General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Romantics (2023 TV series)

The Romantics is a 2023 four-part documentary series for Netflix, directed by Smriti Mundhra, that celebrates the life and legacy of Bollywood filmmaker Yash Chopra and the studio he founded, Yash Raj Films (YRF), using archival footage and in-depth celebrity interviews.¹^•² Netflix released it on February 14, 2023, timed to Valentine's Day and to the 50th year of Yash Raj Films.¹

Key fact	Detail
Format	Four-part documentary series, episodes of roughly an hour each¹^•³
Release	Netflix, February 14, 2023¹
Director	Smriti Mundhra, Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker known for Indian Matchmaking and Never Have I Ever¹
Interviewees	Leading voices from the Hindi film industry, including Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Katrina Kaif, Hrithik Roshan, and Ranveer Singh¹^•⁴
Notable appearance	Aditya Chopra, Yash Chopra's son and successor, who had not given an interview since 1995, speaks on camera⁴
Reception	83% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (6 reviews) and 86% on the Popcornmeter²
Viewership	6.1 million viewers in 2023, according to the media consulting firm Ormax⁵

Spoilers

Subject and structure

The series traces the history of Hindi-language cinema through the lens of Yash Raj Films, from Yash Chopra's founding of the studio in 1970 after early success working for his brother, through his romantic films such as Silsila (1981), Chandni (1989), and Kabhi Kabhie (1976), to the work of his son Aditya Chopra, including Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) and Mohabbatein (2000).⁴ Netflix's announcement describes it as "the real and definitive story of Yash Chopra and his son Aditya Chopra's journey to building a world-class studio."¹

The episodes also situate the studio within national history. The series opens by connecting Indian cinema to events including independence in 1947, the Emergency of 1975, and the economic liberalization of the 1990s.⁶ One episode examines Aditya Chopra stepping out of his father's shadow, and the series includes a discussion of nepotism and film dynasties, in which Aditya Chopra acknowledges the privilege of film families.⁷^•⁸^•⁹ Interviewees also discuss the term "Bollywood" itself: Shah Rukh Khan notes that it excludes India's other film industries and places Hindi cinema in Hollywood's shadow, and Amitabh Bachchan particularly dislikes the word.⁴

Production

Smriti Mundhra, an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, directed the series and wrote it with Michael T. Vollmann; the executive producers are Mundhra, Uday Chopra, and Jonathan Reiman, and it is a YRF Entertainment production made by Mundhra's company Meralta Films.¹^•¹⁰ Mundhra pitched the idea to a YRF executive in Los Angeles, and with 2023 marking the studio's 50th year, the studio agreed.¹¹ The project was shot over three years.¹²

The series has a personal connection for Mundhra: her father, the filmmaker Jag Mundhra, ran the Meralta Theatre in Culver City, California, the first cinema in Hollywood to screen Hindi-language movies, and Yash Chopra attended a U.S. premiere of Kabhi Kabhie there in 1976. Mundhra named her production company after the theater and described the series as a full-circle moment.⁴ She said the series was made primarily for Indian and diaspora audiences familiar with Hindi films, while keeping an entry point for global viewers.¹³

Getting Aditya Chopra on camera was, according to Mundhra, notoriously difficult; he had taken over Yash Raj Films two years before his father's death in 2012 and had not given an interview since 1995.⁴ His appearance was widely noted in coverage and viewer discussion of the series.³

Reception

Critical response was generally positive but divided over the series's closeness to its subject. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds an 83% Tomatometer from six reviews and an 86% Popcornmeter score.² Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express called it "all rah-rah, hardly any nose-digs," while noting that the studio's pole position in Hindi cinema made that unsurprising.³ Poulomi Das of Vague Visages wrote that the series "sticks out for its unimaginative glossiness" at a time of inventive Indian documentary image-making.² The Swaddle argued the series blurred the line between documentary and public relations, noting that Karan Johar, an interviewee in the series, then publicly praised the Chopra brothers.⁶ More favorable reviews highlighted the film-focused conversations: The New Indian Express called the conversations about the films the series's true highlight, and the Hindustan Times reviewer praised its star lineup of roughly 40 Bollywood actors and its behind-the-scenes material on films such as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.¹⁴^•¹²

The series found a substantial audience. Ormax, a media consulting firm, measured its viewership at 6.1 million in 2023, and industry coverage has cited it as part of a broader boom in documentaries about Indian film families on streaming platforms.⁵

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026