| # | Movie Title | Genre | Key Cast | Verdict | |---|-------------|-------|----------|---------| | 1 | Raees | Crime Drama | Shah Rukh Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui | Hit | | 2 | Jolly LLB 2 | Courtroom Comedy | Akshay Kumar, Huma Qureshi | Hit | | 3 | Badrinath Ki Dulhania | Romantic Comedy | Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt | Hit | | 4 | Trapped | Survival Thriller | Rajkummar Rao | Critical Hit | | 5 | Hindi Medium | Social Comedy | Irrfan Khan, Saba Qamar | Blockbuster | | 6 | Meri Pyaari Bindu | Romantic Drama | Ayushmann Khurrana, Parineeti Chopra | Flop (Cult later) | | 7 | Bank Chor | Comedy | Riteish Deshmukh | Flop | | 8 | Tubelight | War Drama | Salman Khan | Flop | | 9 | Mom | Revenge Thriller | Sridevi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui | Hit | | 10 | Jab Harry Met Sejal | Romance | Shah Rukh Khan, Anushka Sharma | Flop | | 11 | Toilet: Ek Prem Katha | Social Drama | Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar | Super Hit | | 12 | Newton | Political Satire | Rajkummar Rao | India’s Oscar Entry | | 13 | Judwaa 2 | Action Comedy | Varun Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez | Hit | | 14 | Golmaal Again | Comedy | Ajay Devgn, Parineeti Chopra | Blockbuster | | 15 | Tumhari Sulu | Comedy Drama | Vidya Balan, Manav Kaul | Hit | | 16 | Ittefaq | Mystery Thriller | Sidharth Malhotra, Sonakshi Sinha | Average | | 17 | Firangi | Period Comedy | Kapil Sharma | Flop | | 18 | Tiger Zinda Hai | Action | Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif | Blockbuster |
Key Takeaway from 2017: The year belonged to small-town stories (Hindi Medium, Newton) and the return of Sridevi in Mom (her final film).
The index must mark a before/after point: March 24, 2020 – nationwide lockdown.
Indexed changes:
| # | Movie Title | Genre | Key Cast | Release Platform | |---|-------------|-------|----------|------------------| | 1 | Chhapaak | Social Drama | Deepika Padukone, Vikrant Massey | Theaters (Flop) | | 2 | Street Dancer 3D | Dance Drama | Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor | Theaters (Average) | | 3 | Jawaani Jaaneman | Comedy | Saif Ali Khan, Tabu | Theaters (Underrated) | | 4 | Malang | Action Thriller | Aditya Roy Kapur, Disha Patani | Theaters (Hit) | | 5 | Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan | Rom-Com | Ayushmann Khurrana, Jitendra Kumar | Theaters (Hit) | | 6 | Thappad | Social Drama | Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati | Theaters (Hit) | | 7 | Baaghi 3 | Action | Tiger Shroff, Riteish Deshmukh | Theaters (Hit) | | 8 | Angrezi Medium | Comedy Drama | Irrfan Khan (Last film), Radhika Madan | Theaters (Cut short by lockdown) | | 9 | Gulabo Sitabo | Comedy Drama | Amitabh Bachchan, Ayushmann Khurrana | Amazon Prime (First major OTT release) | | 10 | Shakuntala Devi | Biopic | Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra | Amazon Prime | | 11 | Dil Bechara | Romantic Drama | Sushant Singh Rajput (Last film), Sanjana Sanghi | Disney+ Hotstar (Blockbuster OTT) | | 12 | Sadak 2 | Thriller | Sanjay Dutt, Alia Bhatt | Disney+ Hotstar (Disaster) | | 13 | Lootcase | Comedy | Kunal Kemmu, Rasika Dugal | Disney+ Hotstar (Underrated) | | 14 | Raat Akeli Hai | Murder Mystery | Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte | Netflix (Critical Hit) | | 15 | Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl | Biopic | Janhvi Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi | Netflix (Hit) | | 16 | Serious Men | Drama | Nawazuddin Siddiqui | Netflix (National Award) | | 17 | Chintu Ka Birthday | Drama | Vinay Pathak, Tillotama Shome | ZEE5 (Critical Hit) | | 18 | Ludo | Anthology Comedy | Abhishek Bachchan, Rajkummar Rao | Netflix (Super Hit) | | 19 | Coolie No. 1 | Comedy | Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan | Amazon Prime (Flop) | | 20 | Chhalaang | Sports Comedy | Rajkummar Rao, Nushrratt Bharuccha | Amazon Prime (Average) |
Key Takeaway from 2020: The death of single-screen theaters. Dil Bechara became the most-watched Hindi film on OTT, a posthumous tribute to Sushant Singh Rajput.
