Overview

• IMDb analyzed the five most popular Indian films from each year between 2000 and August 2025—130 titles drawing over 9.1 million user ratings from more than 250 million monthly visitors.
• Shah Rukh Khan features in 20 of those 130 films and led every year from 2000–2004, while Aamir Khan and Hrithik Roshan have 11 each and Deepika Padukone leads female stars with 10.
• The report documents a shift in stardom, noting more distinct male leads in recent years and stars acting as multipliers for strong stories rather than guarantees of success.
• South Indian spectacle and mass-market storytelling have driven nationwide growth, with 12th Fail the lone recent Hindi film to break into the southern states’ top 10, and language effectively operating as a genre cue.
• Country-by-country favorites underscore global reach—3 Idiots ranks as the most popular Indian film worldwide, RRR leads in the U.S., Dangal tops in the UAE and China—and directors like Lokesh Kanagaraj, S. S. Rajamouli, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Rajkumar Hirani and Farhan Akhtar each notch four titles in the dataset.