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2025’s Most Memorable Performances Whispered — & Are Still Echoing

These performances didn’t rely on spectacle or box-office clout. They earned their power through risk, restraint, and emotional afterlife.

Swetha+Ramakrishnan

Jan 06, 2026

Not every great performance comes with a campaign. These actors proved that, and more.

AS THE AWARDS SEASON rolls around once again, with critics’ lists, nominations, and precursors beginning to crowd our timelines, it feels like the right moment to pause and look back before rushing ahead. Even as a new year of performances jostles for attention, we’re still carrying the afterglow of some remarkable work from 2025 — performances that didn’t rely on spectacle or scale, but lingered quietly, shaping how we remember the year that was. If the coming months promise fresh contenders and new favourites, this feels like a fitting time to acknowledge the ones that stayed with us long after the credits rolled — and to hope that the year ahead delivers work just as resonant, if not more.

The most noteworthy performances of 2025 didn’t announce their arrival with fireworks or box-office-shattering weekends. With silence, risks and big bets, the best performances of 2025 shone without aggressive marketing, promising to stay with viewers beyond release windows. Bollywood continues to measure success by numbers — whether box office or clicks/impressions — but in terms of cultural impact, there were several wonderful performances in 2025.

MONICA PANWAR | Khauf

Smita Singh’s Khauf remains one of the most enthralling and thought-provoking horror series to come out of the Indian entertainment landscape this year, and potentially ever. A unique series that blends genuinely scary horror tropes with a cerebral theme about the (very real) gaslighting, patriarchy and trauma that women in Delhi face. Monica Panwar as Madhu hammers home this duality: her performance is both scary and forces you to think. Every time she encounters a shady man, the way her body tenses up feels all too real. She’s also able to show us extreme vulnerability and extreme strength in a matter of a few episodes, which is one of the winning qualities of her performance.

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VIPIN SHARMA | Dhadak 2

Vipin Sharma’s restraint as an actor is what made his character in Shazia Iqbal’s Dhadak 2 so memorable. It’s almost impossible to imagine the actor who played Darsheel Zafary’s father in Taare Zameen Par playing a man who enjoys being a nautch dancer. The scene where he speaks to his son, played by Siddhant Chaturvedi, about owning your identity and desire, is etched in my memory ever since I first saw it. What stands out to me about that scene, and by extension his performance, is how he addresses his son’s shame at the fact that his father dances in women’s clothing for a living. “Mujhe pasand hai (I enjoy it),” is what Sharma says, nonchalantly expressing something that should be so simple but has so many contextual repercussions in today’s society. He’s a man, and he likes to dance. To me, this is perhaps the best male performance of the year.

VISHAL JETHWA | Homebound

It’s easy to get enamoured by Vishal Jethwa’s eyes in all his performances (not just because they’re lighter but because they’re also very expressive), but in Homebound Jethwa performs with body language. In every scene where he masquerades as an upper-class man, not just to land his dream job but also to survive in a wildly casteist society, his body language does all the acting. His ability to hold charm, innocence and depth in all his performances makes him an actor to watch out for. He’s been a part of many multi-starrer projects since the beginning of his career, whether it’s Mardaani or now Homebound, but he stands out.

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ADARSH GOURAV | Superboys of Malegaon

There’s something about Adarsh Gourav. His simplicity makes every scene he’s in consistently good, and I don’t think he’s ever delivered a bad performance. In Superboys of Malegaon a film about small-town dreams and a celebration of cinema, Gourav stands out among a myriad of talented performers, including Shashank Arora, Vineet Kumar and Muskaan Jaferi, among others. Inspired by a 2012 documentary, the film follows young boys from a small town called Malegaon in Maharashtra who make their first superhero movie with budget constraints but stars in their eyes. This Reema Kagti-directorial sees Gourav as the protagonist, Nasir Sheikh, the heart and soul of the ambitious group, acting with his eyes and delivering a heart-warming act that stays with you for many weeks after.

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SANYA MALHOTRA | Mrs

2025 was Sanya Malhotra’s year. She had a stellar performance in the inspiring Mrs; she launched a matcha brand and overshadowed most of her ensemble cast in a massive mainstream film. In Mrs Malhotra performs with restraint, letting her silence do a lot of the talking. As if the film’s subject matter isn’t infuriating enough—a story of a woman who marries into an extremely patriarchal family and is forced to be confined to the kitchen for most of the day — Malhotra’s unostentatious act as a woman trapped is the cherry on the cake. There was a common opinion that the Malayalam original, The Great Indian Kitchen directed by Joe Baby, was a subtler and more impactful film that conveyed its politics with nuance. Arati Kadav’s remake employs an on-the-nose telling of the story, but suffice to say that Sanya Malhotra is the best thing about it.

WATCH | Mrs is streaming on ZEE5, available with your OTTplay Premium subscription. Click here to stream.