Essel group’s OTT streaming services platform Zee5 was launched in India in February 2018. A few months back, the popular platform commenced its services in the USA. Besides acquiring third-party movies, Zee5 has concurrently acquired a number of original Indian movies as well since the year 2018. Some of them were received well by OTT viewers while some other titles did not receive similar acclaim.
Until recently, Zee5 has released 57 original Indian films spanning multiple genres in various Indian languages, albeit primarily Hindi films. Here is the full list of Zee5 India original films released until now since 2018 along with the film’s current IMDb rating.
| Sr.No.
| Zee5 India Original Film | Language | IMDb Rating (Out of 10) |
| 1 | Toba Tek Singh | Hindi | 6.9 |
| 2 | AranyaDeb | Bengali | 6.4 |
| 3 | Tigers | Hindi | 7.3 |
| 4 | Sigai | Tamil | 6.3 |
| 5 | Cabaret | Hindi | 3.4 |
| 6 | Veergati | Marathi | 6.0 |
| 7 | Kalavu | Tamil | 7.4 |
| 8 | The Sholay Girl | Hindi | 7.7 |
| 9 | The Lovely Mrs. Mookherjee | Bengali | 5.6 |
| 10 | 377 AbNormal | Hindi | 5.5 |
| 11 | Yours Truly | Hindi | 6.0 |
| 12 | Badnaam Gali | Hindi | 7.1 |
| 13 | Saat No. Sanatan Sanyal | Bengali | 5.8 |
| 14 | Igloo | Tamil | 8.0 |
| 15 | Barot House | Hindi | 7.3 |
| 16 | Posham Pa | Hindi | 6.3 |
| 17 | Line of Descent | Hindi | 4.7 |
| 18 | Happi | Hindi | 7.4 |
| 19 | Operation Parindey | Hindi | 4.7 |
| 20 | Bamfaad | Hindi | 7.1 |
| 21 | Ateet | Hindi | 4.3 |
| 22 | Amrutharamam | Telugu | 6.0 |
| 23 | Court Martial | Hindi | 6.9 |
| 24 | Ghoomketu | Hindi | 5.5 |
| 25 | Mamakiki | Tamil | 6.2 |
| 26 | Chintu Ka Birthday | Hindi | 7.8 |
| 27 | Yaadhumagi Nindraai | Tamil | 5.7 |
| 28 | Unlock – The Haunted App | Hindi | 3.9 |
| 29 | 47 Days | Telugu | 5.5 |
| 30 | Cock Tail | Tamil | 4.2 |
| 31 | Virgin Bhanupriya | Hindi | 2.8 |
| 32 | Yaara | Hindi | 6.3 |
| 33 | Meka Suri | Telugu | 7.7 |
| 34 | Danny | Tamil | 4.5 |
| 35 | Pareeksha | Hindi | 8.1 |
| 36 | Lock Up | Tamil | 6.4 |
| 37 | Mee Raqsam | Hindi | 6.7 |
| 38 | Atkan Chatkan | Hindi | 8.1 |
| 39 | Tiki Taka | Bengali | 7.5 |
| 40 | London Confidential | Hindi | 6.4 |
| 41 | Comedy Couple | Hindi | 7.6 |
| 42 | Taish | Hindi | 7.5 |
| 43 | Meka Suri 2 | Telugu | 6.4 |
| 44 | Darbaan | Hindi | 7.5 |
| 45 | Oru Pakka Kathai | Tamil | 7.0 |
| 46 | Nail Polish | Hindi | 7.3 |
| 47 | Kaagaz | Hindi | 7.5 |
| 48 | Lahore Confidential | Hindi | 2.8 |
| 49 | The Wife | Hindi | 4.6 |
| 50 | Silence… Can You Hear It? | Hindi | 6.6 |
| 51 | Mathil | Tamil | 6.8 |
| 52 | Raat Baaki Hai | Hindi | 5.2 |
| 53 | State of Siege: Temple Attack | Hindi | 8.1 |
| 54 | 14 Phere | Hindi | 6.5 |
| 55 | Dial 100 | Hindi | 6.0 |
| 56 | 200 – Halla Ho | Hindi | 7.8 |
| 57 | Helmet | Hindi | 7.1 |
The above information may seem to be random data on a casual viewing. However, if we analyze it from a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) perspective by using the IMDb rating aspect, it might give us a more concrete viewpoint of Zee5 India original films’ portfolio.
STRENGTHS
It is evident from the above data that like Netflix and unlike Amazon Prime Video, Zee5 has primarily concentrated on Hindi language movies for its original films’ portfolio (67% of total titles). Its Hindi films’ IMDb average rating comes out to be 6.3/10, which is slightly higher than Netflix’s 6.06/10.
Moreover, on this list, there are 22 titles with an IMDb rating of greater than 7/10. Meaning thereby almost 40% of the films’ portfolio boasts of some decently rated titles. Off late, Zee5’s selection of Hindi films has further improved with movies like ‘Nail Polish’, ‘Kaagaz’, ‘State of Siege: Temple Attack’, ‘200 Halla Ho’ and ‘Helmet’. This makes us think that at least from 2021, Zee5 seems to be going in the right direction in this aspect. ‘State of Siege: Temple Attack’ has even found its place amongst the top 250 Indian movies as per IMDb.
WEAKNESSES
Zee5’s selection of films under the less than 5.0 IMDb rating bracket. These films include 10 film titles including ‘Cabaret’, Line of Descent’, ‘Operation Parindey’, ‘Ateet’, ‘Lahore Confidential’, and ‘The Wife’, amongst others. This set of ten films with an abysmally low rating is what we think is the portfolio’s major weakness. Zee5 would want to improve on this figure by acquiring the right mix of meaningful cinema and out-and-out entertainers, both of which have their own following and refrain from acquiring such insipid titles.
OPPORTUNITIES
Filtering uninspiring Hindi titles and diversifying into quality regional cinema including a greater number of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, and Marathi films could do the trick. Until now, around 1/3rd of the total Zee5 original films are non-Hindi regional language movies. It’s a decent percentage although it could be further improved upon.
THREATS
Amazon Prime Video and Netflix could be considered as the most formidable threats to Zee5, particularly with respect to the number of their Indian original films’ portfolios. Both these OTT giants have been consistently churning out an interesting mix of original films for the past few years. The overall IMDb rating average for Zee5 original films is 6.3/10. This means that it’s better than Netflix’s 6.08/10 albeit lower than Amazon’s 6.67/10.