Netflix’s Best of the Best stars Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia as two best friends on a UCLA Bollywood-fusion dance team, and the film — described by Teen Vogue as a spiritual successor to Bend It Like Beckham — arrived on Netflix on September 18, 2026.
Best of the Best follows Maya and Anjali through their freshman year as college, friendship and competition collide; Teen Vogue reports Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia lead the cast and that Lena Khan directed the film.
The two leads trained intensively for the roles: Teen Vogue quotes Ramakrishnan saying the actors did “six dance classes a day, six days a week, for four months” during a boot-camp rehearsal period to build the physical trust required for duets and lifts.
Netflix’s official title page for Best of the Best lists the film as a 2026 comedy and credits Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Priyanka Kedia and Ankur Rathee in the cast, and the service groups the movie with college, sisterhood and dance themes.
Though critics and publicity have compared the movie’s premise to Bend It Like Beckham, Teen Vogue and the film’s cast frame the comparison as cultural and tonal: dance is the vehicle for a friendship story rooted in South Asian American college life rather than an exploration of identity conflict alone, Ramakrishnan says in the interview.
The film’s focus on collegiate Bollywood-fusion teams draws on the real-world Best of the Best competition tradition, which Teen Vogue notes inspired the movie’s title and the depiction of campus dance culture.
For background on the film’s production and director perspective, see reporting that interviewed Lena Khan and the cast about making a Bollywood-fusion dance film for Netflix and about how the movie channels college-team energy.
Sources
- Teen Vogue — interview with Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia describing the story, training regimen, cultural context and the film as a spiritual successor to Bend It Like Beckham.
- Netflix — official title page for Best of the Best listing cast, genre tags and availability on Netflix.
- Power of Pop — commentary on the film and cast noting echoes between the movie and previous South Asian dance stories.
- Power of Pop — interview with director Lena Khan on making a Bollywood-fusion dance film for Netflix.
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