Maa Inti Bangaaram (2026)

Take every action movie where a quiet person with a past finally snaps, then drop it into a 1990s household full of in-laws to impress. That’s Maa Inti Bangaaram, and it doesn’t pretend the formula is new. You’ll clock Swarna’s secret long before the film admits it, because she handles trouble way too smoothly for a newlywed who just wants the relatives to like her. What makes it work is Samantha Ruth Prabhu, who also produced it. She plays Swarna as genuinely vulnerable and genuinely dangerous, and the switch between the two is the fun of the whole thing. Gulshan Devaiah’s Karuna, the man from her old life who comes looking for her, gives the back half a real threat. The title means the gold of our home, and the film earns that sweetness. It runs 154 minutes, a long stretch of domestic life before the action kicks in. A 6.8 because the template is familiar and the star reshapes it. $75.46 says you look at your sweetest aunt a little differently at the next family wedding.

What works: Samantha Ruth Prabhu is terrific as a woman who is soft and formidable at once, and the film builds its action around her instead of a male hero.

What doesn’t: The story follows a very familiar hidden-past template, and the long domestic first half makes the reveal easy to guess well before it arrives.

Who it’s for: Samantha’s fans and anyone who enjoys a family drama that turns into an action movie.