Pune, with its tree-lined alleys, faded colonial charm, and café-culture calm, doesn’t scream crime. It simmers with it. Over the years, filmmakers have transformed this seemingly serene city into a breeding ground for psychological thrillers and morally grey narratives. This list features five striking films that use Pune not just as a backdrop but as a silent co-conspirator. Welcome to the world of Pune Noir.
1. Paanch (2003) Unreleased
Anurag Kashyap’s controversial and unreleased debut, Paanch, was one of the first to use Pune’s youthful energy and cultural ambiguity to full effect. Inspired by real serial killings, the film follows five college friends who descend into crime and betrayal. Pune here feels raw and claustrophobic, turning rented rooms and stairwells into scenes of psychological collapse. Though never officially released, it remains a cult cornerstone of the genre.
2. Badlapur (2015) JioCinema
While most of the story moves to Mumbai, the film begins in Pune with a shocking robbery. That single act of violence leaves a stain across the rest of the narrative. The city’s intersections and ordinary routines become the trigger point for one man’s descent into vengeance. Badlapur shows how one day in Pune can unravel a lifetime of peace.
3. Andhadhun (2018) Netflix
A blind pianist. A body. A cover-up. Andhadhun spins a fast-paced, darkly comic thriller in broad daylight. What makes it powerful is how it hides crime in plain sight. Pune’s apartments, cafés, and streets serve as scenes for deception, turning the familiar into the terrifying. Every smile hides suspicion, and every doorbell could mean danger.
4. Monica O My Darling (2022) Netflix
Set in a flashy tech company in Pune, this neo noir black comedy drips with ambition and betrayal. Retro music and slick visuals wrap a bloody tale of greed and manipulation. In this film, Pune’s business parks and office corridors do not just host board meetings, they are murder plots in motion. The city becomes a polished mask worn by chaos.
5. Mulshi Pattern (2018) Zee5
Though more rural in tone, Mulshi Pattern captures the Pune borderlands where farmland meets urban ambition. It tells the tragic story of a farmer’s son who enters the underworld after losing his land. The violence here is born from desperation. Pune’s looming expansion is both opportunity and threat, swallowing old lives to fuel the new. It is one of the most brutal portrayals of survival in modern noir.
These films redefine Pune as a noir capital. Quiet on the surface, deadly underneath. Here, silence is not peace, it is a warning.
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