Netflix takes South Indian stories to 60 countries as regional content travels

MUMBAI: South Indian stories are no longer staying south of the Vindhyas, with audiences across the world tuning in to watch them in their original languages. At the CII Big Picture Summit 2026, Netflix India vice president of content Monika Shergill said South Indian titles had featured in the platform’s top 10 lists across 60 countries this year, up from fewer than 20 countries last year, underlining the growing international reach of regional storytelling.

The discussion, titled ‘Into the Southverse: Dissecting the South Indian Content Boom’, brought together filmmakers and actors to examine what is driving the region’s storytelling momentum and how its stories can travel beyond linguistic and geographical boundaries. Radio presenter Hrishikesh Kannan moderated the conversation, which featured producer Soundarya Rajinikanth, Tamil actor and filmmaker Elan, actor Arjun Das and actor Priyanka Mohan, who is also an ambassador of Korean tourism.

The conversation came as Netflix marked the 10th year of its arrival in India, having launched in the country in January 2016. Shergill, who said she had spent the last seven years at the platform, reflected on how the company’s approach had evolved from bringing international content to Indian viewers to working more closely with local creators to take Indian stories to audiences worldwide.

When Netflix first entered India, its initial originals were commissioned through its US office, with no local base in the country. The company gradually built its understanding of Indian audiences, spending its first two to three years experimenting before attempting to surprise viewers with a wider variety of stories. Shergill said the platform’s focus was now on offering audiences not just familiar viewing choices, but also stories they might not have realised they wanted to watch.

For South Indian content, that shift has opened up opportunities beyond the traditional remake route. For decades, stories and films from the southern industries have been adapted into other languages. The current moment, however, is increasingly about original Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada stories finding viewers across India and overseas in their own right.

Shergill said the region’s creators had long produced distinctive and diverse work, but the scale of discovery had been a limiting factor. Streaming, she argued, has helped close that gap by making stories from different industries more accessible to audiences who might otherwise never have encountered them.

One example discussed at the session was Netflix’s Tamil film Made in Korea, starring Priyanka Mohan. The story follows a young woman from a village in Tamil Nadu whose journey takes her to Seoul, South Korea, combining a local starting point with a cross-cultural narrative.

Shergill described the film as a relatively simple idea that became a major success for the platform. She recalled that when the project was being discussed, colleagues had questioned whether an Indian story could successfully cross into another cultural context, particularly given the language and cultural differences involved. Netflix’s South Indian team went ahead with the experiment, and the film subsequently reached number one on the platform’s global non-English top 10 list and entered the top 10 in 53 countries, according to Shergill.

The success also brought wider recognition for Mohan. Shergill said the actor was invited to a state dinner hosted during the South Korean president’s visit to India and had been named an honorary tourism ambassador by Korea Tourism.

For Netflix, the film demonstrated how a story rooted in a specific place could find an audience far beyond its home market. Its appeal did not depend on removing its Tamil identity; rather, the journey between Tamil Nadu and Seoul gave the story a cultural bridge through which viewers elsewhere could connect with it.

Shergill also cited Malayalam cinema as evidence of the region’s ability to produce stories that cross borders. She referred to Minnal Murali, the superhero film that attracted attention beyond India, including a social media post from actor Tom Holland expressing interest in the character. She also pointed to the international attention received by RRR, which helped bring Telugu cinema and its talent into wider global conversations.

Rather than treating South Indian cinema as a single, uniform category, Shergill stressed that each industry has its own storytelling grammar and audience behaviour. Malayalam cinema, she said, has a different approach from Tamil storytelling, while Telugu films are often more ambitious in scale and oriented towards action or comedy. Tamil storytelling, meanwhile, frequently explores high-concept ideas.

That variety, combined with the consistency of creative output across the region, gives platforms a broad range of material to take to audiences around the world.

Language remains a defining part of regional storytelling, but it is becoming less of a barrier to discovery. Shergill said 70 per cent of viewing on Netflix happens through subtitles and dubbing, allowing audiences to watch stories from different parts of the world without necessarily understanding the original language.

The figure, as cited during the session, reflected how audiences are increasingly willing to explore content outside their linguistic comfort zones. For regional creators, that creates an opportunity to reach viewers who may have little familiarity with the culture or setting in which a story unfolds.

The change is also affecting what audiences are willing to watch. Elan said viewers’ exposure to international films had grown over the years, first through the internet and later through streaming platforms, which brought a wider range of cinema into homes. He said this exposure had changed audience sensibilities and created more room for filmmakers to experiment with different genres and storytelling styles.

Recalling his early career, Elan said he had approached more than 100 producers with a thriller inspired by films such as The Silence of the Lambs and Memories of Murder, but struggled to find someone willing to back it. Producers had questioned whether Indian audiences would understand the material. He argued that the current environment is more receptive to such stories, pointing to the success of films and thrillers that might once have been considered difficult to sell.

For filmmakers, that shift means greater freedom to explore unusual premises and different narrative approaches. It also changes the relationship between creators and platforms, which can introduce viewers to content that may not fit conventional theatrical expectations.

Producer Soundarya Rajinikanth spoke about the opportunities emerging across formats, having worked in animation, performance capture, live-action films and now streaming series. She said the experience of producing a long-form Tamil project for Netflix had been different from making a feature film, requiring a distinct approach to writing, editing and presentation.

Her series #Love, directed by Balaji Mohan, is set in Chennai and explores romance through the relationship between two people with contrasting views on chemistry and compatibility. Shergill described it as a young, fresh and universal love story that remains rooted in its Tamil context.

Rajinikanth said the project had been an important step into long-form content and expressed interest in making more series. She noted that Tamil audiences were traditionally more accustomed to films than episodic storytelling, making the format a new opportunity to build connections with viewers over a longer narrative.

The discussion also touched on the need for platforms to give creators the confidence to take creative risks. Rajinikanth said trust was the most important thing a platform could offer a storyteller: the belief that a project had merit and the potential to reach a wider audience. She also emphasised the importance of having a partner throughout the process, recognising that viewers may interpret a project differently from how its creators initially intended.

Her comments highlighted a wider question for the streaming business: how can platforms support distinctive voices without forcing every project into a familiar template? As regional stories seek larger audiences, creators need room to preserve the details that make their work specific while allowing viewers elsewhere to connect with it.

The panel also explored whether South Indian actors could command the kind of international fandom often associated with Korean dramas. Arjun Das, who appears in #Love, said there was no need to compare Indian actors directly with Korean drama stars, pointing instead to the strength of stories shaped by Indian culture, emotions and family relationships.

The question reflected the growing visibility of Korean entertainment in India and the possibility of a similar cross-border following for South Indian performers. Shergill suggested that the success of regional titles showed how audiences could embrace characters and stories from unfamiliar settings when the storytelling connected with them.

The opportunity is not limited to romantic dramas. From thrillers and action-led films to superheroes and cross-cultural coming-of-age stories, the region’s content spans genres and tones. That breadth gives platforms more ways to introduce audiences to South Indian cinema than a narrow focus on a single language or style would allow.

The conversation returned to the central challenge of taking stories beyond their home markets without stripping away their identity. Streaming platforms can provide distribution and discovery, but the creative proposition still has to work: characters need to feel real, the premise must hold attention, and the story must offer something that resonates beyond its immediate context.

As Netflix enters its second decade in India, the Southverse conversation suggests that regional storytelling is becoming a larger part of the country’s global media ambitions. With South Indian titles appearing in the top 10 across 60 countries this year, the next question is how creators and platforms can build on that reach, take more creative risks and turn one successful cross-border story into a lasting audience for many more.