Summary

• Amazon Prime's Hindi series are top-notch, showcasing diverse genres and quality content for a global audience.
• Mirzapur's intense family feud, Hostel Daze's college comedy, and Breathe's psychological thrills stand out on the platform.
• From thrilling crime dramas to slice-of-life stories, Hindi series like The Family Man and Paatal Lok offer engaging narratives.

The best Hindi series on Amazon Prime Video right now showcases some of the highest-quality original shows to come out of India over the last decade. Amazon India Originals has been slowly but steadily gaining ground, bringing Indian dramas to audiences across the world with some nail-biting thrillers, sports dramas, and relatable slice-of-life stories. The Hindi TV shows on Amazon Prime Video star some of the best talents in the country acting out some of the most engaging stories the streaming service offers.

With several different genres represented in its offerings, the Amazon Prime Videos produced in India continue to gain traction with their global audience. As more and more quality content is created for this platform. Hindi dramas make up some of the most unique content among the international and non-English titles available on Amazon Prime Video — and breaking down the best makes it easy to see why.

10 Mirzapur (2018- )

A Town Embroiled In A Lethal Family Feud

Mirzapur is a hardcore crime thriller that focuses on Kaleen Bhaiya, the head of a crime family in the town of Mirzapur, where guns and knives dictate the law of the land. A bloodbath ensues as the trigger-happy son of Kaleen Bhaiya, Munna, unfurls chaos in the land, and another family, the Pandits, gets involved with the gangsters. The series offers battles of power and ambition where the lawless city finds itself in the grasp of violence and fear.

With some stellar performances from a strong ensemble cast, Mirzapur keeps Amazon Prime Video subscribers on the edge of their seats from start to finish. Although the second season has been widely touted as not at par with the first, the audience still stays hooked to this saga of power-mongering, greedy mobsters in whose hands lie the fate of the town. The second season won the Critics Award for Best Drama Series at the Filmfare OTT Awards.

9 Hostel Daze (2019-2023)

Engineering College Drama That Hits Familiar Notes

A quirky trip down memory lane, Hostel Daze focuses on three students enrolled at an engineering college. The first season sets up the premise and characters, many of whom are classic college-comedy stereotypes. Four hostel friends start their first year on campus and become roommates as they try to traverse their new university life.

In season 2, the freshers-turned-seniors get an opportunity to boss around young blood. The third season of Hostel Daze premiered in 2022, seeing more hijinks and even a mystery or two that the students must band together to solve. It came to an end in season 4 when the friends said goodbye to their dorm lives. Notably, the series features young Adarsh Gaurav of The White Tiger fame as one of the main leads. The show was so well-liked that it even received a remake in Tamil, called Engga Hostel, which is also available on Prime Video.

8 Breathe: Into The Shadows (2020-2022)

The Son Of A Bollywood Superstar Leads This Psychological Thriller

The second volume of the Breathe series was on par with the first and is one of the best Hindi series on Amazon Prime Video. It focuses on the life of a psychiatrist, Dr. Avinash Sabarwal, whose six-year-old daughter goes missing for months. Avinash and his wife, Abha, begin to receive cryptic instructions from a mystery man who wants the couple to commit some heinous crimes if they ever want to see their daughter alive again. The second season starts three years later, with Avinash in an asylum, before a former inmate breaks him out and demands he start killing again.

The psychological thriller is a commendable effort to address mental health issues, especially dissociative identity disorder. Audiences know the main actor, Abhishek Bachchan, as the son of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. Between its complex plot and high stakes, Breathe: Into the Shadows ranks high in terms of some of the best Hindi drama series on television.

7 Breathe (2018)

An Incredibly Bingeable Hindi Mystery

With a cast led by actor R. Madhavan, the taut crime thriller Breathe delved into the dark side of love and the extent to which some people will go to save those dear to them. One of the first Indian Originals created for Amazon Prime Video and arguably one of the best Hindi series on Prime Video, Breathe looked at Danny Mascarenhas and his desperate search for organ donors for his little son, Josh, whose lungs are failing.

Soon crimes are committed that strangely involve the death of registered organ donors, and Danny locks horns with embittered police officer Kabir, who is himself trying to come to terms with a tragic loss in his own life. As the origin story of a serial killer, it presents them in a way that forces the viewers to see things from the killer's perspective. While critics gave Breathe mixed reviews, audiences remained enthralled by the bizarreness of the story, and it's a binge-worthy mystery that will have viewers on the edge of their seats from start to finish.

6 Laakhon Mein Ek (2017-2019)

Hindi Anthology Drama With Endearing Characters

Telling a different story in each of its two seasons, Hindi original drama series Laakhon Mein Ek received a great deal of traction on Amazon Prime Video thanks to the performances of its central cast. Laakhon Mein Ek season 1 focused on Akash, a young man who wants to be an internet sensation. However, his dad wants him to become an engineer and destroys his dream by seeing him to an institute called Genius Infinity, where he works hard to make his dad's dreams come true.

