Best of the Best review: Netflix comedy leans on choreography — SkimNews
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- "Best of the Best" is a Netflix college comedy set among rival Bollywood dance groups on US campuses, directed with what the review calls "infectious energy" by Lena Khan, one of the few Muslim female film-makers working in Hollywood.
- Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam wrote the script, framed as millennial comedians whose grasp of Gen Z behaviour the review likens to "a PhD."
- Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia star as best friends Maya and Anjali enrolling at UCLA, where Maya clashes with dance-club leader Ronak (Ankur Rathee) over whether their routine should lean traditional Bollywood weddings or modern.
- The film packs in second-generation in-jokes — including a scene where Anjali's mother slaps her in full view of the dorm, prompting Maya to joke that the white kids "looked like they wanted to call the police."
- The review singles out the finale: a Bollywood-choreographed heist of the Koh-i-Noor diamond that, in the reviewer's words, "manages to say something about young future-facing south Asians and diaspora communities" while celebrating traditional dance.
Why it matters: The film adds another directing credit for Lena Khan, whom the review explicitly flags as one of the few Muslim female film-makers working in Hollywood — representation in a college-comedy genre that rarely centers South Asian-led casts. For Netflix, the movie slots into a familiar rom-com formula while sneaking in diaspora commentary via choreography, broadening what the streamer packages as crowd-pleasing comedy.
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