“Dhurandhar,” the Ranveer Singh-led espionage thriller about an Indian undercover operative infiltrating Karachi’s criminal underworld, has landed at No. 1 on Netflix’s global Top 10 non-English films list – and is also No. 1 in both India and Pakistan, a streaming outcome that cuts straight through the region’s long-frozen theatrical politics.
On Netflix’s Tudum weekly chart (Jan. 26-Feb. 1), “Dhurandhar” ranked No. 1 worldwide among non-English films with 7.6 million views. The chart shows the film sitting at No. 1 in India and No. 1 in Pakistan in Netflix’s Top 10 Movies lists. The title is also riding high across South Asia, including chart-topping or near-the-top placement in markets such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, reinforcing the film’s regional pull beyond its home base.
The Pakistan result lands with extra charge because Indian films have been shut out of Pakistani cinemas for years, a situation that intensified in recent years after both countries moved to block each other’s titles theatrically amid renewed bilateral tensions. In other words, a film designed around India’s intelligence footprint inside Pakistan – the kind of premise that would typically be dead on arrival theatrically across the border – is now reaching Pakistani audiences at scale through Netflix’s frictionless pipeline.
And it isn’t only South Asia. The film is also charting strongly in parts of the Middle East, where India-Pakistan political sensitivities can make theatrical releases for this kind of material complicated or commercially risky – leaving streaming as the cleaner route to audiences in expatriate-heavy territories.
Aditya Dhar directed the film, with Jio Studios and B62 Studios producing. Singh leads the cast, with Akshaye Khanna playing the antagonist. The cast also includes Sanjay Dutt, R. Madhavan, Arjun Rampal, Sara Arjun, Rakesh Bedi, Manav Gohil, Danish Pandor, Saumya Tandon, Gaurav Gera and Naveen Kaushik.
“Dhurandhar” is told in two parts, with the first installment following a decade-long Indian intelligence operation where an undercover agent (Singh) infiltrates Karachi’s criminal and political underworld. “Dhurandhar: The Revenge,” releasing theatrically March 19, is expected to continue the saga and also provide Singh’s character’s backstory.
The first part of the saga has become the highest-grossing Hindi-language film in India. It has collected $116 million locally and $32 million internationally.
India and Pakistan have fought four wars since Partition in 1947 — in 1947–48, 1965, 1971 and 1999 — with the territory of Kashmir remaining the central flashpoint in a relationship marked by military confrontation, diplomatic breakdowns and periodic escalations.
