And The Best Indian Streaming Platform of 2021 Is…

Posted on December 21, 2021

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The panorama of cinema and tv has been radically, maybe irreversibly, altered by streaming. This was clear final 12 months. This 12 months, too, the pattern of direct to OTT releases continued, with a swelling slate of movies acquired and reveals commissioned. The ‘Streaming Wars’ proceed to be waged.

Additionally Learn: And The Best Indian Streaming Platform of 2020 Is…

The Altered Streaming Panorama

However there have been some curious new developments. For one, streaming platforms have began curating regional content material with a feral, ferocious passion, with SonyLIV buying Tamil releases, JioCinema choosing up the rights of Malayalam movies, and Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Zee5, and Disney+ Hotstar jostling for the rights of upcoming and just lately launched big-ticket movies. RRR, releasing in January 2022, went to Zee5, Kurup went to Netflix, Marakkar Arabikadalinte Simham went to Amazon Prime Video, Maanadu went to SonyLIV.

The opposite new improvement is a recognition that the established order of streaming — with so many platforms proliferating, extra regional streaming websites mushrooming — is unsustainable for the viewer. What number of accounts can we, afterall, have?

So, for instance, ALT Balaji has content material sharing agreements with Zee5 and MX Participant. Their greatest present, the third season of their diabetic romantic drama Broken But Beautiful, amongst others from their slate could be discovered on each ALT Balaji and MX Participant. Amazon Prime Video additionally launched “Prime Video Channels”, which provides its subscribers the choice to buy add-on subscriptions at a chapter charge from Discovery+, Lionsgate Play, Eros Now, Docubay, MUBI, Hoichoi, Manorama Max, and Shorts TV. Within the midst of this, Netflix — in a determined bid to extend its plateauing base — dramatically decreased their month-to-month subscription worth, from ₹499 per 12 months to ₹199 for his or her fundamental plan.

Now, with the length between a theatrical and a streaming launch being decreased to a sliver — Marakkar Arabikadalinte Simham, for instance, got here to Amazon Prime inside two weeks of its theatrical launch — the turf wars between theaters and OTT, too, will proceed to be negotiated into the following 12 months.

About The Rating

This streaming year-end rating, nonetheless, is a rating of the platforms we predict have offered sufficient content material to evaluate their inventive validity and total high quality. This report is not primarily based on, neither is it swayed by the business prospects and viewership information. Whereas we do have extra sturdy information, which we put out by our weekly Ormax reports, and even platforms like Netflix are making their viewership numbers clear, these are merely contextual to our rating. For this listing, we’ve solely taken under consideration the Indian content material on the streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar.

This listing doesn’t embrace regional platforms — like Neestream (Malayalam), Hoichoi (Bengali), Aha (Telugu), Oho (Gujarati), Aao (Odia), Planet Marathi. Neither does it embrace platforms like MX Participant, ALT Balaji, and Voot. It is because — within the case of MX Participant and ALT Balaji — there isn’t any level beating a lifeless horse. These platforms, it’s clear, have zeroed in on their target market with eagle-eye like readability and are offering precisely what they need. It’s both ALT Balaji’s alternating soft-porn (Hai Taubba) and honest household values (His Storyy, Pavitra Rishta) or MX Participant’s replicable, reckless violence. Thus, the criticism of 1 present will also be replicated throughout their slate. Voot, however, has not produced reveals prolifically sufficient to gauge during which course the platform goes. We’ve got not included YouTube right here for a similar motive, although Bhuvan Bam’s Dhindora deserves a particular point out for breaking by this 12 months with weekly episodes that at all times introduced within the viewership numbers, usually increased than the most recent Netflix or Amazon Prime releases. Following are the highest 5 streaming platforms, ranked from worst to finest.

5. Disney+ Hotstar

Probably the most large streaming platform — when it comes to subscriber base and thus viewership numbers — Disney+ Hotstar treats this largesse with such disrespect it’s exhausting to not take offense. (As they stand, it’s the HBO dramas like Succession and Mare of Easttown that stream on the platform that stands between the renewal and a cancellation of my account.) However this disrespect doesn’t dent its business prospects. With out fail, its reveals, particularly each seasons of The Legend Of Hanuman which got here out this 12 months, at all times nestled a high spot in our weekly report on viewership numbers.