The year was 2021. The world was two years into a pandemic that had stopped time. Arjun, a 28-year-old data analyst living in a cramped apartment in Pune, had developed a peculiar lockdown hobby. While others were baking sourdough or learning TikTok dances, Arjun was building "The Index."
It started when he tried to find an old favorite, Masaan (2015), on a streaming service and failed. He realized that the golden age of Hindi cinema—the indie boom of the late 2010s—was vanishing into the void of expired licensing rights. Driven by a manic need to organize chaos, he began to crawl the web.
His project was simple, ruthless, and old-school. He didn't build a fancy app. He built a text file. He called it: "Index of Hindi Movies 2016-2021."
He chose those dates specifically. 2016 was the year Dangal and Newton shifted the paradigm, proving content was king. 2021 was the year the industry tried to stand back up after the knockout blow of 2020.
The Discovery
One rainy Tuesday in August 2021, Arjun’s crawler hit a digital snag. It had found a "Ghost Directory" on an unprotected server belonging to a defunct distribution house in Mumbai. The server wasn't supposed to be public. It was a digital attic, left open by mistake. index of hindi movies 2016 2021
Inside, Arjun found a folder labeled REJECTED_FINAL_CUT_2018-2020.
Curiosity getting the better of him, he opened it. He expected screeners of released films—low-quality leaks of blockbusters like War or Baahubali. Instead, he found the "Lost Generation."
There were twelve films in that folder. They were fully edited, scored, and finalized movies that had never seen the light of day. These weren't bad movies; they were victims of timing. They were mid-budget dramas and comedies that were bought by streaming platforms in 2019, slated for release in early 2020, and then quietly shelved when the platforms decided they needed "mass appeal" content to survive the lockdown.
One file caught his eye: The Last Train to Gaya.
According to Arjun's extensive "Index of Hindi Movies 2016-2021," this movie didn't exist. IMDb had no record of it. Wikipedia was silent. But the metadata was pristine. It starred a respected character actor from the 2016 indie circuit and a rising starlet who had broken out in 2019.
Arjun pressed play.
The Screening
The film was a masterpiece. Shot in grainy, intimate 16mm, it told the story of two strangers stranded on a railway platform during a curfew. It was a metaphor for the pandemic, shot months before the pandemic happened. It was haunting, prescient, and deeply moving.
Arjun realized he was sitting on a goldmine. He could leak it. He could become famous on Reddit. But he was an archivist, not a pirate. He believed in the sanctity of the record.
He updated his text file.
At the bottom of "Index of Hindi Movies 2016-2021," he added a new section: | # | Movie Title | Genre |
SECTION 4: THE GHOST FILMS TITLE: The Last Train to Gaya STATUS: Unreleased. High Art. Potential: 9/10.
The Knock
Three days after he added the entry, his internet went down. Then, his phone rang. It was a landline call—rare for 2021.
The voice on the other end was tired, gravelly. "Is this the man with the Index?"
Arjun froze. "Who is this?"
"My name is Vikram Singh," the voice said. "I directed The Last Train to Gaya. I saw your crawler hit my server. I've been watching your log."
Arjun’s heart hammered against his ribs. He thought he was in trouble. "I didn't steal anything. I just cataloged it."
"I know," the director said. "That's why I'm calling. Do you know why we never released it? The studio said it was 'too quiet' for the pandemic audience. They wanted explosions. They wanted Sooryavanshi. They told us our film was dead."
There was a long pause on the line.
"Your index is the only place on earth that acknowledges my film exists," the director continued. "I saw your rating. 9 out of 10."
"It was beautiful, sir," Arjun whispered. "It deserved to be seen." SECTION 4: THE GHOST FILMS TITLE: The Last
"The server goes offline tomorrow," the director said. "They are wiping the drives to save costs. But I’m sending you a secure link. You have the index, Arjun. You are the librarian now. Make sure the link is added. Make sure it’s never forgotten."
The Legacy
By the end of 2021, the "Index of Hindi Movies 2016-2021" had circulated on private forums. It wasn't just a list of pirated links (though those were there too); it had become a curated museum.
