Best Indian Web Series 2025: From Crime Dramas & Horror To Inventive Mockumentary
It may be a challenging time for the Indian (and global) entertainment landscape – the threat of AI, consolidation, declining theatrical footfalls, lower budgets on streaming, fewer shows getting greenlit (take your pick) – but the Indian streaming landscape continues to offer some of the country’s finest storytelling.
Hindi streaming shows, in particular, continue to outshine the big screen with another year of exciting, diverse and ambitious narratives across genres. While many popular, established franchises returned with diminishing returns (Prime Video’s The Family Man Season 3, Netflix’s Delhi Crime Season 3), it was the new titles that stole the spotlight and offered first-of-their-kind narratives (Prime Video’s Khauf, SonyLIV’s Real Kashmir Football Club).
Netflix had a particularly poor year with its slate of Indian originals aside from the critical darling Black Warrant and the audacious film industry satire The Ba***ds Of Bollywood (the directorial debut of Aryan Khan, son of superstar Shahrukh Khan), which dominated social media conversations with its enjoyable silliness, cheeky cameos and winning comedic moments.
But it was SonyLIV that won the year with its impressive range of notable series titles, from true-crime thrillers (The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case) to inventive mockumentaries (Black White & Gray) to sincere sports dramas (The Real Kashmir Football Club). The platform has always been the underdog streamer known for championing underdog stories; those that don’t necessarily boast of shiny star casts and large budgets, but often tackle new and interesting narratives. It’s the kind of credibility and competence that is only increasing in value in the age of algorithm-dictated storytelling and “second screen viewing”.
That said, in no particular order, here’s our list of the finest Indian streaming shows in 2025:
Black Warrant (Netflix)
Black Warrant, created by Vikramaditya Mowane (Sacred Games, Jubilee) and Satyanshu Singh (Chintu Ka Birthday), is a show that could only have been made outside of the system. The seven-episode series, backed by Applause Entertainment, was shot and completed, and then shopped around to streamers, ultimately finding a home on Netflix and giving the streaming giant its most critically applauded Indian title in an otherwise lacklustre year of Indian originals.
The tremendously crafted series is based on an autobiographical book of the same name, and follows the hardening experiences of Sunil Kumar Gupta (an excellent Zahan Kapoor). Sunil is the newly appointed assistant superintendent jailer at Delhi’s Tihar jail in the early 80s. Painfully overstuffed and violently understaffed, Tihar is India’s biggest prison complex and home to its most high-profile convicts. You can see why it would fascinate any filmmaker.
Part coming-of-age saga and part bleak workplace drama, the narrative approaches the prison as a microcosm of Indian society, using the stories of the guards and inmates to examine the staggering corruption and indifference of a deeply fractured judicial system.
Black, White & Gray: Love Kills (SonyLIV)
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say we haven't seen anything quite like writer-director Pushkar Sunil Mahabal’s show come out of the Indian streaming landscape. The deliciously inventive “mockumentary” thriller uses the visual language and packaging of a true-crime docu-series to craft a compelling murder-mystery, which interrogates our willingness to blindly submit to well-packaged media narratives.
The show, created by Mahabal and Hemal A Thakkar, follows a series of murders that took place in Nagpur in 2020 and jumps between talking heads recounting details of the bizarre case (the documentary half) and the dramatic recreation of key events featuring a cast of known actors (the drama half) including Mayur More (Kota Factory) and Tigmanshu Dhullia (Gangs Of Wasseypur).
The thrill of Black White And Gray comes not only from following the twisty, shocking investigation but also from investigating the show itself and trying to figure out what is “true” and what isn’t. Mahabal’s series is simply one of the most distinctive, ambitious and clutter-breaking Indian titles to come out of the streaming era.
Khauf (Prime Video)
Amazon Prime Video’s Khauf (Fear), created by Smita Singh (Sacred Games, Raat Akeli Hai), is the kind of singular, elevated storytelling we always hoped to see arise from the streaming space. Singh, alongside directors Surya Balakrishnan and Pankaj Kumar (Tumbbad), uses horror cinema tropes to examine patriarchy and female trauma like few before her have within Hindi cinema.
