IMDb on Tuesday unveiled its report on 10 years of streaming in India. Though The Viral Fever (TVF) released India’s first web series, Permanent Roommates, back in 2014 on YouTube, it was only after subscription-based global giants like Netflix and Prime Video made inroads into the country two years later, in 2016, that the streaming movement in India kicked off.
As part of its detailed report, IMDb also released the lists of Most Popular Indian Series for every year of the past decade. Getting an early head start on the streaming revolution, TVF topped the 2016 list with Pitchers, which dropped on YouTube. It covered two other spots in the top 10 that year — Permanent Roommates on #2 and Tripling on #9.
Prime Video India dropped its maiden series, Karan Anshuman’s crime thriller show Inside Edge, in 2017, which topped the list that year. It led to TVF Pitchers slipping down to #3 and Permanent Roommates to #9. Netflix India dropped its maiden original series the next year, allowing Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap’s Sacred Games to top the list in 2018.
It retained the spot even in 2019, with the release of season 2. That compelled another Prime Video India crime thriller show, Gurmeet Singh’s Mirzapur, to be content with the #2 position for three years in a row, from the season 1 premiere in 2018 to season 2 release in 2020. However, it’s the most recurrent title across the yearly lists over the past decade.
That dominance probably explains why after three seasons, Mirzapur became the first Indian streaming original to be extended into a movie. Gurmeet’s Mirzapur: The Movie, which released earlier this year in cinemas, amassed Rs 339 crore at the worldwide box office. “I was very delighted that all our streaming service audiences came to the theatres, and it seems like they came with their families and friends. So, it was very nice. I’m very thrilled, and we’re very happy about that,” Mirzapur star Rasika Dugal told SCREEN recently.
While crime thrillers like Sacred Games, Mirzapur, and Raj & DK’s Prime Video India spy show The Family Man dominated the charts across the years, an unlikely underdog in Hansal Mehta’s SonyLIV show Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story claimed the top spot in 2020. In fact, it’s the most recurring title across the past decade despite having released only one season of the same story.
Pratik Gandhi in Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story.
With over 500 million users on YouTube, the platform beat streaming giants like Netflix India and Prime Video India to claim the top spot in 2021 with another collaboration with TVF, Aspirants. Another crime thriller, JioHotstar’s Criminal Justice, gradually made its way to the top following its 2019 premiere, claiming the #1 spot only three years later in 2022 with the season 3 premiere.
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What Raj & DK couldn’t achieve with Manoj Bajpayee-starrer The Family Man, they did with another Prime Video India crime thriller show, Shahid Kapoor-starrer Farzi, in 2023, claiming the top spot. Mirzapur finally claimed that throne with season 3 premiere in 2024. Aryan Khan’s directorial debut The Ba***ds of Bollywood led Netflix India to return to the top spot again in 2025. This year, till October 15, the most popular Indian series has turned out to be a comedy — Rajkumar Hirani’s Pritam and Pedro, starring Arshad Warsi and marking the acting debut of the showrunner’s son Vir Hirani, on JioHotstar.
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Best performing platforms and creators
Prime Video India, which turns 10 this December, has turned out to be the best performing OTT platform in the past decade, boasting of 31 ranks and 14 unique IPs. While Netflix India has secured 10 ranks less, its unique IP count is 18. JioHotstar comes next, at 19 ranks and 10 unique IPs. YouTube follows, with 14 ranks and 11 unique IPs. SonyLIV also shared the spot with 14 ranks, but with only five unique IPs.
YouTube turned out to be India’s “unofficial development lab”, with several of its shows being acquired by major streaming platforms in the subsequent years. Prime Video India acquired TVF titles like Tripling, Permanent Roommates, and Pitchers. Netflix India picked up TVF’s Yeh Meri Family and Kota Factory, and Dhruv Sehgal’s romantic show Little Things after season 1. ZEE5 also acquired TVF Aspirants, while SonyLIV picked up Bhuvan Bam’s Dhindora.
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Among the most recurrent creators across the past decade are Arunabh Kumar’s TVF, Raj & DK’s D2R Films, and Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment (Mirzapur, Inside Edge, and Prime Video India’s Made in Heaven among others); Applause Entertainment (Criminal Justice, Scam 1992, and Netflix India’s Black Warrant among others); and Neeraj Pandey’s Friday Storytellers (Netflix India’s Taskaree, JioHotstar’s The Freelancer and Special Ops among others).
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Most popular streaming faces
It’s no secret that over the past decade, streaming has also rewritten rules of stardom. It’s made stars out of actors like Pankaj Tripathi (Mirzapur, Criminal Justice, Sacred Games season 2), Vikrant Massey (Musafir Cafe, Mirzapur), Ali Fazal (Mirzapur, Raakh), Jitendra Kumar (Kota Factory, Panchayat), Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover (The Great Indian Kapil Show), Kay Kay Menon (Special Ops, Farzi, Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya), and Mona Singh (Made in Heaven season 2, Pritam and Pedro, Kohrra season 2, The Ba***ds of Bollywood).