iWorld
Prime Video’s festive season: 11 must-binge movies & shows!
Mumbai: With a promise to deliver engaging, rich, and top-notch entertainment, Prime Video has your festive season entertainment needs covered. Prime members are in for a treat with a bouquet of the very best content across various genres to enjoy with their families. As everyone gears up for the best time of the year, here are some films and shows in various languages available for streaming on Prime Video, all from the comfort of your home.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (Coming Soon)
The Transformers universe is expanding even further with its seventh instalment, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. This instalment focuses on the Autobots and Optimus Prime as they face their greatest obstacle to date. They must work together with the powerful faction of Transformers known as the Maximals to save Earth, as a new menace with the potential to wipe out the entire planet appears.
Rainbow Rishta (Coming Soon)
Featuring six fierce and fabulous real stories of love, Rainbow Rishta is a groundbreaking new docuseries that celebrates queer love in India! Enter the riveting worlds of the protagonists, as they move mountains to make their seemingly impossible dreams come true.
Upload S3 (Streaming Now)
Emmy-winning writer Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation, King of the Hill) has created a science fiction comedy series called Upload S3, which is set in a futuristic, technologically advanced world. Furthermore, the most unique aspect of the series is that humans can opt to be uploaded into a virtual world. Season 3 of the Amazon Original will premiere on October 20, with eight episodes released weekly until 10 November.
The Burial (Streaming Now)
Inspired by true events, the Amazon Original film The Burial is a courtroom drama. It follows an interesting court battle where a lawyer helps a funeral home owner save his family business from a corporate behemoth. The film features Jaime Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones and Jurnee Smollett in pivotal roles and is an incredible watch to witness how justice unfolds.
Takeshi’s Castle (Coming Soon)
India’s reboot of the beloved 80s Japanese show Takeshi’s Castle is back with Bhuvan Bam as a commentator. This Hindi version of the show will soon hit Prime Video. The eight-episode series will stream exclusively on Prime Video India.
The Other Zoey (Streaming Now)
American Amazon Original film The Other Zoey revolves around Zoey Miller (Josephine Langford), a super smart computer major uninterested in romantic love, who has her life thrown upside down when Zach (Drew Starkey), a popular college soccer player, gets amnesia and mistakes Zoey as his girlfriend. Just before she reveals the truth, she meets Zach’s cousin, Miles (Archie Renaux), with whom she has a lot in common. Still pretending to be Zach’s girlfriend, she realises she has feelings for both of them and is forced to confront her fears to make an impossible decision.
007: Road to a Million (November 10)
The reality show 007’s Road to a Million – S1 embarks on a journey of nine regular individuals competing to win a life-altering £1,000,000 prize, and are set off on an incredible journey through a series of James Bond-inspired tasks to uncover questions buried throughout the globe. The adventure series will premiere on Prime Video on November 10.
Permanent Roommates S3 (Streaming Now)
Featuring Sumeet Vyas and Nidhi Singh in the lead roles, season three of Permanent Roommates brings back the internet’s favourite couple. In the romantic coming-of-age drama, Mikesh and Tanya are in a live-in relationship but have different aspirations for their future. Tanya wants to go abroad, while Mikesh wants to stay in India. Despite their differences, will they be able to sustain their relationship? The latest season is as entertaining as the first two, with diverse characters, perfect comic timing and replete with fun-filled moments. It rightly captures the essence of modern-day relationships as they set out to come on common grounds for love! The series is now streaming on Prime Video.
Aspirants S2 (October 25)One of India’s top-rated shows (9.2/10 on IMDb), the latest season of Aspirants follows the journey of its characters – Abhilash, Guri and Sandeep as they navigate life through love, career, ambition and dreams, with stakes much higher and double the fun in the second attempt. The new season offers a dual narrative that switches between the past and the present. Along with senior aspirant Sandeep Bhaiyya, who also encounters hurdles, the three IAS hopefuls near the end of their back-breaking journey with twice as many obstacles. Now an IAS official, Abhilash attempts to maintain his valued friendships while attempting to walk the tightrope between right and wrong at work. The TVF drama will premiere worldwide on Prime Video on October 25.
