'RRR' bags top slot in IMDb's 2022 film ranking; 'Panchayat' leads among OTT series

Only one Bollywood film – The Kashmir Files – has made it to the IMDb’s Top 10 most popular Indian films of the year. The rest on the list include films from Telugu, Kannada and Tamil film industries, with predictably S S Rajamouli’s RRR bagging the numero uno slot.

While the controversial The Kashmir Files, which was recently slammed by an IFFI jury member as a “vulgar propaganda” movie,  occupies the second position. Kannada films like KGF-Chapter 2, (an ode to the Hindi cinema of the 1970s) Kantara, and Charlie 777, which played a role in reviving a south film industry down in the doldrums, are on the list. Among Tamil films, Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus, the historical drama Ponniyan Selvan 1 figures only in the ninth place, and action thriller, Kamal Haasan’s comeback vehicle Vikram in the fourth slot, the list surprisingly features Madhavan’s Rocketry-the Nambi.

Surprisingly, because the film, a biopic of scientist Nambi Narayanan, which also marked Madhavan’s directorial debut, the film did not do as well in theatres. It purportedly raked in 50 crores after being made at a budget of 25 crores.

Among Telugu films besides RRR, (which has bagged two nominations in the Golden Globes awards), the biopic Major based on the life of army officer Major Unnikrishnan, who was martyred in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and the period romance, Sita Ramam have edged their way into this list. The other Telugu blockbuster Pushpa that rocked Indian cinema and catapulted Allu Arjun and Rashmika Mandanna onto the national scene, does not figure in the list since it released in December 2021.

Also read: RRR, KGF-2, Bheeshma Parvam & Ponniyan Selvan: South films rewrite box-office rules

As per IMDb, the films on this top ten list received more than 200 million monthly views on their website.

According to a statement released by IMDb, of all the movies released theatrically or digitally in India between January 1 and November 7, 2022, and have an average IMDb user rating of 7 or higher with at least 25,000 votes, these 10 titles were consistently the most popular with IMDb users, as determined by the actual page views of the more than 200 million monthly visitors to IMDb worldwide.

Speaking on RRR being the IMDb Most Popular Indian Film of 2022, filmmaker SS Rajamouli said in a statement, “RRR is a tale of friendship which everyone can relate to, told in a style that’s inspired by ancient Indian storytelling and is a film I hold very close to my heart.”

Ten Most Popular Indian web series of 2022

IMDB released their most popular 10 Indian web series of 2022 as well. Acclaimed series, Panchayat and Delhi Crime have made it to top of the IMDb’s top ten most popular web series. The season 2 of Panchayat, a comedy-drama which captures the hilarious journey of an engineering graduate Abhishek, who for lack of a better job option joins as secretary of a panchayat office, tops the list and has bagged the first slot.

Panchayat, which released on Amazon Prime Video got a lot of praise as the show returned with the original cast of Jeetendra Kumar, Neena Gupta, Raghubir Yadav, Saanvika and Chandan Roy. It released on Amazon Prime Video.

Also read: 2022: The year the tide turned in favour of Kannada film industry

While Delhi Crime season 2 has DCP Vartika (Shefali Shah) and her team handling a very different gruesome kind of crime in the capital.

Biopics continued to rule on OTT platforms as Rocket Boys based on the the story of two extraordinary men, Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha and Dr Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai, figures third on this top 10 list. A middling medical drama thriller Human, helmed my Shefali Shah; Apharan, a crime thriller about a cop Rudra (Arunoday Singh) who is on another secret mission; Gullak, a story set around a middle-class family in a small town in North India, and NCR Days on a small town guy in a big city, have made it to this top ten list.

Kunal Khemmu’s helmed cop psychological thriller Abhay, college drama Campus Diaries and College Romance on three friends and their love lives figure in the eight, ninth and tenth position.