Special Ops Season 2 tops India’s 2025 streaming charts as Netflix dominates top 50

In a year that reshaped India’s streaming landscape, ‘Special Ops’ Season 2 has emerged as the most-watched streaming original of 2025, according to the annual audience report from Ormax Media.

Special Ops Season 2 Tops India Streaming Charts in 2025

The espionage thriller, available on JioHotstar, captured the largest viewership among Indian originals, a milestone in a crowded over-the-top (OTT) market that saw fierce competition across platforms.

The second season of ‘Special Ops’, developed by Friday Storytellers, drew an estimated 29.6 million viewers in India during 2025, making it the most popular original series of the year. The series’ success highlights the growing appetite for locally produced spy dramas and its resonance with Indian audiences craving high-quality thriller content.

JioHotstar’s achievement with ‘Special Ops’ Season 2 is part of a broader display of strength in the streaming wars. The platform claimed three spots in the top 10 and four out of the top 11 streaming originals, underlining its growing influence in the Hindi-language streaming market. Such positioning reflects strategic content investment and robust audience engagement across genres.

Close behind ‘Special Ops’ in viewer numbers was JioHotstar’s legal drama ‘Criminal Justice: A Family Matter’, a collaboration from Applause Entertainment and BBC Studios India, which drew significant viewership and secured the second position on the list.

Meanwhile, Amazon MX Player’s ‘Ek Badnaam Aashram’ Season 3 Part 2 demonstrated the strength of ad-supported platforms by placing third in the rankings.

While JioHotstar dominated many of the top slots, Netflix led overall with 20 entries in the Top 50 most-watched streaming originals in India for 2025. This shows that Netflix’s vast catalogue — blending Indian originals with international hits — continues to draw broad and sustained interest in the Indian market.

Among its popular entries were ‘The Ba***ds of Bollywood’, ‘The Royals’, and international series like ‘Squid Game’ Season 3 and Stranger Things Season 5.

Prime Video also posted strong results, with marquee titles such as ‘The Family Man’ Season 3 and Panchayat Season 4 ranking in the top five. Additionally, ‘Paatal Lok’ Season 2 further cemented the platform’s appeal with Indian audiences. These varied performers on Prime Video underscore the continued demand for homegrown narratives and character-driven storytelling across web series formats.

Beyond scripted drama and thriller titles, the list of most-watched originals included reality and animated series. JioHotstar’s ‘Bigg Boss’ (Hindi) Season 19 maintained significant viewership, while animated adventures like ‘The Legend of Hanuman’ Season 6 appealed to family audiences. Other notable JioHotstar entries included ‘The Secret of the Shiledars’ and youth-oriented series such as ‘Chidiya Udd’.

Several other platforms also made their mark. Amazon MX Player’s ‘Chidiya Udd’ and ‘Bhay: The Gaurav Tiwari Mystery’ reflected rising interest in genre content beyond traditional drama. Meanwhile, SonyLIV entries like ‘Maharani’ Season 4 and ‘Shark Tank India’ Season 4 added diversity to the broader streaming mix, illustrating how varied content types find audiences in India’s expanding OTT ecosystem.

Industry analysts believe the results from 2025 point to a maturing streaming market where audience behaviour increasingly favours quality storytelling, strong character arcs and easily accessible content across languages and platforms.

Some weekly reports from earlier in the year had already shown ‘Special Ops’ Season 2 holding top positions consistently, even when new content arrived, indicating strong retention and ongoing viewer engagement.

Overall, ‘Special Ops’ Season 2’s success in 2025 exemplifies how locally produced content can dominate in a globalised content ecosystem, while Netflix’s broad reach and variety of high-performing titles underscore its sustained leadership across formats and audiences.