Watch Order
0 / 9 watchedThe essential Mehta features in the order they were released.
About Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta (born 1950) is an Indian-born Canadian director whose Elements trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998) and Water (2005), confronted arranged marriage, Partition violence and the treatment of widows. Water earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film after protesters destroyed its original Varanasi set and forced a move to Sri Lanka.
Her features stand alone, so release order is ideal, and the trilogy plays best in its Fire-Earth-Water sequence. This list covers the key films in order, with a note on each. Later work includes the Salman Rushdie adaptation Midnight's Children (2012) and Funny Boy (2020).
Good to know
Mehta is still working; her latest directing credits include Funny Boy (2020) and the documentary I Am Sirat (2023). Water's production history is covered in her daughter Devyani Saltzman's book Shooting Water. Fire, Earth and Water can be watched as a self-contained trilogy before the rest. TMDB also lists undated directing credits for Sher and Troilokya.
