A dance team can be a stage, a temporary family and a place of rivalry at the same time. That is the setting of Best of the Best, streaming on Netflix since September 18, 2026. Directed by Lena Khan, the comedy follows Maya and Anjali, childhood friends played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia. They join UCLA’s Bollywood-fusion dance team hoping to compete for the national championship. On paper the journey sounds familiar; what sets the project apart is the cultural scene it chooses to place at the center.
The campus as a place of creation
College Bollywood-fusion dance combines choreography, music and references from several traditions in a collective competition. It is not simply a number inserted into a romantic comedy. It demands rehearsal, coordination, artistic direction and stamina. Screenwriters Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam say they drew on teams and competitions they knew while studying. Their starting point is a specific social practice, often intense for students balancing demanding academic schedules.
That choice gives the campus another function. In many coming-of-age stories, college is a general backdrop for early romance and generational conflict. Here it is also a place where young people make their own culture together. Competitions provide a space to be seen, but also to negotiate a place among peers who share references without necessarily sharing the same ambitions.
Friendship tested by ambition
Maya and Anjali form the film’s announced emotional center. Two friends joining a team together need not experience competition in the same way. The prospect of victory can bring a group closer, then expose differences in pace, desire and trust. Netflix describes the road to the championship as more tumultuous and cutthroat than the pair expect. It would be premature to recount specific conflicts or their resolution without verifying them in the film. What is established is that friendship and rivalry occupy the same space.
Minhaj calls the project a story of sisterhood, friendship and self-acceptance. Those words may sound familiar, but the dance setting gives them a concrete stake. A routine works only if each performer respects everyone else’s timing. Individual achievement has to fit a shared form. This is a natural dramatic structure for speaking about adulthood, when finding one’s voice does not necessarily mean leaving the group.
A comedy written from within
Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam worked together on Patriot Act before returning, for this film, to memories of student dance contests. In an interview published by Netflix, they discuss long rehearsals, group intrigue and the energy of those events. Minhaj describes the project as a tribute to a period of life when South Asian culture can be celebrated in public. That origin does not guarantee the authenticity of every scene, but it locates the film’s viewpoint: its characters are not merely observed from outside.
Director Lena Khan emphasizes the coexistence of spectacle, ambition, humor and the relationship between friends. She cites a music-video aesthetic and editorial fashion as parts of her vision. The challenge is to prevent visual virtuosity from swallowing the people who dance. In a strong ensemble film, choreography is more than a showpiece: it reveals who listens, who leads, who hesitates and how relationships change through rehearsal.
Representation is more than casting
A comedy centered on South Asian students matters, but faces on screen are only part of the issue. What may distinguish Best of the Best is the place given to an artistic activity organized by those young people themselves. They are not only heirs to a family tradition or subjects of an outside gaze; they reshape it in a collective, competitive and contemporary form. Fusion is an artistic practice here, not a vague label used to signify diversity.
The film arrives on a global platform, where viewers far removed from these contests may discover them. That creates an opportunity for recognition, but also a risk of simplification. Presenting the dance circuit only as exotic or excessive would flatten its richness. Information released before and at launch instead emphasizes its energy, tensions and value as a community. Whether the movie fulfills that promise is now for viewers and critics to judge.
A release, not yet a verdict
Netflix lists the film at one hour and fifty-two minutes, available since September 18. Alongside the two leads, Hasan Minhaj plays a professor; the cast also includes Ankur Rathee, Janina Gavankar and Lilly Singh. These facts help situate the work, not review it without a screening. What its release already makes visible is a welcome ambition: to treat a college artistic scene as a world rich enough to carry a major coming-of-age comedy, rather than as a brief musical interlude.
The dance setting also gives the film a way to show identity through action rather than explanation. A rehearsal can reveal who makes space for another performer and who demands the spotlight. A competition can turn a private disagreement into a public moment without requiring a speech about belonging. This is why the choreography matters to the premise even for viewers who know little about the college circuit: relationships can become visible in movement, timing and the decision to stay together.
