NitesTV

How NitesTV works

The page is near black, with red for everything that can be pressed. The crescent moon of the logo stands at the left of the header, the menu beside it, the search box at the right. The menu reads Home, Hollywood Movies, Bollywood Movies, Latest, Top Rated, Christmas and A-Z.

The home page opens with one large still. Beside it are the film's title, its score, year and length, the opening of its summary and three lines naming the director, the genres and the leading cast, with a red button to open the film. Four smaller stills follow, then rows of posters under the headings Hollywood Movies, Bollywood Movies, Latest and Christmas. Each poster carries its year on a red tab and its score in a corner. A strip named Browse lists twelve further collections with their counts.

A film page sets out the same facts in full, with the complete cast and their roles. A selector beside the Watch now button offers sixteen countries, among them India, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Malaysia; choose one, press the button, and JustWatch lists the subscription, rental, purchase and free services that carry the film there. Finding a film explains the search box and the lists.

The featured stills

The large still at present belongs to Crazy Rich Asians, the romantic comedy of 2018 in which Rachel Chu, an economics professor from New York, travels to Singapore for a wedding and learns that her boyfriend's family is among the wealthiest on the island. Jon M. Chu directed it, and Michelle Yeoh, as the formidable mother, turns a game of mahjong into the best scene in the film.

The four stills beside it set the two industries side by side. 3 Idiots is the most loved Hindi film of its generation, a comedy about three friends at an engineering college and the teacher who believes education is a race. CODA won the Academy Award for best picture with the story of Ruby, the only hearing member of a deaf fishing family, who discovers that she can sing. Barfi! is a romance set in the hill town of Darjeeling whose hero, played by Ranbir Kapoor, is deaf and mute and charms everyone he meets. Jungle Cruise sends Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt up the Amazon in a leaking boat.

The row is a fair sample: a romance, a campus comedy, a family drama, a fable and an adventure, from two continents.

Hollywood Movies

The Hollywood list has 120 films from 2018 to 2026. Its adventures are large and good-humoured. Jumanji: The Next Level, the most watched film in the guide, returns its players to the video game jungle with two grandfathers in the wrong bodies. The Fall Guy is a love letter to stunt performers, with Ryan Gosling as a stuntman drawn back to work on his former girlfriend's first film as director. Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Dolittle are for younger explorers.

The list is strong in the kind of drama that wins prizes and keeps its warmth. King Richard brought Will Smith an Academy Award as the father who planned the careers of Venus and Serena Williams before they could hold a racket. Belfast is Kenneth Branagh's memory of his own childhood street in 1969. Past Lives follows two childhood friends from Seoul who meet again in New York after twenty-four years, and The Peanut Butter Falcon sets a young man with Down syndrome and a troubled fisherman adrift on a raft in the American South.

Teen romance had a remarkable run in these years, much of it made for streaming. To All the Boys I've Loved Before begins when a shy girl's private love letters are posted, and its two sequels follow her to the end of school. The Kissing Booth and its sequels, The Perfect Date, Tall Girl and Stargirl belong to the same family. The Hollywood guide sorts the list by kind.

Bollywood Movies

The Bollywood list holds seventy Hindi films, and a newcomer could hardly ask for a better introduction. It begins with the modern classics. 3 Idiots, directed by Rajkumar Hirani, runs for 171 minutes and has made audiences laugh and cry in dozens of countries; its hero's motto, that all is well, became a saying. Like Stars on Earth, directed by Aamir Khan, is about an eight-year-old boy whose trouble with letters is mistaken for laziness until an art teacher recognises dyslexia. Both films score 8.0.

Chak De! India gives Shah Rukh Khan one of his finest parts, as a disgraced hockey player who coaches the national women's team and must first persuade sixteen players from sixteen regions to think of themselves as one side. English Vinglish brought the great Sridevi back to the screen as a homemaker who secretly enrols in a language class in New York. Queen sends a young woman from Delhi on her honeymoon alone after her wedding is called off, and Paris and Amsterdam do the rest.

