The best dance movies are really sports movies, and Netflix’s upcoming film Best of the Best proves it. Set in the fiercely competitive world of collegiate Bollywood-fusion dance, it follows two childhood best friends, Maya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia), as they navigate freshman year, expectations from family, and a shot at a national dance championship. It’s like Booksmart and Bring It On had a baby, and Cosmopolitan has the exclusive first look.
To pull off a movie with multiple huge, complicated dance sequences, Maitreyi and Priyanka had to train like their characters do. They completed four months of “dance bootcamp,” taking four or five classes a day with professional dancers, logging 40-hour weeks. “It was like being thrown into the world of a professional athlete,” Priyanka said. “I had to relearn how to eat, hydrate, and take care of myself properly.”
Maitreyi said it was a bit like being thrown into the deep end of the world of dance, but that became a gift, helpeing her immerse herself fully.
“Going from no dance training to being in rooms filled with immense talent was not easy,” Maitreyi said. “I have a huge amount of respect for the dance community and was incredibly grateful to learn from who I consider some of the best out there.”
courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
Director Lena Khan worked with a team of three choreographers (Phillip Chbeeb, Makenzie Dustman, and Joya Kazi) to make sure each of the sequences felt different from each other and integral to the plot, not like a music video that was dropped into an existing movie.
“I wanted us to go big—whether it was magic realism or elaborate set design—at one point we literally built a mountain on stage—to pull out whatever theme or feeling the story needed in that moment,” Lena said.
courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
The dance is compelling, in part, because of the role it plays as the foundation of Maya and Anjali’s friendship. The two grew up not only as friends but as dance partners. It’s how they connect to their heritage.
For Hasan Minhaj, who cowrote the script with Prashanth Venkataramanujam, the choice to center the film around two women wasn’t obvious at first. After trying different versions of the story with single protagonists and ensembles, they found themselves coming back to the Maya and Anjali relationship.
“Our primary goal was to tell the most compelling story we could in this world of collegiate dance. This friendship between Maya and Anjali just pulled us in more than any other version of the story. Together, they just made us care,” Hasan said. “We were conscious that we were two men writing two women, and we knew we had blind spots we could never fully overcome. So we also did a lot of research. We interviewed dozens of South Asian women who were on competitive dance teams to make sure we were grounding our characters in real experiences.”
courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
For Lena, the opportunity to dig into the complexities of this friendship was one of the most enjoyable parts of bringing it to life. “A close friendship is one of the most significant relationships we have, and this film gave me so much room to dig into its complexities,” Lena said. “And honestly? I was thrilled to make a movie about female sisterhood that transcended fighting about a boy.”
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courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
The transition from high school to college provides the main conflict for the two of them. Maya quickly excels in her college courses, but Anjali is barely getting by. When they try out for the dance team, they’re received differently by the other team members. It gets complicated quickly, and suddenly their relationship is no longer a given.
“Maya and Anjali’s identities are so intertwined and rooted in their love for each other, but there’s always a moment in every relationship where people change and have to decide if they’re growing together or in different directions,” Priyanka said. “I am so proud to be part of a movie centered on female friendship, something that is so beautiful, complex, pure, grounding, obsessive, and messy all at the same time.”
courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
Competitive dance gives the film built-in stakes. For Hasan, dance feels connected to so many other parts of life: social class, beauty standards, and friend groups.
“Getting the amazing opportunity to dive headfirst into the world of dance was such a gift that I believe pushed us to another level,” Maitreyi said. “By the end of filming, it really did feel like we were a dance team figuring out how to navigate making the best version of this film.”
courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
Courtesy of Netflix//Netflix
For many viewers, Best of the Best will be their first encounter with competitive collegiate Bollywood-fusion dance. Priyanka says the cutthroat nature of it is part of why it’s so fun. “This movie is a celebration of how epic our culture is,” she said. And Lena hopes even for newcomers, the movie will mean something. “I wanted people to know you don’t have to come from this world to fall in love with it; you just have to show up.”
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