This week’s roundup covers five titles that moved the needle on Indian OTT, from a genuine global chart-topper to a domestic horror-comedy that landed with a thud. Here’s what released, what’s trending, and what the numbers actually say.
Gandhari: Still No. 1, and Still Climbing
Taapsee Pannu’s action-thriller Gandhari, directed by Devashish Makhija, remains the single biggest Indian OTT story running right now. It held the No. 1 spot on Netflix’s global non-English films chart for the week of September 7 to 13, pulling 9.6 million views, up from 5.9 million in its debut weekend, an unusually sharp second-week jump rather than the typical decline most films see. It ranked in the Top 10 across 58 countries and hit No. 1 in 17 of them. Netflix’s next weekly chart, covering September 14 to 20, publishes in the coming days, and given the trajectory so far, Gandhari is a strong bet to still be near the top when it does. The film continues to be the clearest example this year of an Indian action-thriller, rather than a family drama or comedy, leading a truly global chart.
Alpha: The Flop That Refuses to Die Quietly
Alia Bhatt and Sharvari Wagh’s Alpha, the seventh entry in Yash Raj Films’ spy universe and its first female-led installment, remains one of the more unusual stories on the chart. It opened theatrically on July 3 to mixed-to-negative reviews and closed its box office run at roughly 58.86 crore, a genuine disappointment for a franchise entry with this much pedigree behind it (Bobby Deol, Anil Kapoor, and a Hrithik Roshan cameo rounding out the cast). Its Netflix run has told a completely different story. Since premiering on the platform on August 28, it has logged 11.1 million total views across three weeks and held a spot on the global non-English chart every week since, sitting at No. 9 for the week of September 7-13. Few films this year illustrate the growing gap between theatrical and streaming performance as sharply.
Vishwanath & Sons: The Quiet Third Hit Rounding Out the Chart
Suriya’s family drama Vishwanath & Sons, co-starring Mamitha Baiju, took the No. 3 spot on the same September 7-13 global chart with 5.5 million views in its debut week. It arrived with less pre-release buzz than Gandhari or Alpha but immediately placed in the global Top 3, making it, alongside those two, part of a week where six of Netflix’s global Top 10 non-English slots went to Indian titles, a combined 22.9 million views across just those six. R. Madhavan’s GDN and Varun Tej’s Korean Kanakaraju rounded out the sixth and tenth spots on the same chart, meaning half the week’s global Top 10 was Indian.
Modha Rathri: A Well-Reviewed Wedding Comedy Makes Its Streaming Move
Modha Rathri, a Tamil comedy-drama and the directorial debut of Raja Karuppasamy, arrived on Netflix on September 18, streaming in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi. The film follows Maruthu, played by Rishikanth in his debut as a lead actor, who returns to his village after years working in Dubai only to be pushed into an arranged marriage with Muthuselvi, played by Anishma Anilkumar, a match neither of them wants but both are pressured into by family and village tradition. Produced by Mythri Movie Makers and distributed theatrically by AGS Entertainment, the film released in cinemas on August 21, coinciding with the Milad un-Nabi weekend, and drew strong reviews, DT Next gave it 4 out of 5, calling it “an engaging wedding comedy and a family entertainer that blends laughter with observations.” Its theatrical reception, wide five-language streaming rollout, and thematically familiar but well-executed premise (forced marriage, family expectation, personal autonomy) make it a reasonable candidate to follow Gandhari and Alpha onto Netflix’s global chart, though that won’t be confirmed until this week’s chart update publishes.
Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot: JioHotstar’s Horror-Comedy Bet
Not every new release is chasing the same kind of critical momentum. Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot, a Hindi-language horror-comedy web series, premiered on JioHotstar on September 11, directed by Vishal Furia and produced by Bhuvanesh Shrivastava and Priyali Saxena under the Deja Vu Arts banner. It stars Asha Negi and Vishal Vashishtha as two people trapped in a village upended by paranormal events, tied to a backstory involving a father-daughter duo and a string of eerie incidents, alongside a supporting cast that includes Abhay Mahajan and Joy Sengupta. Despite the title, the show has nothing to do with the classic Alibaba folk tale, it borrows the name for recognition value while telling an unrelated ghost story. Reviews have been unenthusiastic: one review called it “an ordinary horror-comedy with modest aims” built from a familiar mix of relics, a mythical demon, and a police investigation, though the visual effects and cinematography were singled out as stronger than expected for the show’s budget. It’s a useful data point on what JioHotstar is greenlighting in the genre space, mid-budget horror-comedy aimed at a domestic audience, rather than a title likely to chase Gandhari’s international numbers.
The Bigger Picture This Week
Taken together, this week’s slate shows two different OTT stories running in parallel. On one track, Netflix’s Indian catalog is having a genuinely global moment, Gandhari, Alpha and Vishwanath & Sons all landed in the same week’s worldwide Top 10, across three different languages and three different genres. On the other, platforms like JioHotstar continue betting on mid-budget domestic genre content that isn’t trying to be a global hit, it’s trying to hold a local audience’s attention on a Friday night. Both are legitimate strategies, and both are shaping what “Indian OTT” actually means right now.
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