent, loving, and imperfect. Her disability is part of her life, but it is not the only thing that defines her.
Life Lesson: Everyone deserves the freedom to discover love, identity, and independence on their own terms.
4. Parched (2015)
Set in rural India, Parched follows several women whose lives are shaped by marriage, abuse, sex, poverty, and strict social rules.
Rani is a widow trying to arrange her son’s marriage. Lajjo lives with an abusive husband and struggles with infertility. Bijli works as a dancer and sex worker. Janaki is a young bride entering a system that expects women to obey.
Their lives are far from perfect, and the women themselves are not presented as perfect either.
What connects them is friendship. Through each other, they begin seeing that many of the things they have been taught to accept do not have to control the rest of their lives.
The British Council’s film database describes the story as women beginning to question traditions that keep them in servitude.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Leena Yadav |
| Written By | Leena Yadav, with additional material by Supratik Sen |
| Starring | Tannishtha Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, Surveen Chawla, Lehar Khan |
| Genre | Drama |
| Released | 2015 |
| Runtime | About 1h 58m |
| Rated | A (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 7.5/10 |
| Where to Watch | Amazon Prime Vide |
Why It Matters for Women: Parched shows how powerful female friendship can be when women are surrounded by rules designed to control them.
Life Lesson: Support from other women can give you the courage to question things you once believed you had to accept.
3. Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017)
Bitti Mishra is not interested in becoming the quiet, traditional young woman many marriage prospects expect.
She works, smokes, enjoys breakdancing, watches English films, and wants a partner who accepts her personality instead of asking her to change.
After reading a novel whose female character feels surprisingly similar to her, Bitti becomes determined to find its supposed author.
The movie eventually becomes a romantic comedy involving Chirag and Pritam, but Bitti remains important because she knows what she does not want.
She can be impulsive and sometimes easily fooled, yet she never accepts the idea that marriage requires her to become somebody else.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari |
| Written By | Nitesh Tiwari, Shreyas Jain |
| Starring | Kriti Sanon, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi, Seema Pahwa |
| Genre | Romantic Comedy, Drama |
| Released | 2017, India |
| Runtime | About 2h |
| Rated | UA (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 7.5/10 |
| Where to Watch | Amazon Prime Video, ZEE5 with ads |
Why It Matters for Women: Bitti does not believe that being “marriage material” should mean hiding her personality. She wants love, but she also wants to remain herself.
Life Lesson: The right relationship should make room for your real personality, not force you to perform a different one.
2. Haq (2025)
Inspired by the historic Shah Bano case, Haq follows Shazia Bano, whose life changes after her husband Abbas marries another woman and later stops providing financial support.
Shazia takes her fight to court.
What starts as a personal dispute becomes a much larger discussion about women’s rights, marriage, religion, maintenance, and justice.
The movie is powerful because Shazia’s strength does not appear overnight. Her journey grows from pain, family pressure, fear, anger, and the need to protect herself and her children.
Rather than simply accepting what has happened, she begins asking why she should remain silent when the consequences fall on her.
Netflix and Rotten Tomatoes both describe the movie as a courtroom story inspired by the landmark Shah Bano judgment.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Suparn Verma |
| Written By | Reshu Nath |
| Starring | Yami Gautam Dhar, Emraan Hashmi, Sheeba Chaddha, Vartika Singh |
| Genre | Legal Drama |
| Released | 2025, India |
| Runtime | About 2h 14m |
| Rated | U/A 13+ (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 7.7/10 |
| Where to Watch | Netflix |
Why It Matters for Women: Shazia’s story is about refusing to believe that asking for fairness makes a woman difficult or disobedient. She learns to speak for herself when staying quiet would be easier.
Life Lesson: Knowing your rights can change your life, especially when other people expect you to remain silent.
1. Arth (1982)
More than four decades after its release, Arth still feels surprisingly honest about women, marriage, betrayal, and self-respect.
Pooja’s life falls apart when her husband, Inder, leaves her for actress Kavita. At first, Pooja is devastated. She has built much of her life around her marriage and now has to learn how to live without it.
Kavita is also treated with unusual depth. She is the “other woman,” but the film does not reduce her to a simple villain. She experiences guilt, emotional pain, insecurity, and mental distress.
The most important part of Arth is Pooja’s journey.
Her story does not end when another man offers her love. She begins to understand that rebuilding herself may be more important than quickly entering another relationship.
| Movie Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Directed By | Mahesh Bhatt |
| Written By | Mahesh Bhatt, Sujit Sen |
| Starring | Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Smita Patil, Raj Kiran |
| Genre | Drama, Romance |
| Released | 1982, India |
| Runtime | 2h 18m |
| Rated | U (India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb Rating | 7.8/10 |
| Where to Watch | Amazon Prime Video, ZEE5 with ads |
Why It Matters for Women: Pooja’s greatest victory is not getting revenge or finding another man. It is reaching a point where she can choose herself.
Life Lesson: Losing a relationship does not mean losing your identity. Sometimes starting again helps you discover who you are without someone else.
Final Thoughts
The women in these films are not interesting because they always make the right choices.
They are interesting because they feel real.
Dolly wants more from marriage. Keerthi hides her strength to fit an idea of the perfect wife. Sandhya cannot feel the grief expected from her. Sulu discovers ambition later in life. Laila explores love and sexuality while making painful mistakes. Bitti refuses to change herself just to become easier to marry.
Then there are women like Shazia in Haq and Pooja in Arth, who discover that standing on their own can become more important than protecting relationships that have already failed them.
Together, these movies show something simple but important: women do not need to be perfect, polite, selfless, or fearless to deserve freedom.
They only need to be allowed to be human.
If you enjoy stories about women growing into their own identity, these Bollywood movies every girl should watch also explore important lessons about confidence, relationships, dreams, and becoming independent.
10 More Indian Films With Strong, Real Female Characters
- Queen – A young woman finds confidence and independence after a broken engagement.
- The Great Indian Kitchen – A wife begins questioning the unfair expectations placed on her at home.
- Thappad – A woman rethinks her marriage after a single act changes how she sees her relationship.
- Piku – An independent woman balances her own life with the responsibility of caring for her father.
- English Vinglish – A homemaker slowly rebuilds her confidence and sense of self-worth.
- Nil Battey Sannata – A determined mother refuses to let poverty limit her daughter’s future.
- Fire – Two women form a deep bond while living in unhappy marriages.
- Astitva – A married woman is forced to face old choices and questions about respect and identity.
- Dor – Two very different women find strength, friendship, and freedom through an unexpected connection.
- Secret Superstar – A teenage girl fights family pressure to follow her dream of becoming a singer.
FAQs
Some strong examples include Arth, Haq, Bareilly Ki Barfi, Parched, Margarita with a Straw, Tumhari Sulu, Pagglait, Lipstick Under My Burkha, Gatta Kusthi, and Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare.
No. These films are not just about strength. They show women who are confused, angry, emotional, hopeful, selfish, brave, scared, or uncertain. That is what makes the characters feel more real.
Arth, Haq, Tumhari Sulu, Gatta Kusthi, and Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare all look at marriage from different angles, including trust, freedom, respect, work, and personal identity.
Tumhari Sulu follows a homemaker who gets the chance to become a radio host. The film shows how work can give her confidence while also creating new challenges at home.
Many of them can be described as feminist because they focus on women’s choices, rights, identity, and freedom. However, each film tells a different kind of story, so they should not all be viewed in exactly the same way.
Flawed female characters feel more human because they are allowed to make mistakes and have mixed emotions. They also move away from the old idea that women in movies must always be perfect daughters, wives, mothers, or role models.