Maama Maschindra (Streaming Now)
Maama Maschindra is a Telugu action drama starring Sudheer Babu as Parasuram, who wants to seek revenge for the death of his mother by confronting his father and stepmother. The film beautifully portrays father-daughter bonding and is a gripping tale about family, and revenge and the drama is now streaming on Prime Video.
Mark Antony (Streaming Now)
Set in the 90s, Mark Antony is a Tamil blockbuster film. The sci-fi adventure tale blends future technologies and the violent world of gangsters. Mark, who gets his hands on a phone that lets him travel back in time, uses it to uncover family secrets and confront his guardian and adopted father’s (SJ Suryah) true motives. Get ready for an adventurous ride as the film is now streaming on Prime Video.
e-commerce
Visa report tracks rise of India’s affluent, experience-led spending
Affluent base doubles to 130 lakh, travel 58 per cent of elite spends.
MUMBAI: In India’s new luxury playbook, it’s less about owning more and more about living better. A new whitepaper by Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) maps a decisive shift in India’s affluent economy, where spending is becoming more intentional, experience-led, and closely tied to personal identity rather than pure income growth.
Titled India’s Affluent Economy 2025–2026, the report draws on a Visa-commissioned Yougov study and VisaNet data across travel, dining, retail and lifestyle categories. The headline number is hard to miss: individuals earning over Rs 10 lakh annually have nearly doubled from 69 lakh to 130 lakh, significantly expanding the country’s discretionary spending base.
But it’s not just about scale, it’s about behaviour. As consumers move up the affluence ladder, discretionary categories are taking a larger share of credit card spends, positioning cards as key enablers of premium, lifestyle-driven consumption.
The geography of wealth is shifting too. Affluence is no longer confined to metros such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, with cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and Lucknow increasingly mirroring metro consumption patterns.
The report highlights a clear pivot from ownership to access. More than 50 per cent of affluent consumers now use cards for elite memberships, while 7 in 10 are drawn to limited-edition drops and curated collections. Increasingly, luxury is defined by seamless access be it concierge-led travel or curated dining where time saved is as valuable as money spent.
Spending patterns reinforce this shift. Among the ultra-elite, travel accounts for 58 per cent of discretionary spends, far outpacing retail and luxury combined at 28 per cent. Cross-border spending penetration stands at 63 per cent, signalling a growing global outlook among India’s affluent.
Closer home, indulgence is becoming routine. Nearly 4 in 5 affluent consumers dine at premium establishments at least three times a year, while 1 in 4 visit luxury venues more than five times annually. Dining spends are also climbing, with Rs 20,000 emerging as a new entry-level benchmark per experience and Rs 50,000 marking premium territory.
Retail, meanwhile, is becoming more selective. Three in four affluent consumers make a high-end purchase at least once a quarter, while one in four shops premium every two weeks. Luxury retail intensity is also rising, with 2 in 5 consumers spending over Rs 5 lakh annually, and a smaller but significant segment exceeding Rs 10 lakh.
Technology and wellness are carving out new roles in this ecosystem. High-end gadgets now see average spends of Rs 60,000 or more per purchase, while ultra-elite consumers are eight times more likely to visit spas and show five times higher engagement with cosmetic stores than non-affluent groups.
The broader takeaway is structural. Affluent consumers are no longer buying products, they are buying ecosystems. Integrated experiences across travel, dining, wellness and payments are becoming central to how this segment lives and spends.
As India’s affluent base expands beyond metros and aligns more closely with global consumption patterns, the real opportunity lies not just in size, but in speed. For brands, the message is clear: relevance will be defined by how early and how seamlessly, they plug into this evolving lifestyle economy.