With unbearably pretentious reveals like OK Computer or self-serious dramas that mistake boredom for slow-burn like Criminal Justice Season 2 and even the tepid, devoid-of-personality The Empire, it looks like they’re simply throwing cash on the wall, hoping it’s product of glue. Most unforgivable, although — other than the tonal disaster that was Bhuj: The Pleasure Of India — was how the platform has failed to supply a single thrilling South acquisition: Maestro, Netrikann, Boomika, Bhoomi, Teddy, Pon Manickavel, Annabelle Sethupathi, November Story, Seeti Maarr, all dullards.

The saving grace of the platform was the second season of Aarya, which mixed corny exuberance with pressing drama. It additionally confirmed that, not like Out Of Love and Metropolis Of Goals, they might pull a present by its second season.

Finest: Aarya Season 2

4. Zee5

Zee5 has, maybe, been probably the most reckless this 12 months, with buying Radhe for ₹190 crores. They launched it in a chaotically introduced out pay-per-view mannequin (₹249) that failed miraculously within the face of rampant piracy. The movie’s normal, campy awfulness was merely incidental to its failure. That aside, Zee5 has had an unusually mediocre 12 months — regardless of starting it with a promising, if corny, courtroom drama like Nail Polish — with boring movies like Rashmi Rocket and Bob Biswas being their crowning jewel. Even their makes an attempt at subversive quirk, with Sunflower and Helmet, fell flat.

However what they acquired proper — very similar to what they acquired proper final 12 months with Never Kiss Your Best Friend — was the romantic sugar rush. Qubool Hai 2.0, an OTT reincarnation of the 864-episode cleaning soap opera Qubool Hai, acquired the viewership conversion from tv to streaming, whereas Dhoop Ki Deewar, its cross border love story, was candy with out being startling, treating youngsters as youngsters are — lanky, indecisive, headstrong, confused, however not keen to be accused as such.

Additionally Learn: Qubool Hai 2.0: Why Did A Soapy Television Rom-Com Go The India-Pakistan Route?

Their different Pakistani present, Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam, touted to be this 12 months’s Churails — the sensationally feminist Pakistani present from final 12 months, additionally on Zee5 — was an unspeakable noir mess. Then, there was 14 Phere, Zee5’s lifeless hat-tip to Bollywood’s superb Imran-Khan-Romcom Section, to not overlook the standard bashful patriotism with Jeet Ki Zid and State Of Siege: Temple Attack, about which the much less stated, the higher.

Finest: Operation Java (Malayalam)

3. Netflix

This 12 months continues its worrying pattern of Netflix India driving the wave of Netflix’s world success — together with Netflix Korea which gave us Squid Game and Netflix France which gave us Lupin. Which is to say, this 12 months, Netflix India has commissioned nothing of lasting cultural or inventive worth. It’s the sustained intrigue of their world blockbusters — Money Heist, You, Never Have I Ever, Sex Education — that makes Netflix worthy of its subscription worth, which has since fallen from ₹499 to ₹199.

Whereas Bombay Begums was their most compelling present, they’ve adopted it up with the pathetic, overperformed, overproduced Call My Agent: Bollywood, the needlessly provocative and the troll-like Decoupled. They’ve been constantly horrible with their anthologies — the merciless and unforgiveable Navarasa, the pretentious Ray, the patchwork Ankahi Kahaniya, the inane Feels Like Ishq, every with maybe only one movie value desirous about after the credit roll, like Neeraj Ghaywan’s Geeli Pucchi in Ajeeb Daastaans. In between there was a candy, aesthetic reprieve with Meenakshi Sundareshwar that was unable to distinguish between simplicity and simplistic.

Additionally Learn: Neeraj Ghaywan On Exploring Caste And Sexuality In His Ajeeb Daastaans Short

The second season of Kota Factory and the fourth and final of Little Things — each have been commissioned solely after the success of their earlier seasons on YouTube — held them in good floor. What have to be appreciated is their extremely revolutionary promotional ecosystem — their YouTube web page is a sterling instance of marrying kind and content material, their Tweets have a sly, situational plug for his or her reveals and flicks — that offers the impact of content material worthy of that stage of clever promotions.

