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The first week of 2021’s penultimate month is here and so is the festival of lights. To amp up the celebrations, OTT platforms have primed themselves for the release of brand new titles so that you can have a fruitful binge session over the long weekend. Hollywood veteran Tom Hanks comes forth with Finch—a heartfelt post-apocalyptic drama, and Nina Dobrev promises to deliver a fresh dose of comedy with Love Hard. In Meenakshi Sundareshwar, Sanya Malhotra and Abhimanyu Dassani band together to teach you how to make long-distance relationships work. Below, we round up all the releases you need to take your excitement levels up many notches.

1. Jai Bhim (November 2)

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Inspired by a real-life incident from 1993, Jai Bhim is a legal drama that follows the ordeals of Senggeni and Rajakannu, a couple belonging to the Irular tribe. The latter is accused and arrested by the police on erroneous charges and later absconds from the police station. Senggeni then seeks the help of a lawyer, Chandru, to get justice for her missing husband. The film features Suriya and Prakash Raj, among others.

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

2. Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar (November 5)

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Desperate for a good life, two friends, Bhargav and Siddhant, decide to scam their way into one in this heist comedy series. The duo manage to get some trustworthy people on board and plan to open a fake bank through which they can collect as much money as possible from unsuspecting simpletons before eloping overseas. However, as fate would have it, their seemingly perfect idea runs into a lot more hurdles than anyone could have anticipated. Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar is the final project of director Raj Kaushal, who passed away earlier this year.

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

3. Finch (November 5)

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Tom Hanks leads this post-apocalyptic adventure as Finch, a robotics engineer and one of the few survivors of a cataclysmic solar disaster that has left the world a barren wasteland. Desperate to make sure his dog, Goodyear, is cared for after his death, Finch builds a highly advanced robot named Jeff in his underground bunker. He then embarks on a dangerous yet light-hearted journey across America with his two unlikely companions as he tries to imbue Jeff with the wonders of being alive.

Streaming on Apple TV+

4. Love Hard (November 5)

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In this comedy flick, a Christmas surprise turns into a nightmare for Natalie Bauer (Nina Dobrev) due to a dating app fiasco. Having been unlucky in the romantic department thus far, Bauer falls hard for a man she meets on a dating app and travels to the East Coast where he lives to surprise him. Once there, she discovers that she has been catfished by a nerdy guy named Josh (Jimmy O. Yang). However, not all is lost as her crush, Tag (Darren Barnet), actually does live in the same area, and Josh, filled with guilt, offers to set Bauer up with him if she acts as his girlfriend for the holidays.

Streaming on Netflix

5. Meenakshi Sundareshwar (November 5)

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Newly-weds Meenakshi (Sanya Malhotra) and Sundareshwar (Abhimanyu Dassani) face the test of long-distance when the latter lands a well-paying job in Bangalore. Meenakshi stays back in Madurai owing to her own work, and the couple decide to face this hurdle head-on. What starts off as a sweet montage fuelled by video chats and phone calls soon transforms into a complex web marred by insecurities and misunderstandings. Amidst this plethora of unfavourable developments, the couple must finally decide if it's worth being together at all.

Streaming on Netflix

6. Narcos: Mexico season 3 (November 5)

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The third season of this sequel series to Narcos is set in the '90s when the globalisation of the drug trade takes full effect. The plot explores the conflict that breaks out in the aftermath of Felix’s arrest as independent cartels struggle to survive the political volatility. Using this escalating violence as a distraction, a new generation of Mexican warlords appears, making peace and order a distant dream.

Streaming on Netflix

7. Tryst With Destiny (November 5)

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Four stories, connected by the human need to constantly chase after something perceived to be better, form the crux of this anthology named after Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous independence speech. A wealthy man's struggle to accept the fickle nature of money, a cop found guilty of taking bribes, a lower-caste couple striving to make a fresh start, the despair of a man seeking revenge—all four tales take you on a journey that lends perspective to the flawed nature of human existence. The series stars Ashish Vidyarthi, Vineet Kumar, Jaideep Ahlawat and Amit Sial, among others.

Streaming on SonyLIV

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