Two sports or sports-related films, both featuring wrestling, both set in Haryana, both top-lined by superstars admitting to their age, became the top grossers in 2016.Dangal, directed by Nitesh Tiwari, and starring Aamir Khan, along with Fatima Sana Shaikh, Zaira Wasim, Sanya Malhotra, Sakshi Tanwar among others, pushed the envelope of gender empowerment, with the famously rallying line: mhari choriya choro se kam hai ke?Aamir is the strict-but-loving father going the mile for his daughters, as they train hard to become champions, and even though he gets a crucial climactic scene when the girls are doing the winning– for which the film was slammed– there is no doubt that a star fronting a film became a strong statement. Salman Khan in Sultan.Sultan, directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, is that rare Salman Khan outing which actually submits to a plot. This is not just Bhaigiri, but being a character, in which he fails, falls, and gets up again, showing us the sweat and blood that goes into winning. One of Salman’s better films, not just in terms of the box office, but performance.Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, another of Ranbir Kapoor’s rom coms in which his man-boy character learns the error of his ways, is remembered primarily for the way producer Karan Johar was forced to rename Lahore to Lucknow, while cutting Pakistan heart-throb Fawad Khan’s part drastically – lesson number one to zero: in New India, the neighbouring country is not be dislodged from its position of enemy number one. The film also has Bollywood’s first ‘break-up’ song: trust KJo to turn heartbreak into a party swinger.Also Read | 25 years of Indian Cinema: 2015 was the year of Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Dil Dhadakne Do, MasaanFawad has a deeper role in the second film from the Dharma stable, Kapoor & Sons, with the other cool swinger of the year: ladki beautiful kar gayi chull, starring the good-looking duo of Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt. It also has Rishi Kapoor buried under layers of latex, and Rajat Kapoor doing a distinctly grey character: with its elements of homosexuality and infidelity, it was a very different ‘family film’, and the audience rewarded it by making it one of the year’s hits.Story continues below this adBut one set of fans deserted the much-awaited Fan in which SRK plays a double-role, as an ardent fan and a not-so-nice superstar. I love the film as it has one of SRK’s sharpest performances, but it was much reviled: how it scraped into the Top 10 of the year is a surprise, as it was considered a flop. Shah Rukh Khan in a still from Fan.SRK managed to win back fan favour with Gauri Shinde’s Dear Zindagi in which he plays an attractive Goa-based shrink to Alia Bhatt’s conflicted young woman: I do think he looks dishy, as does Goa which has more main character energy than either of the leads, but the film is unconvincing. A psychiatrist going cycling etc with his patient looks cool; in real-life it would be considered as crossing a line.Alia’s 360-degree turn as a bedraggled village girl in Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab carries much more conviction because of the way the film took on the subject of the rampant drug menace in Punjab. Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan-in that brief, deglam doctor role, and Diljit Dosanjh, were all so good.Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh gave Manoj Bajpayee another of his memorable roles, in which he plays a middle-aged man who refuses to call himself homosexual; he belongs to a generation which is not comfortable talking about sexual orientation; he just claims he is different, and in that reluctance to be classified, achieves a delicacy.Also Read | 2014: Big blockbusters, small paybacksStory continues below this adAshwini Iyer Tiwary’s Nil Battey Sannata, starring Swara Bhaskar and Ratna Pathak Shah, took up the issue of education and empowerment, showing how inextricably connected the two are at any age and stage: a socially conscious film which, thankfully, did not preach.And then there was Pink, the Anirudh Rai Chowdhury-Shoojit Sircar film, about a very Delhi crime and rightful punishment. No means no, thunders Amitabh Bachchan, speaking on behalf of Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andria Tariang, three Delhi girls who stand up against a bunch of powerful molesters. The film was a powerful call to arms, which still resonates.