By Team INVC | INVC NEWS
MUMBAI, India | September 18, 2026 —
There is a moment while watching Lust Stories 3 when its title begins to feel almost misleading.
This is not really a film about lust. At least, not merely in the physical sense.
It is about what happens when desire survives but relationships change. It is about loneliness inside companionship, curiosity inside commitment, attraction that cannot comfortably be named, and people discovering that what they want is sometimes very different from what they are supposed to want.
Netflix’s third Lust Stories anthology brings together Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vishal Bhardwaj. That line-up alone creates considerable expectations.
The film meets some of them.
It misses others.
And somewhere between its four stories, it produces one chapter that understands something the others occasionally forget: desire becomes far more interesting on screen when a filmmaker does not explain all of it.
Four Directors, but No Single Definition of Desire
The smartest decision in Lust Stories 3 is that its filmmakers do not appear interested in agreeing with one another.
Each approaches intimacy differently.
For one, desire emerges from familiarity and boredom. For another, it becomes playful and unpredictable. Elsewhere, it is buried beneath conversation and emotional confusion. Finally, it becomes something quieter—almost an atmosphere rather than an action.
That variety keeps the anthology alive.
It also exposes its unevenness.
Watching all four stories together makes one thing apparent: good performances can rescue an imperfect screenplay, but even excellent actors cannot always manufacture the emotional aftertaste a story has failed to earn.
And Lust Stories 3 has plenty of excellent actors.
Konkona Sensharma and Radhika Apte Understand the Power of Not Saying Everything
Vikramaditya Motwane’s segment benefits enormously from Konkona Sensharma and Radhika Apte.
Watch their faces when they are listening rather than speaking.
That is where much of the story lives.
Konkona has long possessed the rare ability to make an ordinary reaction feel like an entire internal monologue. Here, a pause or an uncomfortable smile can communicate more than a paragraph of dialogue.
Radhika Apte matches that energy.
There is curiosity in her performance, but also hesitation and self-awareness. She understands that adults caught in complicated emotional situations rarely behave as cleanly as screenplays would like them to.
Vijay Varma and Abhishek Banerjee add another layer to this arrangement without turning it into a broad relationship comedy.
The setup is sharp. The actors are sharper.
Yet the story ultimately stops just short of becoming exceptional.
It creates expectations that its final stretch cannot completely satisfy.
Still, it is difficult to complain too much when the people on screen are this watchable.
Kiran Rao Refuses to Play the Same Game
Then Kiran Rao arrives and changes the temperature.
Her contribution feels lighter, stranger and more playful. Gurfateh Pirzada and Sana Thampi inhabit a world that does not carry the same emotional heaviness as the preceding material.
That is useful.
Anthologies often become exhausting when every filmmaker attempts to make the most profound film in the collection. Rao seems perfectly comfortable taking another route.
There is eccentricity here. There is humor. More importantly, there is a willingness to allow awkwardness to remain awkward.
Some viewers may find its rhythm charming.
Others may wonder where exactly it is heading.
Both reactions are understandable.
What cannot be denied is that Rao gives her segment an identity. You would not mistake it for anybody else’s film.
Shakun Batra Knows Relationships, Perhaps a Little Too Well
Shakun Batra has spent a significant part of his filmmaking career examining what supposedly functional people hide from one another.
So his presence in Lust Stories 3 makes immediate sense.
Ali Fazal and Radhika Madan give him capable company.
There are moments between them that feel recognisable precisely because nobody is behaving like a conventional romantic-film character. Attraction, discomfort and emotional uncertainty coexist.
Ali Fazal is particularly effective when he pulls back rather than pushes a scene.
Radhika Madan brings spontaneity and vulnerability.
The problem is not what this segment wants to say.
The problem is that, occasionally, it says it.
Then explains it.
And then almost explains why it said it.
Batra is at his best when the audience is allowed to observe emotional damage without being handed a diagnosis. Whenever the writing trusts silence, the film becomes considerably stronger.
There is a very good relationship drama hiding here.
You can see it frequently.
You can also see the screenplay trying slightly too hard to make sure you have seen it.
