Anand Gandhi is widely regarded as the film auteur who ushered in a new wave of Indian cinema. His first film, Ship of Theseus, won the National Award for Best Picture — the Indian equivalent of an Academy Award. It was also on The Critic's Circle, the U.K.'s list of 15 "life-changing" films of the past century. His next film, Thumbbad — a genre film which used horror as an allegory — became the region's most-watched genre film of the last two decades. His nonfiction production, An Insignificant Man, was India's most commercially successful documentary film. Anand's films have won the highest honors at the international film festivals of Toronto, Venice, Transylvania, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and have been globally distributed by Disney, Netflix, PrimeVideo, and Channel4.