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A deeply felt, nostalgia-soaked romance about first love, memory, and the ache of unfinished emotional business. It’s especially rewarding if you like intimate melodrama, strong performances, and films that build toward a devastating emotional payoff rather than tidy closure.
Where to watch: Buy
Thu · 2h 39m
Director: C. Prem Kumar
Starring: Vijay Sethupathi, Trisha Krishnan, Aditya Baskar
Ram is a photographer and nature lover who travels all around India capturing moments. On a chance visit to his hometown Tanjavur, he goes into his school and begins to walk down memory lane to 1994 when he was a student harboring feelings for his classmate Janu.
C. Prem Kumar
Vijay Sethupathi, Trisha Krishnan, Aditya Baskar
A deeply felt, nostalgia-soaked romance about first love, memory, and the ache of unfinished emotional business. It’s especially rewarding if you like intimate melodrama, strong performances, and films that build toward a devastating emotional payoff rather than tidy closure.
96 is built like a memory: soft around the edges, emotionally precise, and always aware that the past can’t be recovered, only revisited. The frame story gives the film a reflective, almost elegiac quality, while the school-era romance lands with the innocence and intensity of first love remembered years later. It’s a simple premise, but the film understands how much weight can live inside small gestures, unfinished conversations, and the things people never quite say out loud.
What makes it work is the sincerity. The performances sell the longing without turning it into self-pity, and the film’s visual and musical choices reinforce its wistful, lived-in mood. It’s the kind of romance that values emotional truth over narrative surprise, and that commitment gives it real staying power.
If you’re susceptible to nostalgia, this one can hit hard. It’s tender, melancholy, and quietly devastating, with a final stretch that lingers well after the credits. For viewers who want romance with ache, memory, and a strong sense of place, it’s an easy recommendation.
Pallavi Sridhar (5★) · 295 likes
This has never happened on letterboxd that I am the first to review a movie! This movie deserves a great review and I am gonna try my best! This is one movie I want everyone on the planet to watch. It's a story about lost love - a childhood romance and it'll definitely tug your heartstrings! Especially Indians! The flashback school scenes are so spot on that's it's just a thing of beauty! The habit of writing reviews has made… more
Michael James (4.5★) · 210 likes
A truly special heartwarming mood piece !!! It is a simple, sweet n refreshing romantic drama with mesmerizing music, charming performances and solid visuals. The well crafted narrative takes you on a nostalgic journey, with its heartfelt conversations during the second hour making it all the more sweeter and sums things up with a beautiful climax. Trisha steals the show, delivering one of her career best performance. Vijay Sethupathi is terrific as usual. Newcomers in Aditya, Gowri and the entire supporting do justice to their roles. Overall, it beautifully showcases the power of unspoken love and ends up as one highly delightful experience.
Bara Prima (4.5★) · 186 likes
Fuck. Absolute fuck. Fuck this shit. Fuck the fuckery fuck that fucking mindfucker who fucks everything-that-hurts-this-fucking-much 😭 No peace.. No closure.. Just tears and Tamil TRAUMA ✨
Zegan (5★) · 162 likes
This is the best Indian movie I've seen so far, and maybe will always be the best. Also, this is one of the best romance movies I've seen in my whole life.Beautiful, poetic, pure, sweet, warm, touching, and heartbreaking, those are the only words I can describe about this movie. Score: 96+4%
sydney (5★) · 158 likes
idk if this movie is actually perfect but i cried through the entire thing
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romantic drama, nostalgic, bittersweet, tearjerker, coming-of-age, memory, melancholy, Indian cinema, school romance, character-driven