When the Delhi monsoon rolls in, there's nothing better than good food, a comfy couch, and something worth watching. But if you've ever spent more time scrolling through OTT apps than actually watching anything, only to land on the same old shows again, you're not alone. Here's a recommendation that's worth your time.

All of South India grew up watching Shobana on screen. Her name deserves the same recognition up here. Two National Awards, a Padma Bhushan, and four decades of work that swings from psychological horror to slapstick comedy without ever looking like effort. Natural acting, a screen presence that hasn't aged a day, and Bharatanatyam that stops rooms. Whether you're revisiting her or meeting her for the first time, you'll understand quickly why she stays with people.

Here are five Shobana films that deserve a place on your watchlist.

1. MANICHITRATHAZHU (1993)

Ever heard someone say, "they don't make movies like this anymore"? This is the film they mean.

Fazil's psychological thriller is full of mystery, suspense, and moments that stay with you long after the credits roll. If you've watched Bhool Bhulaiyaa, you'll instantly recognise where Manjulika came from. The original is Nagavalli, and Shobana's performance is the reason the character became folklore.

As Ganga slowly gives way to Nagavalli, she is impossible to look away from. Calm, vulnerable, terrifying, she moves between them so cleanly that you stop noticing the switch, which is exactly what makes it frightening. It won her the National Award for Best Actress, and it still gives people goosebumps three decades later.

If Manjulika impressed you, wait until you meet the original.

2. THENMAVIN KOMBATH (1994)

Priyadarshan's rom-com is remembered for three things: a simple story, songs you'll be humming for days, and characters you'd happily spend a lifetime with. Two men fall for the same woman, and the film folds humour, romance, friendship and heartbreak into one lush rural landscape.

Shobana's Karthumbi is all charm and mischief and unguarded feeling. She never plays "innocent", she just is, which is much harder. The role won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Malayalam) and remains one of the standouts of her career.

3. INNALE (1990)

If Sadma wrecked you, Innale is the Malayalam film you should go looking for next. It's the kind of story that keeps unfolding in your head days after you've finished it.

Padmarajan's film follows a young woman who survives a bus accident with no memory of who she was. She builds a new life, falls in love, and then her old life comes looking for her. What the film really asks is quieter and much harder: if the memories are gone, is the love still owed?

Shobana plays her as two people at once - Maya, who is new to the world, and Gauri, who is buried somewhere underneath. It won her her first Filmfare Award, and it proves that some feelings survive well past the boundaries of memory.

4. MINNARAM (1994)

Another Priyadarshan, another Mohanlal and Shobana pairing, and a film that spends two hours making you laugh before quietly pulling the floor out from under you.

Bobby's easy, carefree life is upended when someone from his past turns up with a claim he wasn't prepared for. What follows is funny, warm, chaotic and then it isn't. The ending is one of the most talked-about gut punches in nineties Malayalam cinema.

Shobana's Neena carries the whole turn. She's charming and infuriating and, by the last reel, devastating. Go in knowing nothing else.

5. NADODIKKATTU (1987)

If you want laughter, friendship, and lines you'll be quoting for years, start here.

Sathyan Anthikad's satire follows Dasan and Vijayan, two unemployed graduates whose modest dreams keep detouring into absurdity. Written by Sreenivasan from a Siddique–Lal story, it's a comedy about joblessness that somehow gets funnier and more relatable with every passing decade — ask anyone who's finished a degree and landed nowhere.

Shobana's Radha is Dasan's colleague and neighbour, and she gives the film its steady centre. The grace and warmth she brings make an already perfect comedy feel complete.

ONE STAGE, TWO GENERATIONS: SHOBANA AT SOUTH SIDE STORY

Here's the thing about watching Shobana on a screen, you're always watching something that already happened. This August, Delhi gets the live version.

Shobana returns to South Side Story, Red FM's South Indian culture festival at KD Jadhav Wrestling Stadium. Last year she performed in North India for the first time, folding Bharatanatyam into the cinema that made her famous. The same face that became Nagavalli, now telling stories in mudras.

And on the same lineup, a few sets away: Aksomaniac.

If the name is new, remember it. Aksomaniac is Aron Kollassani Selestin, a twenty-something from Trivandrum who paused an engineering degree, signed with Def Jam India, and turned Malayalam R&B into something people in Delhi hum without knowing a word of it. His track Amsham has crossed nine million streams on Spotify. His EP Varthamanam takes on colourism, intimacy and identity in a language most of this country doesn't speak and still gets through.

Now here's the part worth sitting with. Shobana was born in Trivandrum too. Both of them were handed classical training as children: she trained in Bharatanatyam under Chitra Visweswaran and Padma Subrahmanyam, with the Travancore sisters in her own family tree. He was enrolled in a Carnatic vocal class at six, where, by his own cheerful admission, he mostly fell asleep. One built a life out of that discipline. The other ran from it, and found his way back through a piano and a laptop in a rented Mumbai flat.

Same city. Same stage. One speaks in mudras, the other in bars, and both of them are speaking Malayalam.

That's the whole idea behind South Side Story. The South isn't a museum exhibit you visit politely once a year. It's a living thing; with a Sadhya, a Mridangam, and a bass line.

The details: South Side Story 2026, KD Jadhav Wrestling Stadium, Delhi, on 22 and 23 August, with a first-ever Pune edition on 29 August. Also on the bill: Thaikkudam Bridge, Karthik, The Raghu Dixit Project, Masala Coffee, Sooraj Santhosh, Arya Dhayal and Baby Jean, plus a twenty-dish Onam Sadhya, which is arguably reason enough on its own.

These films aren't just classics. They're little pieces of memory. The emotions, the characters, the songs, the moments; they stay with us for years. That's the beauty of them. They don't only entertain you; they make you feel something every single time you come back.
Which Shobana film are you watching this weekend?