Jab We Met · reception & legacy
2007 · Imtiaz Ali
How Jab We Met has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A modest sleeper in October 2007 that grew on word of mouth into a genuine hit — and has only climbed since, via endless TV reruns and streaming, into consensus 'best Bollywood rom-com of the 2000s' territory that its opening weekend never predicted.
What's debated
The perennial fight: is Geet a fully-realised heroine or Bollywood's definitive manic pixie dream girl — and is this the peak Imtiaz Ali never matched again?
Its footprint
Geet's 'Main apni favourite hoon' ('I'm my own favourite') is one of modern Bollywood's most quoted and memed lines, and the film remains the default comfort-watch reference — the train, the yellow phone booth scene, and Geet herself are shorthand across Indian internet culture.
Where it stands
A stone-cold comfort-film canon entry and Letterboxd favourite among Hindi-cinema fans — the standard 'start here' recommendation for Bollywood rom-coms.