Indian Streaming at 10: IMDb Report Shows Which Series and Stars Defined the Decade
IMDb has released a new report looking back at ten years of Indian streaming, and it offers a clear picture of what audiences have actually watched since 2016. Titled 10 Years of Streaming in India: An IMDb Report 2026, it covers the Top 10 Most Popular Indian Series for each year from 2016 to 2026. That adds up to 64 unique series across 110 chart positions, all ranked by page views from more than 250 million monthly visitors to IMDb worldwide.
The report also looks beyond the biggest hits to the wider range of Indian series, tracking how tastes have shifted, how franchises have taken hold and how production and viewing habits have changed.
The shows that kept coming back
Mirzapur is the standout. It made the chart nine times and has appeared every year since it launched. Scam 1992 has a different kind of record: it is the only series to make the list five times on the strength of a single season. Other long-running favourites include The Family Man, Criminal Justice and Panchayat.
Crime and thriller dominated the decade, taking 48 of the 110 positions. Toward the end of the period, horror, romance, comedy and drama began to gain ground.
Who is winning on streaming platforms
Prime Video and Amazon MX Player together held 34 of the 110 positions across 17 series, more than any other service. Netflix had 21 positions but spread them across 18 different series, the widest variety of any streamer highlighted in the report.
The actors who defined the decade
IMDb calls Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Vikrant Massey, Jitendra Kumar, Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover “The MVPs of Streaming”, since each is tied to recurring franchises and multiple successful series. Kay Kay Menon, Naveen Kasturia and Mona Singh stand out for range, appearing in five or more series in very different roles. The report also points to a large group of multi-hyphenates, including Shahid Kapoor, Vijay Sethupathi, Samantha, Barun Sobti and Karan Tacker, who brought an established screen identity to a new medium.
YouTube and TVF
Thirteen of the 64 series on the chart started on YouTube, and 11 of those were later picked up by subscription streaming services. That makes YouTube a real testing ground for new ideas and new creators.
The Viral Fever (TVF) is a big part of that story. It produced nine unique series and 17 chart positions, roughly one in every six appearances. Its run stretches from TVF Pitchers in 2016 to Sapne vs Everyone in 2026.
Growing interest, fewer new shows
Audience interest in Indian series on IMDb grew about 17-fold over the ten years. Even so, the industry is becoming more cautious. New series and seasons commissioned peaked at 202 in 2023, then fell to 169 in 2024 and 145 in 2025, which fits with a streaming market that is consolidating. Hindi made up 66% of all Indian streaming originals in 2025.
“Building on the success of last year’s report on Indian cinema, we turned our lens to series and used IMDb Data to understand how a decade of streaming has reshaped audience interests,” said Yaminie Patodia, Head of IMDb India.
The report also includes views on what comes next from industry leaders: Gaurav Gandhi of Prime Video, Gunjan Soni of YouTube, Monika Shergill of Netflix, former Applause CEO Sameer Nair and Vijay Koshy of The Viral Fever.
