From ‘Kantara’ to ‘Tanvi the Great’, 4 Indian Films Enter the Oscars Best Picture Race

There is a particular kind of thrill that film lovers know well. You are scrolling, half-distracted, and then a title you recognise shows up in a place you did not expect. You pause. You read it again. You send it to a friend with a message that says, “Look!”

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That moment arrived in early January 2026, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences published its Best Picture reminder list for the 98th Academy Awards. These are films that are eligible for Best Picture consideration this year. And on that list, four Indian titles stand out: Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1, Mahavatar Narsimha, Tanvi the Great, and Tourist Family.

Eligibility is the doorway, not the finish line. From here, the season moves through nomination voting (12 to 16 January 2026), the nominations announcement (22 January 2026), and the Oscars ceremony on 15 March 2026.

So what do these four films bring to the table? 

A forest, a feud, and folklore on a giant canvas: Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1

Set in coastal Karnataka, Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1expands the world that many viewers first met in Kantara (2022). It is a prequel, which means it travels backwards into origin stories, old conflicts, and the forces that shaped what came later.

Directed by Rishab Shetty, the film leans into region-rooted storytelling, with landscape and tradition doing far more than serving as backdrop. It carries the texture of folk memory, and it places people inside it, with all the weight, pride, fear, and loyalty that comes with inherited histories.

For Indian audiences, that familiarity can feel deeply personal. For global audiences, it offers a clear invitation: step into a world shaped by place, and let the story show you how people belong to it.

When animation becomes epic cinema: Mahavatar Narsimha

Indian animation has often fought for space in mainstream conversation. Mahavatar Narsimha arrives with a different energy: large-scale, mythological, and built for the big screen.

Directed by Ashwin Kumar, the film had its world premiere at the International Film Festival of India in November 2024. It later released theatrically on 25 July 2025.

Its story draws from widely known mythic arcs, bringing forward the avatars Varaha and Narasimha and the moral universe that surrounds them. For many families, these stories are part of childhood, told in snatches at home, in comics, in television reruns, in bedtime retellings.

Seeing them rendered through animation, with cinematic ambition, can feel like a bridge between generations. It also signals something practical: Indian animation can aim for scale, craft, and global visibility, while staying rooted in stories many Indians have carried for years.

A young woman’s inner compass: Tanvi the Great

Some films win you over through spectacle. Others do it through tenderness and grit.

Tanvi the Great, directed by Anupam Kher, released in theatres across India on 18 July 2025. The film follows Tanvi, a young woman on the autism spectrum, as she pursues a goal tied to her late father’s dream connected to Siachen.

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At its heart, the story asks the viewer to stay with Tanvi’s perspective. It invites patience. It asks you to notice how often the world decides what someone can or cannot do, and how powerful it is when a person charts their own path anyway.

For families who have lived around disability, judgment, and everyday negotiating, a film like this can feel like recognition. For everyone else, it offers an honest nudge towards empathy that comes from attention, not from speeches.

A family arrives, a neighbourhood changes: Tourist Family

Tourist Familyis a Tamil-language comedy drama written and directed by Abishan Jeevinth. It released theatrically on 1 May 2025.

The plot follows a Sri Lankan Tamil family that comes to India after the Sri Lankan economic crisis, searching for a better future. And then it does something quietly radical for a film with humour: it treats belonging as something built in small acts.

A shared meal. A neighbour who checks in. A conversation at the kirana (local grocery shop). A community that starts off distant, and then begins to soften, one interaction at a time.

Stories about migration often swing between trauma and heroism. Tourist Family makes room for everyday warmth, awkwardness, and human connection. That is a kind of value too, because it shows what solidarity looks like when nobody is making a speech about it.

Why this matters, even before nominations

Seeing these four titles on the Best Picture reminder list means Indian cinema is showing up with range: folklore, animation, intimate drama, and community-centred storytelling, all in the same frame.

If you are wondering what you can do with this information as a viewer, here is the simplest answer: watch them, talk about them, and recommend them with specifics. Tell someone what stayed with you, a scene, a performance beat, a moment of recognition. That kind of attention travels.

And sometimes, that is where the biggest journeys begin.