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Most Watched Netflix Original Indian Movies of 2024

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What’s on Netflix — the great site that just published my huge Netflix Indian Originals 2025 preview — posted their guide to the most watched Netflix Original movies of 2024. Two charts separate English Original movies from non-English Original movies. Tabs allow you so see how films performed in their first, second, third, and fourth week of release.

The data is derived from Netflix’s weekly Top 10 lists, posted every Tuesday. This is a smaller subset of the data Netflix publishes every six months in its Engagement Reports, but that information obviously isn’t out for the second half of 2024. Though less comprehensive, data from the weekly Top 10 lists still gives us a good idea of which Netflix Originals were most popular — or at least most in-demand right after they released.

I’m going to look at just the results for the First Four Weeks as compiled by What’s on Netflix to see what Indian Original movies released in 2024 were the most popular. I’ve noted below which movies did not rank in the Top 10 for four full weeks after their release (or failed to chart at all). The links below go to my review of each film. Here are the Most Watched Netflix Original Indian movies of 2024:

  1. Do Patti — 17,000,000 cumulative views
  2. Sector 36 — 12,100,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 3 weeks)
  3. Maharaj — 11,600,000 cumulative views
  4. Bhakshak — 10,400,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 3 weeks)
  5. Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba — 10,100,000 cumulative views
  6. Sikandar Ka Muqaddar — 9,500,000 cumulative views (in first 3 weeks)
  7. Murder Mubarak — 6,300,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 2 weeks)
  8. Amar Singh Chamkila — 5,300,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 2 weeks)
  9. Wild Wild Punjab — 4,500,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 2 weeks)
  10. CTRL — 2,100,000 cumulative views (dropped out after 1 week)
  11. Vijay 69 — Failed to feature in the weekly Top 10

It’s no shock to find Do Patti atop the list with stars as big as Kriti Sanon and Kajol in the leading roles. Given the dark subject matter of Sector 36, I’m a little surprised to see it in second place (not that I’m complaining; it’s a great movie). Undoubtedly, news about the court case that delayed Maharaj‘s release raised awareness of the film.

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar hasn’t even been out for four weeks yet, so it’ll be fun to see if it can climb past Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba into fifth place when it completes its first month of release.

The two major disappointments on the list are Amar Singh Chamkila and CTRL, two of my favorites of the year. When the next Engagement Report comes out, I hope the data will report that they were just slow burns that got more views over time. They really are worth watching.

How did your favorite Netflix Original rank?

Streaming Video News: July 11, 2024

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s addition of the Tamil film Maharaja and yesterday’s premiere of the Original comedy flick Wild Wild Punjab (which I thought was okay).

Today, ZEE5 premiered the Hindi horror comedy Kakuda, starring Sonakshi Sinha, Saqib Saleem, and Riteish Deshmukh.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s premiere of the Telugu series Agnisakshi: Fire of Love and the release of the remaining episodes of the Hindi series Showtime.

No new updates to my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime this week, but do check out the recently released Original Hindi film Sharmajee Ki Beti, which I enjoyed.

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Movie Review: Wild Wild Punjab (2024)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Wild Wild Punjab on Netflix

TV director Simarpreet Singh makes the jump to features with the Netflix Original film Wild Wild Punjab, a road trip comedy written and produced by Luv Ranjan.

Office drone Khanna (Varun Sharma) caught his co-worker girlfriend Vaishali cheating on him with their boss, and now the new couple is getting married.

Distraught Khanna wants to end his life, but his womanizing friend Maan (Sunny Singh) has a better idea. Maan says that, while Vaishali thinks she’s traded up, if Khanna tells her that he’s over her, it’ll make her question whether she’s with the right guy.

Their friend Honey (Manjot Singh) agrees, but he thinks it’ll be most effective if Khanna tells Vaishali “I am over you” in person. Festivities are underway for her wedding in Pathankot, which is only a three hour drive from Patiala. Honey offers to drive them there in his souped-up truck.

