The Indian film industry saw broader and diverse success across genres, themes and movie lengths in 2025, with audiences favouring strong storylines over star casts, industry executives told ET.
Net box-office collection of the Indian film industry grew to ₹10,453 crore in 2025, up by 12% from 2024, data gathered by ET from the website of box office research firm Sacnilk showed. For Hindi films, net box-office collection grew by 20% to ₹4,792.7 crore.
Experts said there was a palpable shift in the way audiences responded to films.
ET Bureau
“Today’s audience has a mind of its own. The control has shifted in the hands of audiences in terms of what, when and where they will watch content. They are clear about this,” said Vikram Malhotra, founder and CEO of Abundantia Entertainment. “These elements have reset and defied the norms in which Hindi films will be made. The success of Dhurandhar, which is the highest grosser of 2025 (net ₹668 crore), is a key example. It was written off much before its release. But audiences have lapped it up.”
Live Events
Producers said that audiences showed an inclination towards watching films in theatres and were not “particularly” focused on the “length” of films.
“There has been increasing traction for rooted stories speaking inclusively to the Indian heartland as well. And contrary to earlier belief of keeping a film’s length to around two hours, 2025 has shown that the length of a film does not matter to the audience,” said Sunir Kheterpal, producer, Athena E&M.In 2025, 14 Hindi films, most of which were over two hours log, grossed more than ₹100 crore at the box office. In comparison, 2024 had 10 films which grossed more than ₹100 crore. The smash hits of 2025, such as Saiyaara, Mahavatar Narsimha, Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra, Tere Ishq Main, Chhaava and Dhurandhar, showed that audiences across geographies preferred “stories” over star cast and that a film’s size has a little role to play in its success.
“2025 proved that scale alone doesn’t guarantee success. Several big-ticket titles underperformed, while mid-budget, content-led films quietly delivered returns,” said Suneil Wadhwa, co-founder and director, Karmic Films. “2025 wasn’t about volume. It was about conviction, clarity of positioning and timing.”
In addition to these aspects, consistent failure of solely business-focused franchise films, and increasing success of films across genres such as romance (Saiyaara), animation (Mahavatar Narsimha), anime (Demon Slayer) and mythology (Chhaava) are a few developments which showed that audiences are looking for value-for-money entertainment and not just a visit to theatres.
Lastly, 2025 also saw the standout performance of Hollywood films such as F1, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning and Jurassic World Rebirth. Consequently, the net collection of Hollywood films in India grew by 42% from 2024 to ₹673.2 crore in 2025.