There may be additionally a concerted swerve away from their early experimental section, which gave us the sledgehammer nostalgia of Taj Mahal 1989 and Maska, or the quirk aggression of House Arrest. Their reveals have additionally began wanting like one another — the oddly tinted color correction. The one movie that might have damaged this spell of visible ennui is Cobalt Blue, which has curiously been faraway from their slate. (It was to be launched on December third, however on the day of the discharge, Netflix introduced that the movie could be postponed indefinitely.)

The place Netflix has saved face is with their acquisitions i.e. the films they’ve acquired after they have been made, not motion pictures or reveals they green-lit. Chaitanya Tamhane’s The Disciple and Basil Joseph’s Minnal Murali, the Tovino Thomas-starrer Malayalam superhero movie, gilded this rotten 12 months for them, together with different phenomenal acquisitions like Nayattu, and commercially talking, Sooryavanshi.

Finest: The Disciple, Minnal Murali

2. SonyLIV

The factor about SonyLIV reveals is that even when they’re spectacular failures, just like the visually and narratively experimental Chutzpah or The Whistleblower’s dramatization of the Vyapam Rip-off, or spectacular mediocrities just like the retelling of Rabari Devi’s life in Maharani, they present promise, sparks of the greatness that might have been. Both it’s the meticulous manufacturing design, or the formidable cinematography — the lengthy takes that simmer characters — or the makes an attempt at creating character depth and various dialects. Even when the collective impact of the present is ennui, one thing nonetheless strikes as recent.

Even their acquisitions betray an artfulness — the stylistically wealthy mood-piece anthology Tryst With Destiny, and movie director Vasanth’s ode to the hacked but thriving female spirit in Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum. Each movies have been acquired after they received accolades at movie festivals, which reveals the place the eye of SonyLIV is being directed. Even their regional acquisitions are odd but cinematic — the chopping quirk of Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam, the wanderlust in Vaazhl, the montane rootedness in Thaen, the seasickness in Churuli. Even when the movies don’t work — and so they usually don’t — you can’t however admire the audacity of it.

However whilst they supply among the most compelling drama on OTT — Tabbar, which is definitely probably the greatest reveals of this 12 months, and the second season of Gullak, — they aren’t practically prolific sufficient to drag a subscriber. Neither is the platform user-friendly, with the subtitles usually on their very own journey. All eyes are on Rocket Boys, the story of Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, which had one of many best teasers of our time — sure, our time — scored by Achint Thakkar (behind the Rip-off 1992 earworm title monitor).

Finest: Tabbar

1. Amazon Prime Video

5 of the highest 10 Indian motion pictures on IMDb this 12 months got here from Amazon Prime Video (Shershaah, Jai Bhim, Sardar Udham, Karnan, Drishyam 2), in comparison with 3 on Netflix (Mimi, Sooryavanshi, Haseen Dillruba), one on Disney+ Hotstar (Shiddat), and one on Zee5 (Grasp). Not that IMDb is the verdict on inventive excellence, however it definitely is a sign.

From efficiently coasting alongside their franchises — some, like Inside Edge are onto their third season, whereas others like The Household Man, Mirzapur are leaping excitedly, with validating wind behind their again, into their third innings — to creating stand alone items just like the tense Mumbai Diaries 26/11 or the cinematic and unintelligent Tandav, Amazon Prime Video, underneath content material head Aparna Purohit’s management, has churned out among the finest Indian reveals. The Household Season: Season 2 was the definitive streaming second of this 12 months — when it comes to hype, high quality, and the sturdy dialog it generated round illustration, brown-face, and a-politics in cinema.

The present — launched 5 months later, after a recent spherical of cuts — additionally dropped at the fore conversations round self-censorship that streaming platforms are practising following the Tandav controversy, the place scenes needed to be chopped off from the present as a result of Twitter outrage that calcified into court docket instances calling for the arrest of Purohit, amongst others.

Additionally Learn: How Censorship – and Self-Censorship – Came to Indian Streaming in 2021

Amazon Prime Video was additionally the receptacle for among the finest Tamil and Malayalam motion pictures — Malik, Sarpatta Parambarai, Kala, and Jai Bhim (a part of a partnership with Suriya and Jyothika’s 2D Leisure). Whereas it’s nonetheless flailing across the comedy style, with the insufferable LOL: Enga Siri Paappom, and the patchy second season of One Mic Stand, it definitely has its finger on the various cinematic pulses that be, giving boring streaming blockbusters like Shershaah and Toofaan together with meditative stretches of cinema like Sherni and Sardar Udham.