'All We Imagine as Light' Hits 100 % on Rotten Tomatoes – Have You Seen This Indian Masterpiece?

Since premiering at Cannes, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light has steadily become a global standout. The film took home the coveted Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival (a first for an Indian filmmaker in 30 years) and later scored two Golden Globe nominations (Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director). Now, critics across the board have given it a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes—a tally rarely seen in major releases.

The story is a beautifully observed portrait of three women — Prabha and Anu, who are nurses from Kerala working in a Mumbai hospital, and their friend Parvaty, the hospital cook. The trio bond over shared hardships: Prabha grapples with loneliness after her husband leaves for Germany, Anu carries on a secret interfaith romance, and Parvaty is forced to relocate due to encroaching development. It’s a quiet, tender exploration of friendship, identity, and survival in India’s bustling urban margins.

Kapadia, whose earlier shorts were praised at Cannes, takes a restrained yet deeply intimate approach. Instead of loud drama, she opts for small moments — shared meals, fleeting glances, unspoken tension — that reveal rich emotional undercurrents. The film’s multilingual dialogue (Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi) and vivid glimpses of domestic life reflect her international co-production background while retaining an authentic Indian sensibility.

For UK audiences keen to see it: All We Imagine as Light was released in UK cinemas on 29 November 2024. It became available for streaming on BFI Player from 17 February 2025. In the US, you can rent or purchase it via Amazon, Apple TV, and other platforms since early February 2025.

All We Imagine as Light isn’t a crowd-pleaser in the blockbusting sense — it doesn’t shout or dazzle. Instead, it resonates quietly, with emotional clarity and generous humanity. But its accolades — a Cannes Grand Prix, Golden Globe nods, a flawless RT score — show that minimalism, when done right, can echo loudest.