This Valentine’s Day, select cinemas across the country are releasing some timeless romantic films – like Titanic in restored 3D, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Tamasha and Jab We Met. In the last couple of years, re-releasing films has become a popular trend.

Cine experts say that earlier re-releases were limited to film festivals, but post pandemic, when cinemas re-opened but without too many new films to attract audiences, they banked upon these all-time favourites to draw in the crowd.

Last year, when retrospectives of Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan were organised, many couldn’t even get tickets as there were limited shows. Film archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur tells us, “Earlier, the question used to be will people buy tickets to watch an old film in the theatre? Why would anyone pay to watch a film that is on OTT already? But the success of these re-releases makes a strong case for restoring our classics and iconic films. It is not just in India, but across the world that films are being re-released because there is an audience which never got an opportunity to watch them in the theatre.”