`Chotey cheez bade-bade kaam karti hai,` says Shahid Kapoor suggestively in R(raunchy?) ... Rajkumar. Right you are, Shahid.

Stars guarantee boxoffice returns. The bigger the stars the better the boxoffice returns...right? Not necessarily so. The smaller(read: star-less) films are largely known to flounder for the want of flourishing footfalls. But surprises did come in small packets. Here's saluting the small starless wonders of 2013.

1. The Lunchbox: Well okay, Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are not quite the unknown entities. But they are not boxoffice champs either. And their leading lady Nimrat Kaur was an unknown, until this small Indie film with a big heart. 3 months after its release director Ritesh Batra is still going around the world collecting raves. What worked for the film was the transparency in telling the tale of two lonely middleaged people who connect over food and food for thought.


2. Kai Po Che: When Rock On director Abhishek Kapoor decided to do a celluloid take on Chetan Bhagat's besetseller he was sure he wanted newcomers...well, he ended up with three of the oldest newcomers in the entertainment industry. Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh and Raj Kumar Yadav have been acting on television and in films for some years now. The film made a huge difference to their careers, specially Sushant.Moral: make stars, don't let them break you.

3. Shahid: Hansal Mehta's film has only one star. The true-life personality of activist-lawyer Shahid Azmi. The actors were subservient to the story.That's what made this little-big film so special.

4. Fukrey: Mrighdeep Singh Lamba who earlier made the absolutely unfunny Teen Thay Bhai with veteran actor Om Puri,Deepak Dobriyal and Shreyas Talpade cast newcomers in his second film. Pulkit Samrat, Varun Sharma and Navjot Singh sparkled in this sly saga of wicked wastrels who hope to make it big. Like many recent comedies this one too was set in Delhi.We liked.

5. B.A Pass: Big surprises sometimes creep up on us while we aren't watching. This one about male prostitution in Delhi was a dark somber stunning study of decadence. Hard to believe Ajay Bahl was a first-time director.

6. Aashiqui 2: Both Aditya Roy Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor had three thundering flops behind them.A strong emotional story-line ensured stardom for both the Kapoors. But how this star-less take on A Star Is Born leapt into the 100-crore club is a mystery .Director Mohit Suri is still rubbing his eyes in disbelief.


7. Sixteen: A coming-of-age teen flick directed by Raj Purohit in which a bunch of newcomers played their roles so effortelessly that you wondered if they were telling their own stories on screen.The film was a shimmering showcase of virgin talent. Fresh original and endearing.Haven't seen it?Get a DVD, fast.

8. Maazi: Debutant director Jaideep Chopra's haunting thriller about the violent past catching up with a well-settled peaceful family man was the surprise of the year. Most of those meager members of the audience who saw the film opined it would have worked wonders at the boxoffice if Salman Khan played the haunted man instead of the unknown Sumeet Nijhawan. Here we go again.

9. Mickey Virus: Manish Paul couldn't quite become the instant star that Ayushmann Khurrana did after Vickey Donor. Never mind. This vivacious flick on the virtual word as seen through the eyes of hacker was interesting.Saurabh Verma knows computers as well as his cinema.

10. What The Fish & Commando: Dimple apart ,WTF was again a film with near-newcomers that had chuckling all the way into 2014. Good going, Gurmmeet Singh. And Vidyut Jamwal scored a slammer with his sinewy stunts in first-time director Dilip Ghosh's Commando.Deadly impact.