The romances are generous. In Jab We Met a heartbroken businessman boards a train and finds himself beside the most talkative girl in Punjab. Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani follows four friends from a trek in the Himalayas to a wedding eight years later. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi has a shy clerk win his own wife's heart in disguise, and Tamasha begins on the island of Corsica with two strangers who agree to tell each other only lies. The Bollywood guide offers a way in.

Small-town Bollywood

Some of the best Hindi films of the last decade left the big cities for the provinces, and the list follows them. Dum Laga Ke Haisha is set in the pilgrim town of Haridwar in 1995, where a young man who runs a cassette shop is married to a woman he thinks too large, and the two discover each other during a race in which husbands carry their wives. Bareilly Ki Barfi is a comedy of mistaken authorship in a town in Uttar Pradesh, and Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana and Badrinath Ki Dulhania look at marriage and ambition from the same part of the country.

Others find comedy in everyday struggles. Hindi Medium, with the late Irrfan Khan, follows a prosperous Delhi shopkeeper and his wife as they try every trick to get their daughter into an English-language school. Khosla Ka Ghosla! is about a retired man whose plot of land is seized by a swindler and the family that stages an elaborate play to win it back. Sui Dhaaga - Made in India has a tailor and his wife start a business with one sewing machine, and Love per Square Foot is about two bank employees in Mumbai who agree to marry so that they can afford a flat.

Newton deserves a line of its own: a comedy about an earnest government clerk sent to run a polling station for seventy-six voters in a remote forest, determined to do the job by the book.

Latest

The Latest row and list hold the eighteen films dated from 2024 to 2026. From 2024 come The Fall Guy, IF, in which a girl discovers she can see the imaginary friends that other children have outgrown, Paddington in Peru, Arthur the King, the true story of an adventure racer and the stray dog that joined his team, and A Complete Unknown, with Timothée Chalamet as the young Bob Dylan.

The films of 2025 include Freakier Friday, which reunites Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan for another exchange of bodies, Good Fortune, The Life List, Jay Kelly and the Hindi romances Saiyaara and Dhoom Dhaam. One title dated 2026, Voicemails for Isabelle, is already listed, and its page carries the cast and score as they are recorded. The latest guide sets the list out by year.

Christmas

The fourth row on the home page belongs to Christmas, sixteen films that make December easy to plan. The Christmas Chronicles and its sequel cast Kurt Russell as a Santa Claus with a sense of humour and a singing voice. Noelle gives Santa a daughter, played by Anna Kendrick, who must fetch her runaway brother back to the North Pole. A Boy Called Christmas tells how the legend began, and Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is a musical about a toymaker and his inventive granddaughter.

The romances are a tradition of their own. Love Hard sends a writer across America to surprise a man she met online. The Knight Before Christmas drops a medieval knight into modern Ohio. Falling for Christmas stars Lindsay Lohan as an heiress who loses her memory at a ski lodge, and the two Christmas Prince films, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby, continue a royal fairy tale. Holiday in the Wild spends the season at an elephant sanctuary in Zambia.

For families there are 8-Bit Christmas, about a boy in the 1980s who wants a games console above all things, Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy, Home Sweet Home Alone and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. The Christmas guide groups all sixteen.

Top rated

The Top Rated link opens the twenty-three films that score 7.5 or higher from at least a hundred ratings. The newest entry, Voicemails for Isabelle, stands first at 8.3 in its early months. Togo and The Art of Racing in the Rain follow at 8.1, both stories about dogs: the first a sled dog who led the hardest stretch of a famous relay across Alaska in 1925, the second a family pet who narrates the life of his racing-driver owner.

Three films share 8.0, 3 Idiots, Like Stars on Earth and Flamin' Hot, the story of a factory cleaner who pitched a spicy snack to his employers. At 7.9 stand CODA, 12th Fail and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. The list continues with Words on Bathroom Walls, Chhichhore, Past Lives, Barfi!, Hichki, King Richard and tick, tick... BOOM!.

Six of the twenty-three are Hindi films, and nearly half are true stories. A viewer who wants to be sure of an evening can simply start at the top. The top rated page gives the order.

