At the top of her game today, Deepika Padukone is so potent in Tamasha, it’s almost as if you can hear her heartbeat across the screen.

One must possess a heightened degree of sensitivity to understand and express the nuances of her Tara as she graduates from being inspired to becoming the inspiration.

Except the agony she endures before its realisation within Ranbir Kapoor, like the café outburst scene wherein Deepika lays her heart and soul bare, brutally bare, is devastating to say the least.

Watching her so utterly heartbroken felt personal, it left me choked and physically drained.

Essaying a character defined by physical disabilities is always a tricky deal.

Perceived as designed for attention, it’s hard to shake off even the tiniest hint of manipulation. But Kalki Koechlin overcomes such obstacles with sparkling honesty as the inspiring young woman refusing to let her medical condition limit her potential or supress her desire.

Kalki gets the tone and language of her Laila perfectly. That her performance doesn’t feel like one is her biggest accomplishment.

It’s always heartening to see an actress get out of her comfort zone.

Anushka Sharma plays out every urban Indian woman’s worst nightmare with relatable anxiety living out the worst day of her life in home production, NH10.

Truly remarkable to see her grit evolve out of a character constantly changing its emotional pace from dread to desperation. Even though the climax is too contrived for my liking, Anushka’s deadpan revenge hits hard.

Nothing in Badlapur is simple but few can boast of the complexity that is Radhika Apte’s Kanchan.

Even an established actress would have a hard time bringing out the dilemma and distress of a wife finding out the horrid truth about her husband yet agreeing to a disturbing degree of torture to protect him as faultlessly as Apte does.

Badlapur might not be about Apte but her intensely big eyes and spectacular guts are my second big takeaway from Sriram Raghavan’s vendetta drama.

Brimming with passion and grace, Priyanka embodies the heart in Bajirao Mastani.

Even though she’s neither in the title nor the focus of an epic romance, what she lends to Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s visual extravaganza elevates it into something more than a thing of beauty.

There’s a scene where she humiliates Deepika Padukone’s Mastani in the unkindest of words. What is in design a typical Bollywood face-off is transformed into the conflict of woman, unable to hide her hurt yet unwilling to stay mean-spirited, only because Priyanka mocks it, moulds it, owns it.

Hers is the most realised characterisation—one of a wife nursing her wounded pride owing to her husband’s affair, a daughter-in-law sharing a loving bond with her protective mother-in-law, a mother troubled by her son’s growing resentment for his father and a diplomat who’ll fulfil her moral duties at the expense of her heart.

Dum Laga Ke Haisha relies heavily on newcomer Bhumi Pednekar to work.

Hers is not some random overweight girl ridiculed in the first half and gets a sizzling makeover in the second. No, she’s real, full of attitude and won’t take things lying down.

That we’ll root for Bhumi’s ballsy, thick-skinned avatar is expected but she’s equally persuasive when her guard goes down.

Hard to believe it’s only her first movie. She is absolutely delightful whether talking back to her acerbic aunt-in-law (a terrific, terrific Sheeba Chhaddha), seducing/slapping her cantankerous, inferior husband or inspiring admiration through her tremendous display of magnanimity.

Double roles in Hindi movies are not so much about personality as they’re about differences. But Tanu and Datto are no chalk and cheese twins, they’re both feisty yet unique. And Kangana Ranaut is superlative as both.

She disappears in the skin of a Haryanvi-rattling athlete; the straightforward, socially awkward Datto and demands your attention as Tanu the drama queen, sometimes drunk and almost never sober.

It’s impossible to pick a favourite between these rollicking ladies.

Shweta Tripathi plays sunshine oblivious to the grim contemplations of Masaan.

Don't take her for your average chirpy. The tenderness in Tripathi’s unfeigned understanding of youth unfazed by social pressures is extraordinary as is her romanticized view of a life full of poetry, possibilities and dreams.

Shweta’s subtlety and sweetness has such a lasting impact, it’s plain unbearable to discover what it leads up to.

As the obvious conformist in her girl gang, Pavleen Gujral’s Pammi invites judgement every single time she outrages over her friend’s unorthodox choices.

It’s a dangerously caricature territory but Pavleen sprinkles her in humour and vulnerability by concentrating on the mischief, masti and nostalgia.

She conceals a storm beneath her resigned approach and incessant smile and is, ultimately, looking for inspiration and emancipation. Pavleen underplays this life-changing realisation and emerges the strongest of them all.

Raw. So raw, this Shivani Raghuvanshi. There’s no artifice to her performance as a woman caught between deceit and crime. Often her hopeless naiveté is far more effective than Shashank Arora’s gloomy-faced Titli.

This is a brave debut, whether she’s peeing in her pants at the sight of cold-blooded murder or volunteering an arm to be struck by a hammer in a desperate bid to get back with her boyfriend.

“Don’t do it”, she still pleads in a broken voice. You feel her pain.