IFTA 2026, India’s only people’s choice film and television awards — voting open

The JioHotstar film took 24.8% of 1,295 verified votes. Almost three in four of its votes came from women under 25.

A crowded race with a clear leader

Fourteen films were on the ballot for Most Popular OTT Film at IFTA 2026.

Sarzameen (JioHotstar) won with 321 of 1,295 verified votes, 24.8%. The runner-up, Accused (Netflix), got 14.6%. The winning margin was 132 votes.

Netflix had six films on the ballot, more than any other platform. Together they took 42.1% of the vote, but the votes were split: no Netflix film got more than Accused’s 14.6%. Sarzameen was JioHotstar’s only film in the race.

Sarzameen, winner of Most Popular OTT Film at IFTA 2026

Who decided it

Every IFTA vote is OTP-verified, one per WhatsApp number per category, and every voter’s age and gender is recorded at sign-up. So this is not a survey sample. It is the full count of who voted.

Women cast 1,026 of the 1,295 votes (79%). Sarzameen won 26.7% of women’s votes and 17.4% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 77% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (701 votes).
Women aged 18–24 were Sarzameen’s strongest group: 29.0% of their 558 votes went to Sarzameen.
72% of Sarzameen’s votes came from women under 25 (231 of 321).

Sarzameen led in every age group with at least 30 voters.

With 1,295 votes, this is one of the smaller IFTA 2026 categories, so read the smaller groups (such as voters over 45) with care.

Same winner, different second choices

Sarzameen won with women (26.7%) and with men (17.4%). Both put Accused second (15.8% of women, 9.8% of men).

Detective Sherdil: 13.9% of women’s votes, 6.8% of men’s, about twice as popular with women.
Aap Jaisa Koi: 8.8% of women’s votes, 4.2% of men’s, about twice as popular with women.
Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins: 4.2% of women’s votes, 8.7% of men’s, about twice as popular with men.
Subedaar: 3.7% of women’s votes, 6.8% of men’s, 1.8 times as popular with men.

Across IFTA 2026

Sarzameen also put Kajol in the race for Most Popular OTT Actress in a Lead Role, where she finished second with 19.7%. The OTT categories drew far fewer votes than Television, so a few hundred committed fans can decide a result here.

In the voters’ own words

Voters could add a reason with their vote. A few of them:

“Best movie I ever seen in OTT”
“Movie 🎥 was too good 👍🏻”
“Bohot achi movie hai”

This is not a ratings chart or a critics’ list. It measures which audience turned up to vote, and how hard.

See the full results

IFTA 2026 voting has closed and the results are in. No jury, no award fixing: every winner was decided by India’s votes. See the full Most Popular OTT Film result, or all results: Bollywood · OTT · Television

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular OTT Film results on PolBol (1,295 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.