This list is more of my favorites, not favorites, and hated movies rather than good, bad, and in between.

And it was very difficult to rank most them. I don’t even think these are the only 2020 releases I’ve seen, but I figured this makes for a pretty decent list already. I know there were more movies that fell into the lower ranks of the list that I didn’t include because I felt they weren’t even good enough to be included in the list. I would be fine if I switched some movies that are closer together on the list, but I wouldn’t be fine if I switched ones that were like ten numbers apart.

1. Kappela

I had absolutely zero expectations with this movie, but I was absolutely blown away by the narrative and the way it was told.

2. Trance

I didn’t know which path the movie would go down after the first ten minutes, but it went EVERYWHERE, and I mean that in a good way because the cast totally did justice to their roles.

3. Uma Maheshwara Ugra Roopasya It sounds pretty difficult to adapt a culturally-rooted Malayalam movie into Telugu, which is obviously a more commercial industry, but it was so beautifully made and acted (especially Satyadev, who pulls of one of the best performances of the year.)

4. Dharala Prabhu

Dharala Prabhu was an honest surprise and a much-needed film for Harish Kalyan. I haven't seen the original, but this was definitely one of the best Tamil films of the year.

5. Varane Avashyamund

This movie took the usual "heroine is forced to get married trope" into "heroine wants to get an arranged marriage" very nicely. And the movie didn't just explore modern relationships, but it also explored relationships between middle-aged people, too, in a nice, 'small-town' way.

6. Soorarai Pottru

A mass biopic of sorts, Soorarai Pottru is definetely one of the more professional and technically advanced films of the year to release on OTT, but it's cast also took the movie to a whole new level, creating Maaran and Bommi as relatable and memorable people rather than just characters. (Aparna Balamurali's performance as Bommi was superb. It's one of the best written female characters and best performances by an actress in the recent years.)

7. C U Soon

The entire story takes place on multiple screens. The story doesn't sacrifice any part of the story that a traditionally-made movie would have. It was actually better than most of this year's OTT releases, and that was because of it's near-perfect lead characters (played by Dharshana Rajendran, Roshan Mathews, and Fahadh Faasil) and strong screenplay.

8. HIT

Being honest, I've seen many movies since I've seen HIT, and I don't remember it too well, but what I do remember is that the twists were some of the best twists I've seen in recent Telugu Thriller/crime movies.

9. Middle Class Melodies

(I'm not sure whether or not this movie should've gone before HIT or not FYI.) Middle Class Melodies was deliciously soaked with the flavors of Malayalam movies. It had the indie, small-town feel that a lot of successful commercial Malayalam films have. All the characters got their own stories explored and enough screen time to do so. Anand Devarakonda could've done better, but it's only his second movie, and I feel like a lot of people are seeing him as Vijay Devarakonda's brother rather than himself.

10. Psycho

I thought this movie would be SOOO creepy (obviously because the title is Psycho), but it wasn't exactly all that creepy, probably because I'm not someone who gets scared or creeped out that much by thriller/horror movies. I don't usually enjoy thriller or horror movies either, but I was thrillingly surprised by the story.

11. Kannum Kannum Kollaiyadathaal

During the first ten minutes of the movie, I was debating whether to stop watching or not, but the story did slowly gain it's much-needed momentum and became a rewarding watch with important surprises.

12. Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo

To be honest, I didn't like the film very much after seeing it a second time. The first time watching it was fine and all, mainly because the comedy and slight detours made it enjoyable enough to pass, but when I rewatched it, I started noticing the small things that made me feel like this was more masala/mass than actual story. (Btw, I reaaalllyy don't like masala and Mass movies.)

13. Colour Photo

This was probably the best movie to come from AHA this year (or maybe the only good one). One of the biggest issues in India is dealt with in a small-town, low-budget cinema, and the performances by Suhas makes the story more memorable. From the beginning, I'm sure we all knew there was going to be a sad ending, but when it came, I was like "Nooooo! He can't just die!" Maybe if some parts were a bit uncliched (if that's even a word), it would've been better.

