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Mirzapur Was September’s Biggest Film by a Wide Margin. Prime Video Had Spent Eight Years Building Its Audience.

By Ritu Chadha

Updated on November 6, 2026
IST 6:47 pm

Mirzapur: The Movie, the first theatrical film from the Prime Video crime series, grossed more than ₹273 crore in India and finished September as the month’s top film by a wide margin, according to Ormax Media. It did it with a 197-minute running time and an A certificate. Its run also shows the limits of a film whose audience was built in advance.

A cinema hall with red seats and a big screen

From series to big screen

Mirzapur first streamed on Amazon Prime Video in 2018. The film, released in cinemas on 4 September 2026, is directed by Gurmmeet Singh, who directed episodes of the series, and written by series creator Puneet Krishna. Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar produced it under Excel Entertainment, and Amazon MGM Studios presents it with Excel.

Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal and Divyenndu return as Kaleen Bhaiya, Guddu Pandit and Munna. Esquire India reported that the story is a standalone chapter set in 2018, between episodes six and seven of the first season, so newcomers do not need to have seen the show. The Hollywood Reporter India described it as the first theatrical release for the Mirzapur franchise.

A very fast start

The film crossed ₹100 crore net in India on its fourth day, The Week reported. Pinkvilla put its first-week net at about ₹145 crore, with Saturday and Sunday each above ₹30 crore.

That kind of opening usually needs a big star or a big franchise. Mirzapur had the second. Its viewers knew the characters, the setting and the dialogue before they bought a ticket. Ormax’s September report, which counts gross collections in India, put the film at over ₹273 crore, ahead of the Telugu film The Paradise and the Tamil film Mandaadi.

And a steep fall

The second week was much smaller. Pinkvilla estimated it at ₹53.75 crore net, about 63 per cent below the first. By day 15, net collections stood at ₹206.20 crore, according to The Week, and by day 19 at about ₹213.50 crore, Pinkvilla reported. Roughly two-thirds of the money it had made by then came in the first seven days.

Pinkvilla projected a finish of around ₹225 crore net in India and called the film the third-biggest hit of the year so far, behind Dhurandhar: The Revenge and Hanuman Ansh.

A front-loaded run is not a failure. It is what happens when most of the audience is already waiting on release day. The people who loved the series turned up early, and fewer new viewers followed.

What September looked like

Mirzapur was the biggest part of a strong month. Films released in September grossed ₹1,144 crore in India, Ormax estimates, the seventh month of 2026 above ₹1,000 crore. The top five films took 64 per cent of that. For January to September, Ormax puts the total at ₹11,000 crore, 17 per cent higher than the same period in 2025, and says Hindi films are around 40 per cent of the year’s collections.

Why streaming platforms will notice

For years the flow went one way: films finished in cinemas and then moved to streaming. Mirzapur turned that around. A platform spent years building characters on a subscription service and then sold tickets to the same fans.

It also had problems a normal sequel would not. The running time limits how many shows a cinema can schedule in a day, and the A certificate keeps out younger viewers. The film still topped its month.

Other platforms own crime and family shows with loyal audiences. Mirzapur’s numbers give them a benchmark: a large, fast opening, followed by a quick drop once the fans have seen it.

What to watch

The next test is the film’s streaming release, and whether it brings new viewers back to the older seasons. Watch too whether another long-running Indian streaming series is announced for cinemas, and whether that project is cut to a length that cinemas can schedule more easily.