MUMBAI, India—September 30, 2025—IMDb (www.imdb.com), the world’s most popular and authoritative source for information on movies, TV shows, and celebrities, today released a report, titled 25 Years of Indian Cinema (2000-2025), featuring a comprehensive analysis of the Indian film industry’s evolution over the past quarter century. This analysis is based on IMDb data from over 250 million monthly users worldwide.
The report examines the top five most popular Indian movies released each year between January 1, 2000, and August 31, 2025. These 130 movies collectively account for more than 9.1 million IMDb user ratings, an average of over 70,000 per movie, providing a unique, longitudinal view of global audience interest across languages, formats, and release models.
“The Indian film industry has always been cyclical, so this quarter century mark is a good vantage point to look forward and see what that evolution means for stories and storytellers in the years ahead,” said Yaminie Patodia, Head, IMDb India. “IMDb data offers a singular, global proxy for audience engagement, one that is neutral to platform, geography, and release window. This moment marks a coming of age for Indian cinema — one that embraces a richer tapestry of voices from across industries, driven by collaborations and diverse narrative styles. We are immensely proud to showcase Indian cinema’s representation across the world and look forward to its excellence being celebrated on screens globally.”
Key Findings From the Report
The Mass Movie Is Reclaiming Its Space and India’s Audience Is Seeking Stories in Which They Feel Seen
The report reveals a shift in audience preferences, with the mass movie reclaiming its space. This trend is exemplified by 12th Fail (2023), which stands out as the only movie by a Hindi filmmaker to break into the top 10 most popular Indian movies in Southern states in the last five years. This is a clear indication that, across regions, it’s the movies that resonate with a wider audience that are proving successful.
Collaborations Are Driving Scale; Directors Are Serving as the Key Architects of This New Era of Cinema
The report highlights how cross-industry collaborations are being used as a means for audience expansion. Twelve out of the 25 most popular movies from the past five years analysed in the report feature substantial cross-industry collaboration across direction, casting, music, and distribution. Directors like Lokesh Kanagaraj and S.S. Rajamouli, with four titles each in the report, are leading the charge in making movies that transcend regional boundaries.
The Star-Fan Dynamic Is Changing, So It’s Time To Stop Searching for the Next Shah Rukh Khan
The analysis also underscores an evolution in star-fan dynamics. While established stars like Shah Rukh Khan maintain significant influence, appearing in 20 of the top 130 movies across 25 years in the report, stars today are finding success through more strategic project selection and digital presence. They function more as multipliers of a film’s inherent strengths rather than guaranteed box office draws.
Language Is No Longer a Barrier, It’s a Genre
The report decodes how different language industries have developed distinct narrative identities: Telugu and Kannada films excel in spectacle-driven entertainment, Malayalam cinema in grounded realism, and Tamil films in balancing social themes with commercial appeal. This has led audiences to use language as a reliable indicator of storytelling style, choosing films based on their preferred narrative approach rather than viewing language as a barrier.
Additional findings from the report include:
- After Shah Rukh Khan at 20, Hrithik Roshan and Aamir Khan are tied with 11 movies each out of the 130 analysed in the report, followed by Deepika Padukone with 10, Ajay Devgn with seven, and Amitabh Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Rani Mukerji with six movies each.
- Aamir Khan (Dangal, PK, Taare Zameen Par, and 3 Idiots) dominates the segment of ‘Crossover Hits’ of Indian cinema that have high popularity with global audiences and have journeyed far beyond the usual countries for Indian movies.
- 3 Idiots is the most popular Indian movie worldwide on IMDb, with 468,000 IMDb user ratings, and 8.4 aggregate rating.
- Directors Lokesh Kanagaraj, S.S. Rajamouli, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Rajkumar Hirani, and Farhan Akhtar have each delivered four successful hits in the last 25 years in the report’s dataset.
- RRR is the most popular Indian movie of all time in the U.S., whereas 3 Idiots holds that position in the UK, the rest of Europe, and Australia. Dangal is the most popular Indian movie in the UAE and China, K.G.F: Chapter 2 in Pakistan, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion in Singapore, and Taare Zameen Par in Brazil.