14. Forensic

It was a good movie and all, I just felt that it could've been better. Again, I'm not a fan of these kinds of movies, especially serial killer thrillers.

15. Vaanam Kottattum

This movie was a bit disjointed at places, and off-putting sometimes because of the music video-esque songs (composed by Sid Sriram), but taking a look at the whole movie in general, it's quite admirable to see that three different types of love are being dealt with (four if we are including mother-children love). Vikram Prabhu lets us know in this movie that he's got more acting capability in him than we've seen before.

16. V

I somehow managed to figure out the whole story before it even released, which was what made it underwhelming, but as a Nani fan, it was still an entertaining watch. I enjoyed the mass moments and Nani's super acting as a fan, but as a general audience member, I felt that there could have been more. The heroines had literally no role in the movie except to exist in a song each, and Sudheer Babu was the model idea (literally) of a super cop.

17. O Pitta Katha

I don't really know exactly what to say about this movie except the acting could've been better but the twists were honestly more interesting than I thought they would be.

18. Pattas

Pattas was fine and all that, but it was stereotypical. Hero is a hero. He falls in love. Heroine contributes to comedy. Hero discovers something about his past through some random person. Now we enter flashback.

19. Ayyappanum Koshiyum

I felt like Ayyappanum Koshiyum was a bit flat. The dialogue was carrying the whole movie, but as a Prithviraj fan, I watched the whole thing. I would totally say that this is better than your standard Telugu revenge movies. There's more in the smaller dialogues of the movie than you would think.

20. Ponmagal Vandhaal

This was the beginning of some Ooty-style creepy crime movies and I wasn't a fan of it.

21. Bheeshma

HOW TO MAKE A SUCCESSFUL, STEREOTYPICAL TELUGU MOVIE: 1. Funny hero, 2. Hero who somehow is lucky, 3. A difficult heroine, 4. Organic farming, 5. Organic farming, 6. Organic farming, etc.

22. Mookuthi Amman

I don't really know how I felt about this movie much. When it got to the religious crime part, it felt a bit odd. And some of the comedy stretches felt a bit too long to fit well with the story.

23. Sarileru Neekevvaru

Mahesh Babu got stuck in his little Srimanthudu mold since the success of it, and this movie is no different. It in fact makes it worse by making the heroine have some unpreferred character traits.

Starting from here, I was generally confused which order to put the movies in, because I didn’t like any of them at all, so here’s my unsuccessful attempt at ranking the next six or seven movies:

24. Entha manchivadavuraa

Nope.

25. Orey bujjiga

A rom-com that fills space with unnecessary comedy stretches and randomthings that don't fit with the story. That's all I have to say about it.

26. Miss india

This movie would be much better as a WhatsApp forward than an actual movie. The idea sounds great, but the execution of it wasn't nearly as good.

27. Penguin

Like Ponmagal Vandhaal, this was an Otty-style creepy crime movie that made me scared to go and get ice cream. That's more than enough to make me dislike a movie. The screenplay wasn't even well-written. Was her name Ritu, Rhythm, or neither? We never actually know. The writing ended up as blurry rather than creatively deceiving, if that's what it was supposed to be.

28. Nishabdham

This was one of the "Indians stuck in a somehow always snowy Amerixa with stereotypical white people" movie. The idea itself wasn't all that great.

29. World Famous Lover

It’s sad to see good ideas wasted sometimes. I would've preferred if the whole movie was just the Aishwarya Rajesh part. That was the only good part.

30. Disco Raja

Wasted talent. Like World Famous Lover, Disco Raja had a concept that could’ve been something but ended up being nothing.

It’s not even that though. At least World Famous Lover had stuff you could HATE, so you could at least somehow entertain yourself. Disco raja was straight up boring.