Ramayana Is IMDb’s Most Anticipated Movie of 2026: King and Alpha Crack the Top Five

IMDb has crowned Ramayana Part1 as the most anticipated Indian movie for the second half of2026, with Shah Rukh Khan’s King and Alia Bhatt’sAlpha rounding out a top five that reads like awho’s-who of Indian cinema’s biggest comebacks. The platform released itsMost Anticipated Indian Movies: July–December 2026list on June 30, 2026, ranking 20 titles purely by page views logged betweenJanuary 1 and June 28 from IMDb’s more than 250 million monthly visitorsworldwide. Unlike star polls or trade predictions, this list is built entirelyon what people actually clicked on, searched for, and lingered over making itless a popularity contest and more a real-time pulse check on audiencecuriosity.

That distinction matters. Anyone can claim a filmis “highly awaited” in a press note. IMDb’s ranking is the closestthing the industry has to a lie detector for hype.

The Full IMDb Most Anticipated List,Ranked

Here’s where every title landed, and the languageeach film is releasing in:

The breakdown by language tells its own story: 12Hindi titles, four Tamil, two Malayalam, one Telugu, and one Kannada film madethe cut, confirming that while Hindi cinema still commands the largest share ofglobal IMDb traffic, regional industries are no longer a footnote — they’reconsistently earning spots in a list that’s compiled from worldwide engagement,not just domestic chatter.

Why Ramayana Part 1 Is Running Away With the TopSpot

Director Nitesh Tiwari’s mythological epic isn’tjust topping the list — it’s doing so as a film that hasn’t released a singletrailer cut for general theatrical promotion comparable to a typical Bollywoodtentpole. Ramayana Part 1 stars Ranbir Kapoor asRama, Sai Pallavi as Sita, Yash as Ravana, and Sunny Deol as Hanuman, andproducer-actor Yash has confirmed a theatrical release timed for the Diwaliseason in late October 2026.

Three things are driving that page-view dominance,and none of them are accidental marketing tricks:

• Scale of ambition. Abig-budget, multi-part mythological epic with this cast size hasn’t beenattempted in Hindi cinema at this scale before, which naturally pulls incuriosity clicks from people checking cast details, release dates, andcharacter mapping.
• Cultural timing. ADiwali release for a Ramayana adaptation is about as on-the-nose asrelease-date strategy gets, and audiences are already mentally counting down tothe festival window.
• Cross-casting haloeffect. Yash isn’t just acting in Ramayana — he also stars inToxic, the Kannada film sitting at rank three. That dual presence means fans ofeither project are likely cross-checking both, inflating page views for bothtitles simultaneously.

King and Alpha: Two Very Different Bets on StarPower

If Ramayana represents mythology-as-spectacle,King and Alpha representsomething more familiar to industry watchers: the calculated comeback vehicle.King marks Shah Rukh Khan’s first theatrical release in roughly three years,reuniting him with Pathaan director Siddharth Anand for an action-thrillerreleasing on December 24, 2026. The film also features Suhana Khan, AbhishekBachchan, Deepika Padukone, and Anil Kapoor, and reports suggest the storydraws inspiration from Léon: The Professional a premise built around aruthless assassin figure, which is new creative territory for an actor bestknown for romantic leads.

Alpha, meanwhile, is the seventh installment in theYRF Spy Universe and arrives earlier, on July 10, 2026. It’s notable for beingthe franchise’s first female-led entry, pitting Alia Bhatt and Sharvari Waghagainst Bobby Deol in what’s being billed as a relentless action thriller. AnilKapoor also features here, meaning he appears twice in the top four — in Alphaat rank two and King at rank four — making him, alongside Yash, one of the twoactors with the most “real estate” across this list.

This overlap isn’t coincidence; it reflects howIndian cinema’s biggest 2026 releases are increasingly built aroundinterconnected casting, where a handful of in-demand actors anchor multiplefranchise or tentpole films within the same release window.

The Streaming Disruption Hiding at NumberEight

Buried in the middle of the list is a detail thatdeserves more attention than it’s getting: Mirzapur: TheMovie at rank eight is the first cinematic adaptation of anIndian web series following its digital success. That’s a meaningful shift.Mirzapur built its fanbase entirely on a streaming platform, and its leap totheatrical release signals that streaming-to-cinema isn’t just a Hollywoodphenomenon (think Breaking Bad spin-offs or Squid Game theme parks) it’s nowa viable Indian business model too. If Mirzapur performs well theatrically,expect other long-running streaming hits to start eyeing the samecrossover.