The series follows Madhu (a tremendous Monica Panwar), who moves from Gwaliar to Delhi in search of a job, independence, and freedom in the big city. Madhu moves into a remote, rundown women's hostel, but something’s not quite right about her room. There’s a strange, otherworldly presence lurking there with her. Something horrid happened there.
But despite its many undead spirits, ritual killings and supernatural elements, nothing is as unshakably unnerving as watching Madhu engage with suffocating public spaces and contending with what it means to be a young woman in Delhi; whether it’s being pressed up against an army of men on a bus, or the constant staring, or those long walks down a dark alley at night or strange men offering her lifts home.
The triumph of Singh’s show is how it uses the language of horror to immerse us in the near-constant dread that many women have to live within. The horror genre is reportedly about to have a significant resurgence within Hindi cinema, theatrically and on streaming, and if Khauf is anything to go by, the future is looking bright.
Kuttram Purindhavan (SonyLIV)
In terms of the major players (Netflix, Prime Video, JioHotstar and SonyLIV), the Indian streaming series landscape remains Hindi-language dominated. While the top streamers have released an increasing number of non-Hindi series titles each year, few have made a mark with their storytelling (Prime Video’s Tamil murder mystery series Suzhal: The Vortex remains one of the few exceptions).
But SonyLIV thriller Kuttram Purindhavan (The Guilty One), written and directed by Selvamani, is one of the finest we’ve seen. Bhaskaran, played by Pasupathy (Sarpatta Parambarai), is on the verge of retiring from his government hospital job and is awaiting his pension to fund an expensive, essential surgery for his grandson.
But his world turns on its head when his neighbour’s daughter goes missing. It appears she may be the victim of a serial killer. He finds her body in his home. What follows is a tense, pulsating thriller requiring him to cover up one crime – disposing of her body, whilst solving another – finding out who killed her.
Selvamani’s thriller examines familiar themes of a desperate man forced to make morally murky decisions for the sake of his family (Drishyam, Tabbar), but it’s well-conceived, impressively acted and is one of the rare Tamil streaming shows, so far, that has an impressive grasp of long-form storytelling.
Paatal Lok Season 2 (Prime Video)
When the first season of writer-creator Sudip Sharma’s landscape-defining crime drama Paatal Lok hit our screens in the pandemic, we’d seen very little like it. Few have been able to mount elevated crime dramas quite like Sharma (Kohrra), who’s emerged as one of the streaming era’s powerhouse showrunners. In Sharma’s bleak, contemplative worlds, a murder investigation is merely an excuse to deep dive into the dark heart of the nation and examine the fractures in our society.
The first season went for the jugular, an angry, brave, politically-charged crime saga led by Hathi Ram Chaudhary (an inimitable Jaideep Ahlawat) giving us one of the all-time great characters to emerge from modern Hindi cinema. The second season takes Hathi Ram to Nagaland, exploring the fraught region’s politics and trauma. When a top politician from the region is found murdered ahead of a politically tense business summit, Hathi Ram must dive in to wade through the political machinery, corruption and bureaucracy to uncover the truth.
What begins as a high-profile homicide unravels into a saga of drug networks, exploitation of migrants, corruption, political agendas, fraught families and the traumas of Nagaland which have rarely been committed to screen.
With the stunning, more refined sophomore season, Sharma found a steady balance between urgent plotting and stirring philosophy, resulting in a season of television that’s nothing short of world class.
SPECIAL MENTIONS:
Finishing off with a few special mentions (that all are SonyLIV titles gives you a sense of the year the streamer has had).
Real Kashmir Football Club (SonyLIV)
The achingly sincere underdog sports drama tells the true story about two men. played by Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub and Manav Kaul, who set out to start Kashmir’s first ever professional football club.
The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case (SonyLIV)
Director Nagesh Kukunoor’s (Hyderabad Blues, Iqbal) show about the historic investigation into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, gave us a well-plotted crime procedural with a glorious ensemble.
Maharani Season 4 (SonyLIV)
The twisty political thriller starring Huma Qureshi (Gangs Of Wasseypur, Badlapur) is the rare series that remains every bit as deliciously watchable and thrilling after four seasons.
