Veteran lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar has voiced concern over what he perceives as a creative decline in contemporary Hindi cinema. In a recent interview with, Javed Akhtar expressed disappointment with the shallow storytelling he sees dominating Bollywood today. He observed that the emphasis has shifted heavily toward action, at the cost of nuanced, three-dimensional characters.
In contrast, he pointed to the growing success of South Indian cinema, crediting its cultural specificity and rooted storytelling for its resonance with audiences. According to Akhtar, one of the main reasons South Indian films are thriving is because their creators continue to live and work in the same regions they were raised in—be it Tamil Nadu, Kerala, or Andhra Pradesh. “These filmmakers are speaking to their own people,” he said, noting that their narratives are more focused and grounded.
On the other hand, he said, many Bollywood filmmakers are second-generation migrants whose parents moved to Mumbai from places like Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan. This migration, Javed Akhtar explained, caused a disconnect from their cultural origins. “They dream in English,” he remarked, emphasizing that growing up in Mumbai’s cosmopolitan environment has distanced them from the traditional stories and settings that once enriched Hindi cinema. He also noted that despite this generalization, there are exceptions films like Udaan, directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, manage to remain emotionally grounded even though the filmmaker is Mumbai-born.
Akhtar’s concerns echo similar critiques made by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who has also blamed Bollywood’s creative stagnation on a generation of decision-makers who are disconnected from real-life experiences. Anurag Kashyap referred to this as the “trial room effect,” where films are conceptualised based on cinematic references rather than lived realities leading to misguided attempts like Thugs of Hindostan or Shamshera, which try to emulate Hollywood spectacles without authentic grounding.
Akhtar, whose collaborations with Salim Khan in the 1970s gave rise to the influential Angry Young Man genre, remains a pivotal voice in Indian cinema. He notes with irony that even South Indian blockbusters like KGF and Pushpa draw inspiration from the very style that Bollywood now seems to have drifted away from.