True stories

Twenty-four films in the guide are drawn from real lives, and they come from both industries. Music supplies three: Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, with Austin Butler as the singer and Tom Hanks as his manager, A Complete Unknown, and tick, tick... BOOM!, Lin-Manuel Miranda's film about the composer Jonathan Larson in the week before his thirtieth birthday. Maria imagines the last days of the soprano Maria Callas, and Stan & Ollie follows Laurel and Hardy on a final tour of British theatres.

Sport and business provide another group. King Richard is about tennis, and Air about the shoe contract that changed basketball, told from inside the offices of a sportswear company in 1984. M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, the longest film in the guide at 190 minutes, follows a railway ticket inspector from a small city who became captain of India's cricket team. Mary Kom stars Priyanka Chopra as the boxer from Manipur who won world titles after becoming a mother.

The stories of determination are the most affecting. In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind a thirteen-year-old in Malawi builds a windmill from scrap to bring water to his village. A Million Miles Away follows a farm worker's son who was turned down by the astronaut programme eleven times before he was accepted. Super 30 is about a mathematics teacher in Patna who coaches thirty poor students a year for the hardest entrance examination in India, 12th Fail about a young man from a village who sets out to pass the civil service examination, and Mission Mangal about the scientists who sent an Indian spacecraft to Mars. The true stories guide arranges the list by field.

Comedy

Comedy is the largest list in the Browse strip, with 126 films. Hollywood's share includes Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, in which two hopeful Icelanders reach the world's most exuberant song competition, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Uncle Drew, Life of the Party and Jerry & Marge Go Large, the true story of a retired couple who found a flaw in a state lottery and shared the winnings with their town.

Bollywood comedy has several flavours. Phir Hera Pheri is broad farce with three bumbling friends and a scheme to double their money. Jolly LLB is a courtroom satire about a small-time lawyer who takes on a celebrated one. Tanu Weds Manu and Tanu Weds Manu: Returns are comedies of marriage, the second with Kangana Ranaut in two parts. Piku is the gentlest of them: a road trip from Delhi to Kolkata with a devoted daughter, her impossible father, played by Amitabh Bachchan, and the owner of the taxi company at the wheel.

The family comedies cross both lists: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Home Team, Disenchanted and Bhoothnath Returns, in which a friendly ghost stands for election. The comedy guide sets the list out by flavour.

Drama and romance

The drama list has 110 films and the romance list ninety-two. Among the dramas, Udaan stands out: a seventeen-year-old sent home from boarding school to an industrial town must live with a harsh father he barely knows, and holds on to his wish to write. Kapoor & Sons gathers a quarrelsome family for a grandfather's ninetieth birthday. Dear Zindagi sends a restless young cinematographer to an unconventional therapist in Goa, and October is a quiet story of devotion.

The Hollywood romances are mostly light. Love at First Sight begins with a missed flight, Upgraded with a seat in first class, Your Place or Mine with an exchange of homes, and Love Wedding Repeat with a seating plan. Persuasion and The Personal History of David Copperfield bring Jane Austen and Charles Dickens up to date with lively casts.

Bollywood romance ranges from the youthful Band Baaja Baaraat, about two friends who start a wedding planning business in Delhi, and 2 States, about a Punjabi boy and a Tamil girl who must win over both sets of parents, to the lyrical Lootera, set in Bengal in the 1950s. The drama and romance guide covers both lists.

Family

Thirty-six films are listed for the whole family. Several bring back old friends. Mary Poppins Returns sends the nanny, now played by Emily Blunt, to the grown-up Banks children. Christopher Robin finds the boy from the Hundred Acre Wood as an overworked adult, visited by a bear who has lost his friends. Paddington in Peru takes the Brown family to the bear's homeland, and Dumbo, directed by Tim Burton, retells the story of the flying elephant with living actors.

Animal stories are as dependable as ever. Togo and A Dog's Way Home are for dog lovers, The One and Only Ivan is about a gorilla who paints, and Arthur the King about a stray who ran with athletes. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile gives a New York family a singing reptile in the attic.

