Netflix India: Reviews No Longer Measure a Film’s Success
Netflix India's Ruchikaa Kapoor Sheikh on why reviews matter less for streaming success, and how films find the right audience.
Reviews still matter, but the old scoreboard is gone
For decades, a Friday review could decide a film’s fate in Indian cinema: strong notices often lifted a small title, while a pan from critics could sink an expensive one before Saturday. Ruchikaa Kapoor Sheikh, Director of Original Films at Netflix India, says streaming has redrawn that map.
“I think reviews are an important part of the conversation around and about a film, but at no point are they a measure of its potential success,” she told Hindustan Times.
Her argument is not that critics are irrelevant. It is that audiences now arrive at a film through many doors: social chatter, clips, fan communities, personalised recommendations. The verdict is shaped by a wider, more democratic loop.
The titles people watch are not always the titles people talk about
Sheikh points to a telling split. A film like Amar Singh Chamkila becomes a word-of-mouth favourite that everyone recommends. Meanwhile titles such as Haseen Dilruba or Sikandar Ka Muqaddar may not dominate the conversation, but they keep finding viewers.
“What we see very often is that films that get recommended are films that are spoken of,” she explains. The distinction matters for Netflix: a film can succeed by doing something specific for a specific viewer, even if it never becomes a loud consensus hit.
- Reviews now contribute to buzz rather than deciding a title’s fate.
- Recommendations track conversation, so quiet titles can still travel.
- Creators can optimise for a niche audience instead of pleasing everyone.
No more choosing between masala and meaning
Streaming has also changed the calculus for makers. Earlier, filmmakers and actors sometimes did big commercial projects to earn the freedom to make smaller, more personal work. Sheikh says that compromise is fading.
On OTT, a title can be right-sized to the audience it is built for. That means an entertaining film and a thought-provoking film do not have to compete with each other, or collapse into one middle-of-the-road formula. Success is about matching the right story to the right viewer, then letting that fit do the work.
For viewers, the shift is quietly empowering. A film that speaks to you can succeed even if it never wins a star-rating war. The metric is no longer “everyone liked it” but “the right people found it.”
Source: Hindustan Times
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