Then Vishal Bhardwaj Walks In—and the Film Begins to Breathe Differently
The most interesting segment arrives when Vishal Bhardwaj takes control.
You can almost feel the anthology slow down.
Not because nothing is happening.
Because Bhardwaj understands that sometimes the most important thing happening between two people is precisely what they are refusing to do.
Aditi Rao Hydari and Siddharth are given room.
That room matters.
A glance is allowed to remain a glance. Silence does not immediately demand dialogue. Attraction does not arrive carrying a signboard announcing itself.
Suddenly, Lust Stories 3 feels less concerned with its theme and more interested in its people.
Aditi Rao Hydari is particularly effective.
There is softness in the performance, but softness should not be confused with simplicity. She lets uncertainty, curiosity and restraint appear simultaneously.
Siddharth responds with admirable control.
Their chemistry works because neither performer seems desperate to prove that chemistry exists.
Bhardwaj also gives the story texture.
The frames feel inhabited rather than decorated. Music, pauses and atmosphere contribute to the emotional movement instead of merely accompanying it.
Some viewers will inevitably call this chapter slow.
They are not entirely wrong.
It is slow.
But slowness and emptiness are not the same thing.
Here, the pace gives desire somewhere to hide.
That makes all the difference.
The Actors Win Even When the Writing Doesn’t
If Lust Stories 3 has one consistent triumph, it is casting.
Konkona Sensharma can alter the meaning of a scene with a look.
Radhika Apte remains one of the most instinctive performers working in contemporary Hindi cinema.
Aditi Rao Hydari understands restraint.
Siddharth knows when not to perform a moment too aggressively.
Ali Fazal and Radhika Madan bring emotional credibility, while Vijay Varma and Abhishek Banerjee make their presence count without hijacking the material.
Across four films with dramatically different tones, very few performances feel false.
That is a significant achievement.
Where Lust Stories 3 Loses Its Grip
The anthology’s central weakness becomes clearer after the final story ends.
Not every idea becomes a complete film.
A short-film format is unforgiving. There is little time to introduce people, establish their emotional world, complicate it and then provide some form of resolution.
Consequently, a couple of these stories feel as though they end just as they have discovered what they actually want to explore.
Others contain excellent individual scenes without quite becoming equally excellent wholes.
There is also an unavoidable shadow hanging over the project: the Lust Stories name itself.
The first anthology arrived with a sense of discovery and provocation. By the third installment, audiences understand the grammar of the franchise.
Surprise becomes harder.
Simply putting accomplished actors into complicated relationships is no longer enough.
The film needs to reveal something.
Only intermittently does Lust Stories 3 manage that.
And Yet, It Is Not a Film Easily Dismissed
This is where reviewing the anthology becomes complicated.
Calling it disappointing would be unfair.
Calling it brilliant would be equally difficult.
There is too much craftsmanship here for the former and too much inconsistency for the latter.
What remains is an anthology full of fascinating fragments.
A performance here.
A conversation there.
A beautifully held silence.
An uncomfortable recognition.
A moment when somebody looks at another person for half a second longer than they should.
Those fragments are often more memorable than the plots surrounding them.
Perhaps that is appropriate.
Desire itself rarely arrives as a perfectly structured story.
So, Should You Watch Lust Stories 3?
Yes—but not because the anthology delivers four equally outstanding films.
It doesn’t.
Watch it for the actors.
Watch it to see four filmmakers attempt to answer the same broad question without arriving at the same conclusion.
Watch it for Konkona Sensharma and Radhika Apte finding meaning between lines.
Watch it for Ali Fazal and Radhika Madan navigating emotional uncertainty.
Most of all, watch it for the moment Vishal Bhardwaj’s film begins and Lust Stories 3 finally stops trying to talk about desire—and simply allows you to feel it.
When the anthology ends, all four stories may not travel home with you.
One probably will.
INVC NEWS Rating: 3/5
Verdict
Beautifully acted, occasionally perceptive and frustratingly uneven, Lust Stories 3 understands desire best when it speaks the least. Four filmmakers enter the conversation, but Vishal Bhardwaj gets the final word.
