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Lust Stories 3 explores female desire, fantasies and pleasure through four stories that put women and their needs at the centre.
Lust stories is streaming on Netflix.
Lust Stories 3U/A
3/5
Starring: Radhika Apte, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vijay Varma, Radhika Madan, Aditi Rao Hydari, Siddharth, Gurfateh Pirzada and Sana ThampiDirector: Shakun Batra, Vishal Bhardwaj, Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran RaoPlatform: Netflix
Lust Stories 3 review: The third instalment of the Netflix anthology is unapologetically interested in the female gaze. Its four stories are built around women who want, imagine, manipulate, fantasise and, most importantly, recognise that their desires matter. The stories are not interested in presenting sex as a simple expression of romance. Here, lust is tied to loneliness, marriage, survival, power and self-discovery.
Directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vishal Bhardwaj, the four segments explore different versions of desire. Some are sharp, some are messy and some feel underwritten. But together, they attempt to shift the conversation away from how women are desired by men to what women themselves desire.
Motwane’s story follows two married best friends, played by Konkona Sen Sharma and Radhika Apte, whose apparently happy marriages have become sexless and emotionally distant. Their attempt to bring excitement back into their lives soon exposes jealousy, insecurity and the extent to which they have allowed their husbands to determine how desirable they feel.
The story’s real subject is not the sexual experiment at its centre. It is the need to feel wanted without making male validation the measure of one’s self-worth. The women want pleasure, but they also want to feel in control of their own bodies and choices.
The premise is promising, especially because the women’s friendship gives the story an intimate, lived-in quality. However, the men are not given the same complexity. One is too easily manipulated, while another seems to have been misunderstood. The segment raises questions about female agency, but its chaotic progression prevents some of those questions from being explored fully. But it is a strong opening statement for an anthology that wants to place women’s desires at the centre.
Radhika Apte and Konkona Sen Sharma are predictably fantastic in their respective roles as women left sexless in their marriages, willing to go to great lengths to feel desirable and reconnect with their own desires. They are ably supported by Vijay Varma and Abhishek Banerjee, who bring their own charm and credibility to the story.
Kiran Rao’s segment shifts the conversation from marital dissatisfaction to survival. Set in Mumbai, it follows pizza delivery boy Karan (Gurfateh Pirzada) and Lisa (Sana Thampi), a nail artist who dreams of building a life of her own. Here, sex is a currency. Desire is not separate from money, insecurity or the struggle to survive in a city that constantly demands more from its people. Everyone is trying to gain something, hide something or escape something. Intimacy becomes a mere tool in that game.
Lisa is not simply a woman caught between two men. She understands her circumstances and knows how to use them. It gives the story a welcome sense of female agency. But the segment is more interested in its twists and deceptions than in the emotional consequences of its characters’ choices.
Gurfateh gives his best but his performance occasionally feels one-note. He could have brought more depth to the character, especially in a story that otherwise promises the kind of layered writing associated with Rao.
Shakun Batra’s story is perhaps the most direct examination of sexual compatibility versus emotional compatibility. Sailee and Varun, played by Radhika Madan and Ali Fazal, are in the family court for their divorce. Yet when they reconnect physically, sex becomes the only space in which they seem to understand each other.
Outside the bedroom, they are unable to communicate without conflict. In bed, they are connected. Sex also becomes a form of power and escape. One uses it to control the other, while the other uses it to avoid confronting difficult emotions. Their physical connection gives them temporary relief, but it cannot repair the relationship. Radhika and Ali are convincing as a couple desperately trying to make their marriage work despite their fundamental differences.
The fourth story, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, is the most original and the most assured segment of the anthology. Set in Hyderabad in 1987, it follows Saira, played by Aditi Rao Hydari, a medical student married to Dr Badru, played by Siddharth. Badru is loving in his own way, but when it comes to intimacy, he is largely focused on himself. Their physical relationship takes place once a week, every Friday, or as they call it, Jumme ki raat.
Saira’s understanding of desire changes when one of her students tells her about a raunchy book called Macy and Ben. As she reads, her own fantasies begin to merge with the world of the book. She imagines a space where her desires are acknowledged, where her needs are understood and where her partner is attentive to her pleasure.
The fantasy world becomes an escape from the limitations of her real marriage. But it also becomes a source of creative energy. Saira begins writing her own book about desire, giving language to thoughts that she has never been able to express openly.
This is where this segment becomes more than a story about an unsatisfying sex life. It is about how literature can help women understand themselves. Saira does not merely discover what she wants from a man. She discovers that she has the right to want something in the first place.
The 1987 setting makes this quite effective. In a more conservative social environment, a woman writing openly about lust and fantasy becomes both comic and radical. The story draws from the tradition of Hindi erotic fiction, but it does not treat Saira’s desires as dirty or ridiculous. Instead, it presents fantasy as a private space of freedom.
The segment’s eccentricity works because it is rooted in character. Its humour does not mock Saira for wanting more. It comes from the gap between her rich inner world and the restrictions of her everyday life. Aditi Rao Hydari is effortless as Saira, but Siddharth is the soul of the anthology. His shift between Saira’s fictional fantasy and Badru is a delight to watch. The role feels tailor-made for him.
Lust Stories 3 is an uneven but worthwhile attempt to place female desire at the centre of mainstream storytelling. Its four directors look at lust as a need, an escape, a weapon, a survival tactic and a creative force.
Motwane’s story explores the need to feel wanted. Kiran Rao turns sex into a currency in a world shaped by money and survival. Shakun Batra examines a marriage that works physically but fails emotionally. Bhardwaj’s segment treats desire as imagination, literature and self-discovery.
The anthology does not always develop these ideas with equal confidence. Some stories are driven more by their premises than their characters and some of the emotional conclusions feel less convincing than the questions raised along the way.
But Lust Stories 3’s intention is clear. Its strongest point is its insistence that women can be the ones who desire, choose and take control of their pleasure. An enjoyable watch.
Quick Answers
Ask News18Lust Stories 3 features four distinct segments directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra, and Vishal Bhardwaj.
Ask News18About the Author
Shreyanka Mazumdar is Chief Sub Editor of the entertainment team at News18. With an unbridled passion for all things Bollywood, she loves deep-diving into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment wo…Read More
September 18, 2026, 12:35 IST