Arjun’s entry for The Last Train to Gaya didn't point to a torrent. It pointed to a private YouTube link uploaded by a broken-hearted director. Over the next year, that link was passed around in cinephile circles. The movie never made a rupee, but it found its audience.
The story of the index became legendary in niche circles. It wasn't about piracy; it was about memory.
When the dust of the pandemic settled, the industry publications wrote about the "Lost Years" of 2020-2021. They talked about the big flops and the streaming wars. But tucked away in the corners of the internet, Arjun’s text file remained—a simple, unassuming document that preserved the soul of an era, ensuring that the quiet stories were just as loud as the blockbusters.
If you landed here searching for an "index of Hindi movies 2016 2021" for practical purposes, here is what you can do:
Note: The term "index" is often used by archivists or Plex server owners to catalog file names. If you are looking for a downloadable database (CSV/Excel) of this list, you can copy this table into a spreadsheet tool.
Theatres shut down mid-year, pushing the industry toward direct-to-digital releases on platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
| # | Movie Title | Genre | Key Cast | Platform/Verdict | |---|-------------|-------|----------|------------------| | 1 | Master (Hindi Dub) | Action | Vijay Sethupathi, Vijay | Amazon Prime (Hit) | | 2 | The Girl on the Train | Thriller | Parineeti Chopra, Aditi Rao Hydari | Netflix (Flop) | | 3 | Roohi | Horror Comedy | Rajkummar Rao, Janhvi Kapoor | Theaters (Average) | | 4 | Saina | Sports Biopic | Parineeti Chopra, Manav Kaul | Theaters (Flop) | | 5 | Mumbai Saga | Gangster Drama | John Abraham, Emraan Hashmi | Theaters (Average) | | 6 | Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar | Thriller | Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra | Theaters/OTT (Flop) | | 7 | Pagglait | Comedy Drama | Sanya Malhotra, Shruti Sharma | Netflix (Critical Hit) | | 8 | Kaagaz | Social Drama | Pankaj Tripathi, Monal Gajjar | ZEE5 (Hit) | | 9 | The Big Bull | Crime Drama | Abhishek Bachchan, Ileana D'Cruz | Disney+ Hotstar (Average) | | 10 | Sardar Ka Grandson | Drama | Arjun Kapoor, Neena Gupta | Netflix (Hit) | | 11 | Mimi | Surrogacy Drama | Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathi | Netflix/Disney+ (Super Hit) | | 12 | Bhuj: The Pride of India | War Drama | Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt | Disney+ Hotstar (Flop) | | 13 | Shershaah | War Biopic | Sidharth Malhotra, Kiara Advani | Amazon Prime (Blockbuster) | | 14 | Chehre | Mystery | Amitabh Bachchan, Emraan Hashmi | Theaters (Flop) | | 15 | Dinosaurs: The Final Season | Animation | VFX Cast | Theaters (Average) | | 16 | Hum Do Hamare Do | Comedy | Rajkummar Rao, Kriti Sanon | Disney+ Hotstar (Average) | | 17 | Sooryavanshi | Action | Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif | Theaters (Blockbuster – Diwali) | | 18 | Antim: The Final Truth | Action | Salman Khan, Ayush Sharma | Theaters (Average) | | 19 | Satyameva Jayate 2 | Action | John Abraham, Divya Khosla | Theaters (Flop) | | 20 | Bunty Aur Babli 2 | Comedy | Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukerji | Theaters/OTT (Flop) | | 21 | Tadap | Romantic Action | Ahan Shetty, Tara Sutaria | Theaters (Average) | | 22 | 83 | Sports Biopic | Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone | Theaters (Released Dec 24 – Hit) |
Key Takeaway from 2021: Shershaah became the most loved OTT film of the year. Sooryavanshi proved that Salman-Akshay action still works in theaters. The year ended on a high with Ranveer Singh’s 83.
The Hindi film index for 2016–2021 is not a static list; it is a map of a nervous system in shock. It shows the death of the 100-crore theatrical formula, the rise of the direct-to-consumer drama, and the fragmentation of a once-monolithic audience. For scholars, this index is a starting point to ask: What happened to the interval? What happened to the song-and-dance spectacle? And what happens next?
The most telling data point in this entire index: In 2016, a Hindi film could not be imagined without a theatrical release. By 2021, Sardar Udham – a major biopic by a national award-winning director – was never even submitted to the censor board for theatrical certification. The index, therefore, is an obituary for an era and a birth certificate for another.