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Woh Lamhe (वो लम्हे)

Woh Lamhe (वो लम्हे; English: Those Moments) is a 2006 Hindi-language romantic drama directed by Mohit Suri and produced by Mukesh Bhatt under Vishesh Films, loosely based on the life of the actress Parveen Babi and her relationship with the filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who wrote the story¹^•². Kangana Ranaut plays Sana Azim, a successful film actress struggling with schizophrenia, and Shiney Ahuja plays Aditya Pankaj Garewal, the filmmaker who loves her³. The film was released in India on 29 September 2006⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Release	29 September 2006 (India)⁴
Director / producer	Mohit Suri; Mukesh Bhatt, Vishesh Films¹
Writers	Mahesh Bhatt (story), Shagufta Rafique (screenplay)⁵
Basis	The life of Parveen Babi, her schizophrenia, and her relationship with Mahesh Bhatt²
Lead cast	Kangana Ranaut (Sana Azim), Shiney Ahuja (Aditya Pankaj Garewal), Shaad Randhawa (Nikhil Rai)³
Music	Pritam Chakraborty, with Roop Kumar Rathod also credited⁶
Box office	$1,301,477 worldwide, all from India⁴
Ratings	IMDb 6.5/10 (about 1,800 votes)³; Rotten Tomatoes audience 3.8/5 from 1,000+ ratings¹

Spoilers

Story and basis

The film describes the life of Sana Azim, a schizophrenic actress, and the love of her life, Aditya Garewal³. Netflix's synopsis frames it as a love affair between an aspiring director and a leading actress whose increasingly troubled mental health has heartbreaking ramifications⁷. The Prime Video listing adds that the heroine fights her success, her pride, and schizophrenia in the final years of her life, and that the film is reportedly based on the relationship between the late actress Parveen Babi and the then-young director Mahesh Bhatt⁸.

Parveen Babi was one of Bollywood's much-loved stars of the 1970s and 1980s who disappeared from public life after a series of much-publicized nervous breakdowns and eventually became a recluse; she was found dead in her Mumbai apartment on 22 January 2005, having died two days earlier⁹. Her character was named Sana Azim in the film to avoid a direct reference to the actress¹⁰.

Mahesh Bhatt, who wrote the story, described the film's origin in an August 2006 Hindustan Times interview: standing outside a morgue where Babi's body lay unclaimed, he was flooded with memories of the time spent with her, and the idea to chronicle her tragedy took hold of him there¹¹. He called the film, in essence, a love story that would inspire those who have loved and lost¹¹, and said the title was his tribute to the actress and the time he spent with her¹⁰.

Bhatt's account of the film shifted over time. In a later interview he said, "I never said that Woh Lamhe is a reflection of my life"¹⁰. In a 2011 interview he accepted that his detractors called him exploitative when Woh Lamhe was made, and recalled that Mohit Suri had asked him for permission to make a film on his relationship with Parveen Babi¹². Kangana Ranaut, asked before release whether the film was also inspired by Bhatt's earlier film Arth (1982), denied it: "This is just a love story between a director and actress... It is not similar to Arth at all"¹³. Later commentary placed the film in a line of Bhatt projects that repeatedly fictionalized his well-publicized affair with Babi, including Arth (1982), Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee (1993), and the 2022 web series Ranjish Hi Sahi¹⁴; a profile of Bhatt notes that he turned to his personal life for inspiration in Arth and later scripted Woh Lamhe based on Babi's life¹⁵.

Production and title

The film went through several titles. According to IMDb trivia, when the film was launched the title was "Actress"; after much thought Mukesh Bhatt decided to call it "Awaarapan", and the makers finally settled on "Woh Lamhe"³. The story is credited to Mahesh Bhatt with a screenplay by Shagufta Rafique; Bobby Singh was the cinematographer and Akiv Ali the editor⁵. Shaad Randhawa, who plays Nikhil Rai, made his acting debut in the film¹³; in a 2025 interview he recalled that his first scene in the film was a sexual assault sequence with Ranaut, for which he was nervous¹⁶.

Reported runtimes differ by source: IMDb and Box Office Mojo list 2 hours 36 minutes (156 min)³^•⁴, Rotten Tomatoes lists 2h 28m¹, JustWatch lists 2h 12min¹⁷, and TheTVDB lists 132 minutes¹⁸.

Music

Pritam Chakraborty composed the music, with Roop Kumar Rathod also credited⁶. IMDb lists the soundtrack song "Tu Jo Nahin Hai Tau Kuchh Bhi Nahin Hai", sung by Glenn John with lyrics by Sayeed Qadri and music by Pritam Chakraborty³. In a 2024 interview, Mohit Suri recalled that senior composers were not working with him at the time, so he brought in artists from Pakistan, and that the film's remix was shot on a budget of just Rs. 60,000¹⁶.

Reception and box office

The film opened on 29 September 2006, during the Ramzaan period, which Business of Cinema reported negatively affected its theatrical collections¹⁹. Box Office Mojo records a worldwide gross of $1,301,477, all of it from India, with no domestic gross published⁴. IMDbPro lists six award nominations²⁰.

Critical response was divided. Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India wrote that, unlike Suri's earlier Kalyug, "Woh Lamhe leaves you cold with its relentless interplay of grief and tragedy", and felt Ranaut was merely replaying her Gangster role²¹. A Hindustan Times review took the opposite view of the leads, crediting Suri with lifting the film above predictable Bollywood love-story fare and noting that Ranaut proved her Gangster performance was no fluke while Shiney Ahuja lived up to the promise of Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi²². A contemporary blog review called it the strongest romantic film of 2006 and praised both leads²³, while an IOL review of its South African release gave it three stars, calling it an absorbing, partly fictionalized tale but finding the screenplay uneven and the cinematography by Bobby Singh hit-and-miss, with both leads outstanding⁹. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 71% Tomatometer from a single listed critic review, with an audience score of 3.8 out of 5 from more than 1,000 ratings¹. IMDb users rate it 6.5 out of 10³, and Bollywood Hungama users 3.5 out of 5¹⁶.

Portrayal of mental illness

The film is frequently cited in discussions of how Hindi cinema depicts psychiatric disorders. A review article in the journal Mens Sana Monographs grouped Woh Lamhe with Maine Gandhi Ko Nahi Mara (2006) as recent films based on psychiatric disorders "handled with some degree of scientific credibility", noting that the film was based on the life of Parveen Babi, who suffered from schizophrenia²⁴. An Indian Express feature on the shifting portrayal of mental illness in cinema reported that Woh Lamhe was reportedly based on Babi's real-life battle with schizophrenia and her relationship with the director²⁵. An academic study of caregiving in cinema lists Woh Lamhe among films showing schizophrenia's effects on caregivers' social interactions, personal relationships, and professional commitments²⁶. Audience commentary on Rotten Tomatoes has similarly praised the film's depiction of the confusion and stigma surrounding mental illness¹.

Legacy

Ranaut's performance as Sana Azim is counted by Filmibeat among her best performances⁶. A Hindustan Times retrospective on Babi's birth anniversary noted that millennials remember her as the inspiration behind the broken woman shown in the film²⁷, and a Telegraph India commentary observed that the Bhatts and their extended family, including nephew Mohit Suri, have repeatedly retold the story of the filmmaker and the schizophrenic actress²⁸.

The film should not be confused with Lamhe (1991), Yash Chopra's romance starring Anil Kapoor and Sridevi, produced by Yash Raj Films and released on 21 November 1991²⁹. As of recent checks, JustWatch lists no streaming offer for Woh Lamhe in India¹⁷.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Hindi films of the 2000s › Romance films

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

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