Pitch Perfect and Step Up Review: Netflix’s Bollywood Dance Comedy Has A Star-Making Lead But A Sagging Second Half

Netflix’s Best of the Best wants to be the next great coming-of-age dance movie for a generation raised on Pitch Perfect and Step Up. It doesn’t quite get there — but thanks to a genuinely star-making performance from Never Have I Ever‘s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, it comes close enough to be worth your time.

Pitch Perfect and Step Up: Overview

What’s It About?

Co-written and produced by Hasan Minhaj, Best of the Best is inspired by the real Bollywood-fusion dance competitions Minhaj attended as a South Asian college student. The story follows lifelong best friends Maya (Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia), whose viral high school dance flop follows them to UCLA — where they join the school’s nationally ranked Bollywood dance team, led by the charismatic Ronak (Ankur Rathee). As competition heats up, so does the strain on their decades-long friendship.

What Works?

The film’s first 45 minutes are genuinely electric. A standout early routine set to Diplo’s “Welcome to the Party,” a chaotic and hilarious outdoor dance battle at a frat party, and sharp, specific cultural humor about South Asian family expectations all give the film real personality. The choreography throughout is genuinely impressive, easily standing out among Netflix’s growing catalog of dance-competition movies like Work It and Feel the Beat.

The biggest win, though, is the central friendship. Ramakrishnan and Kedia have lived-in, believable chemistry, playing off each other’s insecurities — Maya overcompensating for Anjali’s effortless likability, Anjali quietly realizing she’s been living in Maya’s shadow. It’s a grounded, relatable dynamic even for viewers unfamiliar with South Asian cultural traditions.

Where It Stumbles?

After its strong opening act, the film shifts into a more melodramatic gear, piling on repetitive conflict between the two leads that saps the energy and bloats the runtime toward the two-hour mark. What started as a fun, high-energy comedy settles into a fairly standard arc about miscommunication and self-acceptance — competent, but far less distinctive than the film’s opening promised.

The MVP: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan

Ramakrishnan continues to build on the “lead energy” she showed in Never Have I Ever, bringing real physicality and emotional range to Maya’s ambition and flaws. It’s the kind of performance that suggests Netflix may be grooming her for the same kind of breakout trajectory as stars like Joey King or Lana Condor before her.

Should You Watch It?

If you’re a fan of dance-competition movies in the vein of Bollywood cinema’s high-energy musical tradition, Best of the Best delivers enough style, humor, and heart in its first half to be worth a watch — even if the back half doesn’t fully stick the landing.

Watch this if you liked: Work It, Pitch Perfect, Bring It On, Never Have I Ever, Feel the Beat, Step Sisters

For more Netflix movie reviews and streaming recommendations, check out related coverage on TechnoSports.

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