It’s hard to build a successful four-decade career like Madhuri Dixit Nene’s in the film industry. Harder even to do so in a country where female stars, as they age, are constantly judged for their appearance. A recent example was the brutal trolling of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as she walked the Cannes red carpet. When we sat down with Dixit, ahead of the release of her next, Maa Behen, the actor rued that women have no respite from “sexism and ageism.”

“There is sexism and ageism everywhere. Even when you meet people after a long time, they make personal comments like, ‘You have become so fat. Your hair has become so grey.’ But one cannot forget the contribution of the person, and what they have done in the past. You don’t know what’s happening in their lives or maybe they are happy the way they are. Accept people the way they are; remember what she [Rai] represents rather than commenting on her size or age,” asserted Dixit, as she defended Rai.

Dixit has little patience for unsolicited opinions or skewed beauty standards. Instead, she is focusing on what gives her joy — unheard stories and roles that show her versatility. Maa Behen fits right in that plan.

“I had not done comedy in some time. The past few offerings were more dramatic, whether it’s Mrs Deshpande [2025], Maja Ma [2022], or The Fame Game [2022]. I thought this is the right time for comedy,” she said of director Suresh Triveni’s feature.

The Netflix film also stars content creator Dharna Durga. Madhuri Dixit Nene revealed that during the workshops, she ensured that the relative newcomer felt comfortable.

“When I met her the first time, she said, ‘Mujhse nahin hoga,’ with tears in her eyes. I told her to not cry and said, ‘I am also an actor, here to create some magic on the set. Let’s work together.’”

For decades, senior characters in Hindi cinema were relegated to narrow templates: the selfless, sacrificing goddess figure, the widowed mother praying for Karan and Arjun’s return, or Raj and Pooja Malhotra navigating late-life heartbreak in Baghban. Even in lighter films, elders remained affectionate side notes: Amarjeet Kapoor (Rishi Kapoor) in Kapoor & Sons, the loving dadi (Farida Jalal) in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, or the spirited tipplers Dolly Arora (Dolly Ahaluwalia) and Biji (Kamlesh Gill) in Vicky Donor. Their role was to nurture, advise, or amuse.

Recent films offer a striking reversal. In Vadh, retired schoolteacher Shambhunath Mishra (played by Sanjay Mishra) murders a predatory loan shark and carefully stages the perfect cover-up. Its follow-up, Vadh 2, places him inside prison, navigating the underworld economy that thrives behind bars. In Suresh Triveni’s Subedaar, retired army man Arjun Maurya (played by Anil Kapoor) works as a mafia bodyguard and answers humiliation with violence.

Look further south and Mammootty is rewriting the rules of ageing on screen, first as the unsettling anti-hero of Rorschach (2022) and, more recently, as a calculating serial killer in Kalamkaval (2025).

Women characters have also moved decisively away from the saintly mould. In Vadh 2, Neena Gupta plays Manju, a double-murder convict plotting escape. In the streaming series Mrs Deshpande, Madhuri Dixit portrays a woman imprisoned for serial killings. Triveni’s Maa Behen places another maternal figure in a macabre situation: a mother calls her estranged adult daughters home because a corpse is lying in her kitchen.

The trend has been gaining momentum over the last few years. In Darlings (2022), Shamshu Ansari (Shefali Shah) assists her daughter (played by Alia Bhatt) in the brutal retaliation against an abusive husband and carries her own violent past. Ajji (2017) follows a frail grandmother who carefully plots revenge against the man who raped her nine-year-old granddaughter.

These are neither supporting turns nor caricatured villains. They are central characters: flawed, furious and fully in command of their stories. The greying character is no longer a sentimental aside. Increasingly, they are the story’s driving force.

Part of the fascination lies in the narrative surprise. Audiences have been conditioned to associate age with passivity or moral authority, not danger. Writer-director Jaspal Singh Sandhu, who created the Vadh franchise, points out that the unexpected nature of the character drives the tension. “When you get something where it’s not expected, it works like a charm. It’s easy to create drama there,” he says, referring to Shambhunath Mishra, the quiet retiree who methodically turns predator into prey.

Triveni believes the disruption itself generates conflict. “An older person as a criminal creates instant tension,” he says. “We don’t associate age with threat or strength, so it surprises us.”

Writer-director-actor Vijay Maurya, whose Mast Mein Rehne Ka (2023) follows two ageing characters who begin breaking into homes simply for the thrill of it, argues that these stories deliberately move older characters away from pity. “In real life, oldies can be quite mad if you just open them up,” he says. “I wanted to push the characters away from sympathy and into adventure.”

The idea that age is just a number is moving beyond rhetoric and into storytelling. Filmmakers say the notion that life ends at 55 no longer reflects how people live or see themselves. Triveni sees a generational shift underway. “The older generation is making a statement: we are not done or down and out yet,” he says.

“Look at social media. You see people in their 60s getting fitter and reinventing themselves. Actors too have stayed relevant. The fuddy-duddy parents we once saw in films are changing.”

That shift is visible on screen. Contemporary cinema is replacing automatic sympathy for elderly characters with agency. The appeal may also lie in the contrast with reality. Off screen, older people often seem to be losing control, whether to automation, online scams or growing dependence. On screen, however, seniors command the narrative. They can be angry, manipulative, even criminal, and still hold the audience’s attention.

For Maurya, that freedom reflects an evolution in storytelling. “The germ of ideas has evolved,” he says. “As a writer, it’s an exciting time because you can go radical with characterizations and people will still connect with them.”

With streaming platforms expanding the range of stories being told, filmmakers expect the shift to continue. Triveni believes changing formats and viewing habits are widening the narrative space for older protagonists. “There’s a cultural shift underway,” he says. “A wider audience means a chance for newer narratives, and those narratives are putting elders at the centre of the story.”

For Sandhu, the real transformation lies in the way characters are now conceived. “The character’s story, not age, is the hero,” he says. “If the actor and the character fit the narrative and entertain you, where does the question of age arise?”

And so, it appears, Hindi cinema is finally letting its elders be fully human — messy, cunning, and occasionally dangerous. They are no longer just waiting for a phone call from their children; they are making the world answer to them.

In her maiden web series, The Fame Game (2022), Madhuri Dixit-Nene played a superstar who plotted her own disappearance. Two years on, it looks like the actor is set to go a few shades darker. mid-day has learnt that she is apparently in talks to portray a serial killer in a psychological thriller, which will be helmed by Nagesh Kukunoor.

“It’s titled Mrs Deshpande. The show tells the story of how the police hire a serial killer and pick her brains to understand another serial killer’s modus operandi and nab him. The show is a remake of a French series,” reveals a source.

With the thriller, Kukunoor returns to digital entertainment two years after directing a segment in the anthology, Modern Love Hyderabad (2022). Before that, he helmed the series, City of Dreams. If things go as planned, the filmmaker will take Mrs Deshpande on floors post monsoon. “The casting is underway. The team is excited to present Madhuri in a dark role,” adds the source.

mid-day reached out to Kukunoor and Dixit’s team. Both didn’t respond till press time.