From India come Like Stars on Earth, which every parent and teacher should see, Bhoothnath Returns, and Ta Ra Rum Pum, about a racing driver's family who turn hard times into a game for the sake of their children. Paa is a touching curiosity: Amitabh Bachchan, then in his sixties, plays a schoolboy with a rare condition that ages him early, and his real son plays the boy's father. The family guide sorts the list by subject.

Adventure

The adventure list has forty-seven films and takes in fantasy and science fiction. The jungle is its favourite place: Jumanji: The Next Level, Jungle Cruise and Dora and the Lost City of Gold all go looking for treasure among the trees. A Wrinkle in Time crosses the universe to find a missing father, Slumberland travels through dreams, and TRON: Ares steps between a computer world and ours.

Gentler fantasies include IF, Disenchanted, The King's Daughter and Good Fortune. Bill & Ted Face the Music sends its two heroes through time in search of a song that will save the world, with their daughters assembling the band.

The Hindi adventures are spectacles. Mohenjo Daro is set in one of the world's first cities, four thousand years ago. Aladin moves the tale of the lamp to a modern college town with Amitabh Bachchan as the genie, and Chandni Chowk to China sends a Delhi cook to the Great Wall, convinced he is a reborn warrior. The adventure guide lists them by kind.

Music

The music list is short, thirteen films, though music is everywhere in the guide, since nearly every Bollywood film has songs. The list itself gathers the films in which music is the subject. Elvis, A Complete Unknown and Maria are portraits of three very different singers. tick, tick... BOOM! and CODA are about young people deciding whether to give their lives to music, and The High Note is set among the assistants and producers of a Los Angeles recording star.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is a comedy with songs good enough to be nominated for an Academy Award. Work It and Feel the Beat are dance films for a young audience, and Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is a full musical. Saiyaara represents Hindi cinema with a romance between a singer and a writer of songs. Rock On!!, about four friends who reunite the band of their youth, is filed under drama and belongs here in spirit. The music guide groups the list.

The five year lists

The catalogue is also sorted by date. The newest list, 2024 to 2026, holds eighteen films. The list for 2021 to 2023 holds forty-five, among them CODA, King Richard, Belfast, Elvis, Past Lives, Air and 12th Fail. The list for 2018 to 2020 is the largest with seventy: Crazy Rich Asians, Mary Poppins Returns, Jumanji: The Next Level, Togo, Hichki, Chhichhore and Super 30 all belong to it.

Two older lists hold Bollywood alone, since the Hollywood side begins in 2018. The list for 2013 to 2017 has thirty-one films, from Queen, Piku and Dear Zindagi to Hindi Medium and Newton. The list for 2006 to 2012 has twenty-six, and it contains the films that made the modern reputation of Hindi cinema abroad: 3 Idiots, Like Stars on Earth, Chak De! India, Jab We Met, Barfi! and English Vinglish. The years page links to all five.

Bollywood stars to follow

Hindi cinema is built around its stars, and the search box makes it easy to follow one. Ranbir Kapoor appears in eight films in the guide, more than anyone: the silent charmer of Barfi!, the idler who grows up in Wake Up Sid, the salesman with principles in Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, and the leads of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Tamasha, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani and Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar.

Shah Rukh Khan, the best-known Indian actor in the world, has six: Chak De! India, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Chennai Express, Dear Zindagi, Jab Harry Met Sejal and Zero. Anushka Sharma, who made her first appearance opposite him in 2008, is in seven, including Band Baaja Baaraat, Sultan and Sui Dhaaga - Made in India. Deepika Padukone leads Piku, Chennai Express and Tamasha, and Alia Bhatt Dear Zindagi, 2 States and Badrinath Ki Dulhania.

Aamir Khan is in only two films here, but they are the two at the top: 3 Idiots and Like Stars on Earth. Rajkummar Rao, a favourite of the newer cinema, appears in Newton, Queen, Kai Po Che! and Bareilly Ki Barfi, and Ayushmann Khurrana in Dum Laga Ke Haisha and Bareilly Ki Barfi. Amitabh Bachchan, whose career spans more than fifty years, turns up as a father, a genie, a ghost and a child.

