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

Saiyaara took 30.0% of 4,164 verified votes, almost three-quarters of them from women under 25. Men picked Dhurandhar.

One film beat a franchise

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

Saiyaara won with 1,251 of 4,164 verified votes, 30.0%. The runner-up, Dhurandhar, got 21.4%. The winning margin was 360 votes.

Add up the two Dhurandhar films and the picture changes. Dhurandhar (21.4%) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge (13.6%) together got 1,457 votes, 35.0% of the total. Split in two, neither could catch Saiyaara.

Saiyaara, winner of Most Popular Bollywood 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 3,325 of the 4,164 votes (80%). Saiyaara won 32.8% of women’s votes and 18.4% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 78% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (2,258 votes).
Women aged 18–24 were Saiyaara’s strongest group: 34.4% of their 1,825 votes went to Saiyaara.
73% of Saiyaara’s votes came from women under 25 (912 of 1,251).

It did not lead everywhere: voters aged 25–34 preferred Dhurandhar (24.6%).

Women and men picked different winners

Men’s first choice was Dhurandhar (24.6%), with Saiyaara second (18.4%). Women backed Saiyaara clearly (32.8%), and women cast 80% of the votes.

Border 2: 5.4% of women’s votes, 3.0% of men’s, 1.8 times as popular with women.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge: 12.4% of women’s votes, 18.3% of men’s, 1.5 times as popular with men.
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat: 11.8% of women’s votes, 17.8% of men’s, 1.5 times as popular with men.

Across IFTA 2026

The two films split IFTA 2026’s Bollywood categories between them. Saiyaara won five: Film, Actress in a Lead Role (Aneet Padda), Debut (Aneet Padda), Song (the title track) and Female Playback Singer (Shreya Ghoshal). Dhurandhar won five too: Director (Aditya Dhar), Actor in a Lead Role (Ranveer Singh), Actor in a Supporting Role and Negative Role (both Akshaye Khanna) and Dance Track (Shararat). Dhurandhar: The Revenge added a sixth for the franchise: Sara Arjun, Actress in a Supporting Role.

In the voters’ own words

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

“I love this movie and song I love Aneet and Ahaan .”
“Very very very good and nice movie in my heart❤”
“This movie is awesome”

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 Bollywood Film result, or all results: Bollywood · OTT · Television

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular Bollywood Film results on PolBol (4,164 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.