Mrunal Thakur is having one of those runs where each role seems designed to test a different muscle. Her latest, Pooja Meri Jaan on Zee5, is being discussed less as a performance and more as a presence—viewers are talking about how much she holds back as Pooja, and how much that restraint carries the film.
It is the right moment to look at the roles that have built that reputation. Across languages and genres, Thakur has kept moving between emotional intensity and lighter romance, often within the same streaming library.
Pooja Meri Jaan: restraint as the loudest choice
Thakur plays Pooja, a woman caught in circumstances that force questions around rejection, consent, perception and accountability. The performance works because she does not underline the message. She lets the uncertainty sit in her silences, and the audience is left to sit with it too. The film is streaming on Hindi Zee5.
Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai: the lighter gear
After a run of intense parts, Thakur shifted into Baani, an independent and ambitious woman whose relationship with Jass, played by Varun Dhawan, gets tangled in questions of marriage, ambition and parenthood. It is a bright, relatable turn that showed she could carry a commercial romance without losing her character’s point of view. It is streaming on Zee5.
Hi Nanna: two names, one emotional reveal
Thakur plays Yashna, who enters Viraj and his daughter Mahi’s lives after an accident, and later turns out to be Varsha—the wife and mother who lost her memory. The dual role gives her two registers: a warm present-day presence and a past that has to emerge gradually. Watching that reveal land is a large part of the film’s pull on Netflix.
Love Sonia: the debut that set the terms
Her film debut remains one of her most harrowing. As Sonia, a young woman from a rural background searching for her missing sister, she walks into the world of human trafficking and holds the story there. It was a raw introduction, and it told audiences early that she would not use easy material as an excuse for an easy performance. It is available on JioHotstar.
Sita Ramam: romance with an interior life
In this period romance on Amazon Prime Video, Thakur plays Sita Mahalakshmi, the woman whose letters pull Lieutenant Ram, played by Dulquer Salmaan, toward her. The role needs elegance and mystery, but Thakur gives it warmth, and that is why the romance works: it is not just a distant ideal, but a person.
Why this matters now
For Hindi cinema fans, this is not just a list of performances. It is a reminder of how much streaming has widened the kind of roles an actor can build a career on. Thakur’s filmography is now spread across Zee5, Netflix, JioHotstar and Prime Video, which means audiences can trace her range without leaving their watchlist.
If you are coming to her work fresh, the order below is a useful route through the different registers:
- Start with Pooja Meri Jaan for the current conversation, then go back to Love Sonia to see where the rawness began.
- Pair Hi Nanna and Sita Ramam for two different kinds of love story, one built on memory and one built on letters.
- Keep Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai for a lighter reset, the role that shows she can do charm as easily as ache.
Pooja Meri Jaan is streaming exclusively on Hindi Zee5, and the rest of the roles are one search away.
Source: Filmibeat