iWorld
Amazon MX Player sharpens India’s streaming appetite in 2025
India’s streaming audience stopped grazing in 2025 and started choosing with purpose. As viewing shifted from endless scrolling to deliberate selection, Amazon MX Player emerged as one of the year’s biggest winners, marrying familiar franchises with fresh formats and pushing free, mass-market streaming to new highs.
The platform began the year by laying out its ambition at StreamNext, unveiling a slate of more than 100 titles, including 40 Hindi originals, all streaming free. That strategy paid off. Long-running franchises once again anchored viewership, led by Ek badnaam aashram season 3 part 2. Starring Bobby Deol as Baba Nirala, the series crossed 250 million viewers and sat firmly atop Ormax Media charts as India’s most-watched show, puncturing the idea that only paid platforms can deliver scale.
Returning titles such as Half CA season 2, Hunter season 2 with Suniel Shetty and Jackie Shroff, Jamnapaar season 2 and Gutar gu season 3 reinforced the scripted slate, blending high drama with emotional realism. The platform also flexed its range with Bhay: the Gaurav Tiwari mystery, a restrained psychological thriller starring Karan Tacker and Kalki Koechlin that leaned on mood and investigation rather than spectacle.
Reality programming, however, became the year’s breakout engine. Formats grew sharper and more idea-led, turning into social conversations rather than background noise. Rise and fall, hosted by Ashneer Grover and featuring Pawan Singh, Arjun Bijlani, Kiku Sharda and Dhanashree Verma, drew more than 500 million views and ranked among India’s top two reality shows, according to Ormax. Hip hop India season 2, judged by Remo D’Souza and Malaika Arora, topped Ormax reality rankings for 11 consecutive weeks between January and June, while competitive shows such as Battleground and I-POPSTAR deepened the genre mix.
Fresh originals also found space to grow. Creator-led titles such as First copy with Munawar Faruqui and Aukaat ke bahar featuring Elvish Yadav brought new voices to the platform, while youth-focused shows like Lafangey and Gamerlog captured the awkward churn of early adulthood. Alongside domestic content, Amazon MX Player expanded MX Vdesi into one of India’s largest libraries of international dubbed programming, with more than 200 titles across Korean, Turkish and Mandarin, and the arrival of anime hits such as Demon slayer.
The scale attracted brands. Samsung, boAt, Lux Cozi, Haier and Sprite were among the marquee advertisers backing the platform, underlining its appeal as a mass-reach destination. By the end of 2025, Amazon MX Player had crossed 1.4 billion app downloads and reached 250 million monthly active users. With availability spanning Prime Video, Fire TV and the Amazon Shopping App, it closed the year not just as another streaming service, but as a fixture of India’s viewing habit.
In a crowded OTT market, Amazon MX Player’s bet was simple and effective. Make it free, make it familiar, then make it bold. In 2025, that formula made India stream.
iWorld
Subedaar puts Indian original cinema on the global map with record-breaking Prime Video debut
MUMBAI: Prime Video has a runaway hit on its hands. Subedaar, the gritty action drama starring Anil Kapoor, has stormed to become the most-watched Indian original movie on the platform in its opening weekend, cracking the Top 10 across 31 countries and landing in 91 per cent of India’s pin codes within days of its March 5 premiere.
The film, a visceral, emotionally-charged story of a retired soldier, Subedaar Arjun Maurya, wrestling with civilian life amid crime and corruption, has struck a nerve. Directed by Suresh Triveni and co-starring Radhikka Madan, Mona Singh, Saurabh Shukla, Aditya Rawal, Faisal Malik, and Khushboo Sundar, the film is already being hailed as a showcase for what Indian original storytelling can achieve on the world stage.
“Subedaar’s success is a reflection of the growing scale and global resonance of Indian storytelling,” said Nikhil Madhok, director and head of originals at Prime Video India. “The film’s emotional narrative, its rooted portrayal of a soldier confronting his toughest battles beyond the battlefield, has struck a chord. Anil Kapoor delivers an acting masterclass, while Suresh Triveni’s solid direction and great performances from the ensemble cast have resulted in love and appreciation from customers across the world.”
Kapoor, 62, has been here before, but rarely at this altitude. Written by Triveni and Prajwal Chandrashekar, with dialogues by Triveni, Saurabh Dwivedi, and Chandrashekar, the film is a production by Opening Image Films in association with Anil Kapoor Film & Communication Network (AKFCN), produced by Vikram Malhotra, Kapoor, and Triveni.
Subedaar streams exclusively on Prime Video in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu across India, and in over 240 countries and territories worldwide.
For Prime Video, the numbers tell the real story: one weekend, one film, a global footprint, and a very loud signal that Indian original cinema is no longer just travelling well. It’s arriving.