Directors on both sides

Several directors are worth a search. Imtiaz Ali made Jab We Met, Tamasha and Jab Harry Met Sejal, three romances about journeys. Shoojit Sircar directed the very different Piku and October. Gauri Shinde made English Vinglish and Dear Zindagi, both about women finding their own voices, and Zoya Akhtar set Dil Dhadakne Do aboard a cruise ship with a wealthy family and a narrating dog. Ayan Mukerji made Wake Up Sid and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani before he was thirty.

On the Hollywood side, Jon M. Chu directed both Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights, a musical set over three hot days in a New York neighbourhood. Kenneth Branagh made Belfast. Tim Burton made Dumbo, Rob Marshall Mary Poppins Returns, and Gurinder Chadha Blinded by the Light, about a British teenager of Pakistani family in 1987 who hears the songs of Bruce Springsteen and feels understood for the first time.

Hollywood faces

A few Hollywood performers recur across the list. Emily Blunt is in Mary Poppins Returns, Jungle Cruise and The Fall Guy. Dwayne Johnson leads Jumanji: The Next Level and Jungle Cruise. Lindsay Lohan returned to the screen with Falling for Christmas, Irish Wish, Our Little Secret and Freakier Friday. Lana Condor and Noah Centineo carry the three To All the Boys films, and Centineo is also in The Perfect Date.

Older stars have some of the best parts. Kurt Russell is Santa twice. Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening are the lottery couple of Jerry & Marge Go Large. Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly disappear into Laurel and Hardy. Maggie Smith makes her farewell as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey and Downton Abbey: A New Era, the two films that continued the television series.

Songs, intervals and length

Viewers new to Bollywood sometimes ask why the films are so long and why the characters sing. The answer is that a Hindi film is traditionally a complete evening. It is made to be shown with an interval, and the story is built in two halves, the first usually lighter than the second. The songs are part of the storytelling: a feeling too large for dialogue is given a melody, a change of scenery and often a dance.

The films in this guide show the tradition at its most approachable. Jab We Met and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani have songs that audiences still sing at weddings. Chak De! India has an anthem that is played at real sporting events. 3 Idiots stops for a number about the pressure of examinations, staged in a college shower room, and Barfi! uses music almost as a silent film would, since its hero is mute.

The shorter films are a good place to begin if time is limited: Newton runs for 106 minutes, October for 109, Dum Laga Ke Haisha for 111 and Hichki, with Rani Mukerji as a teacher who has Tourette syndrome, for 116.

Choosing by the time you have

The length of a film is printed beside its year on every page, and on NitesTV it matters more than usual, since the two industries keep different clocks. The Hollywood list is mostly made of films between ninety minutes and two hours. The shortest are the Christmas romances, several of which finish in eighty-five minutes, and comedies such as An American Pickle at eighty-nine.

The Bollywood list starts where Hollywood ends. A typical Hindi film here runs between two hours ten and two hours forty. 3 Idiots and Sultan both pass 170 minutes, Mohenjo Daro reaches 176 and M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story 190. These are films for a weekend, ideally with the interval observed and tea made at the halfway point.

A sensible plan is to keep the short Hollywood films for weeknights and to give Saturday to Bollywood. Those who want a Hindi film on a Tuesday should look at Newton, October, Hichki or Tanu Weds Manu, all under two hours.

Choosing by the company you keep

For young children the choice is easy: Paddington in Peru, Christopher Robin, Dumbo, Dolittle, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile and The One and Only Ivan. Children of school age will enjoy Jumanji: The Next Level, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, IF, Home Team and Secret Society of Second-Born Royals, and Like Stars on Earth is a film that eight-year-olds recognise themselves in.

Teenagers have the largest shelf on the Hollywood side, from the To All the Boys and Kissing Booth trilogies to Work It, Feel the Beat, The Sun Is Also a Star and Words on Bathroom Walls, a thoughtful story about a gifted young cook and his health. On the Bollywood side, Chhichhore, Student of the Year 2 and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani are the campus favourites.