The only friend with reservations is cowardly Jain (Jassie Gill), but that’s just because he’s terrified of his overbearing dad. Jain’s own arranged marriage is scheduled for next week, so he’s already got plenty to worry about. Still, the guys convince Jain to lie to his dad and join them since they’ll be back from Patiala by morning. What could go wrong?

Before they’ve even left town, the guys crash a wedding to get free food and drinks. When they wake up hungover the next morning at a stranger’s house, Jain discovers he’s married to the woman whose wedding they crashed. And they’re still hours away from Pathankot.

As immature as the friends are, they’re actually decent guys. Their plan isn’t borne out of vindictiveness, but out of concern for Khanna’s well-being. Taking him to his ex’s wedding to tell her he’s moved on isn’t that disruptive, and it will give him back a sense of control.

After some initial reluctance, they even welcome Jain’s accidental bride Radha (Patralekhaa) into the group. She suggests that Khanna’s declaration will be more believable if he’s accompanied by a new woman, and they head to a nearby college to find one. That’s how feisty Meera (Ishita Raj) joins the crew.

When the story focuses on the characters, it’s pretty entertaining. It helps that the acting is uniformly good, with Manjot Singh and Patralekhaa standing out among the rest. Counterintuitively, the story drags during the action scenes in the second half, when the group engages in multiple car chases and a shootout with drug dealers. Drugs and guns feel like perfunctory signifiers that the movie is set in Punjab, as if without those tropes the movie would lack a sense of place.

Simarpreet Singh’s direction is overall good, and the screenplay — co-written by Ranjan, Sandeep Jain, and Harman Wadala — is decent. But Wild Wild Punjab is a misleading title for a movie so conventional.

Links

Streaming Video News: June 27, 2024

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s world premiere of the Hindi film Sharmajee Ki Beti, starring Divya Dutta and Saiyami Kher.

Today’s other world premiere Hindi film is Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Rauta Ka Raaz, streaming now on Zee5.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s addition of the Hindi-dubbed version of the Malayalam film Aavesham. 2014’s Total Siyapaa is also now streaming. It’s not that great.

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with the addition of the Telugu film Bhaje Vaayu Vegam. I also wrote a preview of Wild Wild Punjab for What’s on Netflix ahead of the film’s July 10 release.

If you’re looking for a fun podcast to listen to this weekend, I was recently a guest on the Bollywood Drafts Podcast. The premise of the podcast is to take a collection of films and rank them in reverse order from 13 to 1 to find the best movie of the bunch. Past topics include the films of Shah Rukh Khan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. For our episode, four of us — me, Shah Shahid, Nim Kaur, and Erin Fraser — ranked the movies that have won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress in the 21st Century. My unorthodox playing style may have driven host Manish Mathur a little crazy. Please give it a listen here. It was a blast to record!

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Streaming Video News: June 20, 2024

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with today’s premiere of the first two episodes of the new Hindi series Bad Cop, starring Gulshan Devaiah and Anurag Kashyap. The series is available dubbed in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu as well. Also new on Hulu is the Tamil film Aranmanai 4 (with dubbed versions in Kannada and Malayalam).

One update to last week’s Streaming Video News is that Hulu has temporarily removed Do Aur Do Pyaar in order to fix an error with the audio track. There’s no word yet on when it will return.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with the addition of the Telugu theatrical release Gam Gam Ganesha. Amazon debuted a trailer for the new Original Hindi film Sharmajee Ki Beti, which premieres June 28 (likely the afternoon of June 27 in the States):

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s debut of Season 3 of Kota Factory. The release of the Original Hindi film Maharaj is still on hold while the Gujarat High Court decides whether it offends religious sensibilities or not. [Update: Maharaj has been cleared for release. I thought it was pretty good.] Netflix released a teaser for the comedy movie Wild Wild Punjab, which debuts July 10.

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]