World's Best

World's Best is a 2023 American musical comedy film directed by Roshan Sethi and written by Utkarsh Ambudkar and Jamie King. It was released on Disney+ on June 23, 2023, and generally received positive reviews from critics. Plot Prem Patel is a 12-year-old math genius who lives with his widowed mother Priya. He aims to be the best and takes high school level mathematics, which he excels at. After taking an entrance exam, Ms. Sage gives the class a homework assignment to use math to describe who they are. Prem asks Priya what his late father Suresh was like and she regales the story of how they first met when he was just an up-and-coming rapper, a dream he never got to achieve due to cancer. Prem looks at his father's old things and is suddenly visited by a manifestation of Suresh who has come to help him discover himself. Prem starts to imagine himself becoming a rapper like his father and embraces the lifestyle. Prem's best friend, Jerome, joins up with school bullies Brooklyn and Sharn for a talent competition, and tries to avoid fellow mathematics genius Claire due to her odd appearance. Prem also joins the talent competition using the name "World's Best Emcee". He uses his father's old rhymes book to garner inspiration, but when Brooklyn and Sharn put Prem on the spot, he panics, but is rescued by older students Mercedes and Gabe who take a liking to him and bond with him over hip hop and math. Prem continues to get support and words of wisdom from Suresh who comes to him in imaginary hip hop musical moments. While at lunch, Brooklyn and Sharn steal Suresh's book and coax a reluctant Jerome to toss in the trash, it is saved by Claire, but an angered Prem dismisses her and Priya is called by Mr. Oh where she discovers what Prem has been doing. She scolds him for becoming too obsessed with his father, but insists that he is doing exactly what he would have wanted. Prem asks Mercedes and Gabe to take him to the Lounge Lizard, the place Suresh and Priya met, only to learn that Suresh never played an open mic, despite wanting to, and was merely a bartender there. This news upsets Prem and after getting heckled by Brooklyn, tries to attack him, but breaks his arm.