Earth

Deepa Mehta's Earth (released in India as 1947: Earth) is the middle film in her Elements trilogy — preceded by Fire and followed by Water — and it is arguably the most harrowing of the three. Told through the eyes of Lenny, a young Parsi girl in pre-Partition Lahore, the film charts how sectarian madness consumes a city that had been a model of syncretic coexistence.

The love triangle between the Hindu masseur (Rahul Khanna), the Muslim ice-candy man (Aamir Khan, in one of his darkest roles), and the Ayah (Nandita Das) becomes a microcosm of Partition itself. The ice-candy man's descent from charming suitor to nationalist monster is gut-wrenching, and the final scene — Lenny's Ayah taken by a mob — is almost unwatchable.

Earth was India's official Oscar entry for 1999. It didn't make the shortlist, but it remains one of the most searing Partition narratives ever committed to film.