For a couple there are Past Lives, Crazy Rich Asians, Jab We Met and Love per Square Foot. For grandparents, the two Downton Abbey films, Piku and English Vinglish are sure of a welcome. And for three generations on one sofa, the guide suggests 3 Idiots, CODA, Hindi Medium or Togo, each of which gives every age something of its own.

Places on the two lists

The Hollywood list is well travelled. Crazy Rich Asians is a tour of Singapore, Belfast of one street in Northern Ireland, Paddington in Peru of the Andes and the Amazon, and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind of rural Malawi. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga begins in a fishing town in Iceland, Irish Wish and Holiday in the Wild go to Ireland and Zambia, and In the Heights stays within a few blocks of upper Manhattan.

The Bollywood list is a map of India. Delhi is the home of Band Baaja Baaraat, Hindi Medium, Khosla Ka Ghosla! and Queen. Mumbai belongs to Wake Up Sid and Love per Square Foot. Barfi! is set in Darjeeling and Kolkata, Piku ends in Kolkata, Kai Po Che! takes place in Ahmedabad, Chennai Express travels to the far south, and Kapoor & Sons is set in a hill station among tea gardens.

Hindi films also love to travel abroad. Queen goes to Paris and Amsterdam, Tamasha to Corsica, Jab Harry Met Sejal across half of Europe, English Vinglish and Ta Ra Rum Pum to New York, Namastey London to Britain and Dil Dhadakne Do around the Mediterranean by ship.

School, examinations and ambition

One subject runs through the Bollywood list more than any other: education, and the pressure that surrounds it. 3 Idiots made the argument most famously, that learning should be driven by curiosity and that a student is more than a rank. Like Stars on Earth made it for younger children. Chhichhore returns to the theme through a group of college friends who were proud to be called the losers of their hostel.

Later films look at the same question from other sides. Hichki is about a teacher given the class that others have given up on. Super 30 and 12th Fail celebrate students who study by lamplight because they have a single chance. Hindi Medium laughs at the scramble for school places, and Udaan defends a boy's right to choose his own path.

The Hollywood list has its own school stories, lighter in tone: Tall Girl, Stargirl, Work It and Champions, in which a hot-tempered basketball coach is sent to train a team of players with intellectual disabilities and learns more than he teaches. Seen together, the two lists show how differently, and how seriously, the two countries think about growing up.

Weddings on both sides

If education is the great subject of the Bollywood list, the wedding is the great occasion. Band Baaja Baaraat is set among the tents, caterers and brass bands of Delhi's wedding season. Tanu Weds Manu begins with a meeting arranged by two families and a bride who is fast asleep. 2 States takes a whole film to bring two families to the same table, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan has a younger brother go looking for a bride on his elder brother's behalf, and Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana turns on a ceremony that fails to take place.

Hollywood answers with Crazy Rich Asians, whose central wedding has a flooded aisle and a thousand guests, Love Wedding Repeat, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. A wedding is useful to a storyteller in any language: it gathers every character in one place, dresses them well and gives them something to argue about.

Sport

Sport supplies some of the most stirring films on both lists. From Hollywood come King Richard and Air, Arthur the King, Home Team, about a suspended professional coach who takes charge of his twelve-year-old son's side, and Champions. The Art of Racing in the Rain is set in the world of motor racing, and Uncle Drew assembles a team of veteran street basketball players for one last tournament.

From Bollywood come hockey in Chak De! India, wrestling in Sultan, boxing in Mary Kom, cricket in M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and Kai Po Che!, motor racing in Ta Ra Rum Pum and dance, treated as a sport, in ABCD 2. Indian sports films are generous with their running time, and they use it for long training sequences set to music that are a pleasure in themselves.

Double bills across the two lists

The best way to use a guide with two sides is to pair them. CODA and Barfi! are both about love and family around deafness, told in opposite styles. King Richard and Chak De! India are about coaches with a plan that only they believe in. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and Super 30 are about learning as the way out of poverty, and A Million Miles Away and Mission Mangal both end in space.

