How a Tamil film with no stars beat Sitaare Zameen Par, Raid 2, Kesari in the list of most popular Indian films of 2025

A tiny Tamil film with a ₹35-crore budget and no big stars managed to upstage Bollywood and Telugu hits in the list of most popular Indian films of 2025.

Published on: Jul 11, 2025, 16:17:47 IST

By Abhimanyu Mathur

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On Wednesday, IMDb (Internet Movie Database) announced its list of most popular Indian movies of 2025 so far as the first half of the year came to a close. The list featured films releasing between January and June 2025, which saw the most visitors on the IMDb site. While several big films from across several languages featured in the top 10, a small Tamil film with no stars and a budget of just ₹35 crore managed to beat them.

Dragon starred Pradeep Ranganathan and Anupama Parameswaran.

The David that beat several Goliaths

According to IMDb, the list tabulated all the movies released in India between January 1, 2025, and July 1, 2025, that have an average IMDb user rating of 6 or higher with at least 10,000 votes. Ten titles were consistently the most popular with IMDb customers, as determined by the actual page views of the more than 250 million monthly visitors to IMDb worldwide. Vicky Kaushal-led Chhaava, the highest-grossing Indian film of the year, was at number 1 in the list, quite unsurprisingly. But the second spot went to Tamil sleeper hit, Dragon. The Pradeep Ranganathan-starrer coming-of-age comedy drama was made on a ₹35 crore budget and went on to gross over ₹150 crore at the box office. The film generated immense buzz upon its release and later OTT release, leading to such a high spot in the list.

Dragon starred Pradeep in the titular role, along with Anupama Parameswaran, Kayadu Lohar, Mysskin, Gautham Vasudev Menon, K. S. Ravikumar and George Maryan. The film received widespread acclaim and ended up being the highest-grossing Tamil film of 2025, before being surpassed by Good Bad Ugly.

IMDb's Most Popular Indian Movies of 2025 so far

The biggies that Dragon beat

Dragon was just behind Chhaava in IMDb's list of most popular films of 2025, but ahead of Shahid Kapoor's Deva, Ajay Devgn's Raid 2, Suriya's Retro, John Abraham's The Diplomat, Mohanlal's L2: Empuraan, Aamir Khan's Sitaare Zameen Par, Akshay Kumar's Kesari Chapter 2, and Ajith Kumar's VidaaMuyarchi. Interestingly, Salman Khan's Sikandar, one of the most anticipated films of the year, did not even make it to the top 10.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhimanyu Mathur
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More

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