We love to preach, don’t we? There was a time when nearly every Bollywood movie had a written message in the end, mostly about how good prevails over the evil. Soon, that custom died a slow death, though we saw Omung Kumar trying to pass off his own quote as a philosophical gem in this year’s Sarbjit. But that doesn’t mean Bollywood has stopped itself from preaching to its audiences when and where it can. However, instead of a written message that comes at the end of the movie, the entire narrative itself has sometimes hidden, and sometimes not-so-hidden messages that aim to educate you or keep you morally aware.

In 2016, we had some entertaining movies that also took the job of doubling up as 2 hour moral lessons. While movies like Dishoom and Housefull 3 purely exist to entertain you, there have been other movies that entertain you as well as give you a free moral lesson or two thrown in. Here are seven such movies in 2016 that were entertaining as well as message-oriented.

Ki & Ka

I am not a huge fan of this R Balki movie, but what I love to appreciate about Ki & Ka is that it had the guts to show that a man who prefers to stay at home, and a wife who prefers working in corporate boardroom is not a morally corrupt idea. More than female empowerment, it was all about gender equality, though they could could have really made the connotations subtle, like Ka making Ki tie a mangalsutra around his neck. We get the idea dude, please move on!

Airlift

Though by using a fictional character to be the hero a real-life incident that affected so many Indians living in Gulf back in the ’90s, Airlift has diluted the essence of Airlift. But that’s doesn’t mean it is a bad movie at all. Airlift, in act, celebrates the spirit of human spirit under extreme duress and mental torture. The depiction of the war-torn Kuwait and our countrymen trapped there was harrowing, but the way a once-business minded Ranjit Katyal led them out of their worries back to the safe haven of India teaches you that the humanity in us makes it grand entrance when we began to question ourselves as human beings.

Udta Punjab

It’s sad the our beloved Censor Board chose to ignore the real message of Udta Punjab (Drugs di maa di) and focus on something that the movie never wanted to advise its viewers – that Punjab is a bad, bad state. Sure, the movie is set in Punjab, and the state is well-known for its youth’s blatant use of drugs, but the story is something that could be about anywhere. And Udta Punjab shows us how any involvement with the intoxicating stuff can not only ruin your career, success, family and lives, but also make you do things that you can never be proud. Above all, Udta Punjab also gave two of its strongest female characters – Alia Bhatt’s unnamed Bihari immigrant, who despite being raped multiple times, still see a ray of hope that lets her survive the ordeal, and Kareena’s doctor who makes the repentant cop (played by Diljit Dosanjh) stand on his own legs and take on the system.

Sultan

A Salman Khan movie with a message? Now that’s something of an oddity, isn’t it? Sultan may primarily be about Bhai ditching desi pehelwani for videshi fighting (the same way he prefers his women these days) but it has some messages for his fans, using, not so subtly, wrestling as a metaphor for life’s struggles. In the climax, he finds out his biggest enemy is himself, because you know no one can take down Bhai other than himself.

Dear Zindagi

Now Dear Zindagi is about a young cinematographer, who has a quarter life crisis, just because her parents ditched her at her grandparents’ house so that they can make more money, which means better future for her. Of course, the last part doesn’t matter for Shaira as she cheats on her boyfriends and explodes at dinner tables, because she has been wronged. Thankfully Dr Jehangir Khan is around, and though he make equally lame jokes like Shaira, he gives some really good advice when it comes to handling life. After all, there has never been a better quote in Bollywood than ‘Don’t let your past blackmail your present to ruin a beautiful future’.

PINK

PINK is another movie that addresses how unsafe our women are in our country despite we being in the second decade of the 21st century. The final statement of Amitabh Bachchan’s lawyer, fighting for his female clients, has a lot of social messages for the society including a renewed significance for the word ‘No’! And when a women says No, you can’t just force your will on her even if she happens to be your wife.

MS Dhoni: The Untold Story

Through his very ‘safe’ biopic, Dhoni wants his life to be a compilations of motivational and inspiring lessons for his fans, which the movie succeeds to some extent. Until it moves into cliched romantic territory, that is… While we all can appreciate Dhoni’s hardships in on his journey from being a local player in Ranchi to being one of the most popular cricket captains the world has ever seen, a little more explorations into his greyer sides would have made him more humane than setting him up on a pedestal. But still this Neeraj Pandey movie is inspiring for many of Captain Cool’s diehard fans.

Dangal

It is not easy to make a movie that has to promote sports development, women empowerment and duty towards country, without sounding preachy. However, Dangal not only addresses all these issues, but also turns out to be fine entertaining movie that will make you smile, move you to tears and finally make you cheer for the protagonists. Dangal is this decade’s Chak De India, where a father encourages his daughters to pursue a sports only associated with the men, and make champions out of them, earning respect from the very same men who were ridiculing them earlier. That’s how you do a feminist movie…