Separately, Ikka at rank twelve stands out as theonly direct-to-streaming release on the entire list, which raises aninteresting question: anticipation doesn’t seem to care whether a film isheaded to theatres or a streaming app. Audiences are curious about the storyand cast first, and the release format second.

Franchise Sequels Are Quietly Carrying the Middleof the List

It’s easy to focus on the top five, but the realworkhorses of this list are the sequels. Ajay Devgn appears twice — leadingboth Dhamaal 4 (rank five) and Drishyam 3 (rank six) — continuing two ofBollywood’s most dependable franchises. Drishyam 3 in particular carriesoutsized expectations, since the Drishyam franchise has built a reputation fortight thriller writing across both its Malayalam original and Hindi remakelineage, and a third installment means the story is venturing into genuinelynew territory rather than retreading a known plot.

Dhamaal 4 represents the opposite bet: pure comedyfranchise continuity, banking on nostalgia and an established fanbase ratherthan narrative innovation.

What This List Actually Measures (and What ItDoesn’t)

It’s worth being precise about what “mostanticipated” means here, because it’s frequently misunderstood. IMDb’sranking is based on page views, not pre-bookings, ticket sales, or criticalbuzz. A high rank tells you a film is generating curiosity and search interest— not that it will necessarily be a box-office hit. Films can rank high becauseof controversy, cast curiosity, or trailer virality just as easily as genuineanticipation for quality. That said, page-view data from a quarter-billionmonthly visitors is still one of the most reliable real-time proxies availablefor gauging where global attention is actually pointed, especially compared toself-reported trade estimates or social media buzz that can be artificiallyinflated.

Comparing This List to IMDb’s Earlier 2026Ranking

Interestingly, this isn’t IMDb’s only 2026 list.Back in January, IMDb published a broader “Most Anticipated Indian Filmsof 2026” ranking covering the entire year, where King actually claimed thetop spot, followed by Ramayana Part 1. That earlier list also leaned moreheavily Telugu, with five Telugu titles compared to just one in this newer,second-half-specific list.

The shift between the two rankings is the realstory. Ramayana’s climb from second to first place over six months suggests itsanticipation has been building steadily as release-date clarity and castingdetails solidified, while King despite remaining firmly in the top five hassettled into fourth position now that the field has narrowed specifically tosecond-half releases. This kind of week-over-week and month-over-month movementis exactly why tracking IMDb’s anticipation data over time is more useful thantreating any single snapshot as gospel.

What This Means for Audiences and theIndustry

For moviegoers, this list functions as a practicalwatchlist-building tool — and IMDb explicitly markets it that way, encouragingusers to save these titles via its Watchlist feature. For studios and tradeanalysts, the data offers something more strategic: an early warning system forwhere marketing dollars are already paying off in organic curiosity, and wherea film might need a louder promotional push heading into release.If history is any guide, films that top IMDb’s anticipationrankings tend to convert that curiosity into strong opening weekends, thoughthe size of that opening still depends heavily on reviews, word of mouth, andcompeting releases in the same window. With Ramayana Part 1, Alpha, and Kingall targeting different months between July and December, audiences are lookingat a genuinely staggered release calendar rather than a pile-up of competingtentpoles — which should work in favor of all three films finding their ownspace at the box office.

Conclusion: A List Worth Watching, Not JustReading

IMDb’s most anticipated Indian movies list for thesecond half of 2026 confirms what industry observers have suspected for months:Ramayana Part 1 has become the single biggest object of curiosity in Indiancinema right now, with King and Alpha proving that star-driven comebacks andfranchise extensions still command massive attention. But the list’s real valuelies beneath the top five in the rise of streaming-to-theatre crossovers likeMirzapur, the quiet dominance of repeat franchise stars like Ajay Devgn andYash, and the steady, if still modest, growth of regional-languagerepresentation on a platform with a genuinely global audience. Expect thisranking to keep shifting as trailers drop and release dates approach; the nextcheckpoint to watch will be whether Ramayana’s lead widens or narrows once itsfirst full trailer finally hits screens.