Lighter pairs are easy to find. Crazy Rich Asians goes well with Dil Dhadakne Do, two comedies about very rich families on display. Your Place or Mine can be followed by Love per Square Foot for an evening about homes and hearts, and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again by Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani for songs, friends and sunshine.

Within one list, the sequels pair themselves: the three To All the Boys films, the three Kissing Booth films, the two Christmas Chronicles, the two Downton Abbey films and the two parts of Tanu Weds Manu.

A film for every kind of night

For a night that needs laughter, the guide suggests The Fall Guy, Khosla Ka Ghosla! or Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. For a night that can afford tears, Togo, Like Stars on Earth, Paa and The Art of Racing in the Rain will find them. For encouragement, there are 12th Fail, Flamin' Hot and Brittany Runs a Marathon, about a young New Yorker who starts by running to the end of her street.

For romance on a rainy evening, choose Jab We Met or Love at First Sight. For a quiet night alone, Past Lives, October and After Yang, a gentle story about a family and its household android, reward close attention. And for a night when the whole family must agree, the answer is nearly always 3 Idiots.

Friendship

Friendship is the quiet strength of both lists. Bollywood has a whole tradition of films about three or four friends: the room-mates of 3 Idiots, the band of Rock On!!, the trekking party of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, the three young men who open a sports shop in Kai Po Che! and the hostel gang of Chhichhore, who gather again years later at a hospital bedside to tell a boy the story of their own defeats. These films usually move between two periods, youth and its sequel, and they are honest about what time does to promises.

Hollywood's friendships here tend to come in pairs. The Peanut Butter Falcon is about two runaways who become brothers on a raft. Stan & Ollie is about a partnership of thirty years and the affection underneath its quarrels. The Upside pairs a wealthy man who uses a wheelchair with the unlikely assistant he hires, and Bill & Ted Face the Music returns to two friends who have been finishing each other's sentences since school. Then Came You and C'mon C'mon, in which a radio journalist looks after his young nephew for a few weeks, find friendship across a wide gap of years.

The two traditions meet in Kapoor & Sons and Dil Dhadakne Do, where brothers and sisters turn out to be one another's oldest friends, and in Queen, whose heroine sets out alone and comes home with friends from three countries.

My Nites

My Nites is your own list of films to watch, reached from the menu on a telephone and from the foot of every page. A film is added with the list button on its page and removed with one press on the list page. The list is kept in the browser on your own device, so it opens immediately, and its page can save it as a file. The My Nites page explains the steps.

The name suggests the method: plan by the night. A week might hold a short Hollywood comedy for Monday, a true story for Wednesday, a long Hindi film for Saturday and a family film for Sunday afternoon, for example Jerry & Marge Go Large, Air, Chak De! India and Paddington in Peru.

In December the list fills itself. Sixteen Christmas films are enough for two a week from the first of the month, with Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey saved for the last evening before the holiday.

Inside a NitesTV film page

A film page on NitesTV repeats the plan of the large still on the home page and completes it. The title stands in white at the head of a dark panel, with the original Hindi title beneath it where there is one. A row of small labels gives the year, the running time and the genres. The score is shown in yellow with the number of ratings behind it. The summary follows, and under it three lines, Director, Genre and Cast, exactly as on the home page, though here the cast is given in full with the name of each character. Every name is a link to the other films in the guide that share it, which is the quickest way to find the rest of a favourite actor's work. The country selector and the red Watch now button are placed beside the poster, high on the page, and appear again at the foot for readers who have gone through the details.

Where to begin

A visitor who knows Hollywood and is curious about Bollywood should begin with 3 Idiots, then try Queen and Piku; the three together show the range of modern Hindi cinema. A visitor who knows Bollywood and wants something recent from Hollywood might start with CODA, Crazy Rich Asians and The Fall Guy.

Anyone in doubt can let the Top Rated link decide. Its twenty-three films are divided between the two industries, and the first one that is new to you will rarely disappoint.

NitesTV: questions people ask

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