The second season is about the misadventures of Dr. Shreya Pathare who single-handedly confronts the mistrust of villagers, the politicization of health care, and a team of health workers in a remote Indian village. Despite some mixed critical feedback, Laakhon Mein Ek stands out for its likable protagonists trying to find their own way amid others' expectations and the overarching systems they're forced to involve themselves with.

5 Jubilee (2023)

Period Drama About The Early Years Of Bollywood

The period drama Jubilee dropped on Amazon Prime Video in April 2023 and quickly rose through the ranks as one of the best Hindi original series on the platform. Set over the six tumultuous years of 1947-1953, Jubilee explores the black-and-white studio era of the film industry and the lengths that both studios and stars would go to achieve fame in Bollywood, as well as the political unrest of the time.

The story features melodrama all set in the real history of Bollywood moviemaking, and it was a huge success. Jubilee is stunning, both visually and narratively, weaving a tragic and complex tale that is sure to stick with audiences long after watching. It's also one of the best Hindi dramas for new viewers. It went on to pick up 17 nominations at the 2023 Filmfare OTT Awards, winning nine of them (the most of any nominee that year), including Best Director in a Drama Series for Vikramaditya Motwane.

4 The Family Man (2019-2021)

An Unassuming Father Is India's Best Defense Against Terrorism

Srikant Tiwari, a middle-class married man, works undercover as an intelligence agent in a fictitious counter-terrorist wing of India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) in one of the best Hindi original drama series on Prime Video. His family believes that he is employed at a government office and his extended family looks down upon him for not being ambitious enough and not earning as much as his peers. Srikant, however, is the reason behind the country successfully thwarting multiple terrorist threats.

From racing against time to stop biological terror attacks to sniffing out the trail to a plot to murder the Prime Minister of India, he is indispensable to the agency. Lead Actor Manoj Bajpayee is a master of his craft and skilfully portrays the pressures of balancing his family life with being undercover. Despite some controversy with the series' politics, Family Man is critically acclaimed and a high-octane, intriguing watch. In its two seasons, The Family Man won 11 awards at the Filmfare OTT Awards, including Best Actor for season 1 and Best Original Story for season 2.

3 Inside Edge (2017 - )

Intense Hindi Drama Set In The World Of Professional Cricket

The very first Amazon India Original and one of the best Hindi series on Amazon Prime Video, Inside Edge is a dramatized take on the world of cricket in India. With a steady ensemble cast, Inside Edge brings alive the murky politics that reign supreme behind the glamorous universe of T-20 cricket, i.e. the shortened version of the game that is completed in 20 overs per innings instead of the traditional 50 overs. From match-fixing, spot-fixing, performance-enhancing drugs, blackmail, and even murder, the owners of these fictitious cricket teams would stop at nothing in their lust for power and money.

The series also attempts to weave a narrative about casteism within teams, and the queer-phobia that haunts celebrities and athletes in India. The series was so highly acclaimed that it was nominated for an Emmy for Best Drama Series, losing out to Money Heist. The show was a success and picked up a second season in 2019 and a third season in 2021.

2 Made In Heaven (2019- )

A Drama-Filled Slice Of Life In India

Created by filmmakers Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, this Amazon Original is one of the best Hindi drama series on Amazon Prime Video as it offers a sophisticated peek into the myriad layers of Indian society through the lens of a wedding. Karan and Tara are wedding planners who come in contact with a motley group of people as they organize lavish weddings for their wealthy clients. The drama plays out as each wedding looks at a different family that brings hypocrisies, superstitions, and prejudices.

Running parallel to these stories is the continuous narrative following the lives of Tara and Karan as they battle an unhappy marriage, and homosexuality, respectively, in their own lives in a society marred with parochialism and ignorance. Lead actor Arjun Mathur received an International Emmy nomination for his role as Karan Mehta. A second season, with seven additional episodes, arrived on Prime Video in 2023.

1 Paatal Lok (2020)

A Dark And Gritty Dive Into Delhi's Criminal Underworld

An unabashed glimpse into New Delhi's dark underbelly, Paatal Lok literally translates as "the netherworld." Cynical cop Hathiram Chowdhury (Jaideep Ahlawat) gets dragged into an assassination gone wrong of a celebrated journalist and finds himself in the middle of a stark cat-and-mouse drama that takes him deeper and deeper into the Delhi criminal underworld.

The gritty drama picked up some rave reviews for its sharp script and sharper performances. It brings forth thematically the idea that the three layers of the world — heaven, earth, and hell — intersect where the aristocrats, humans, and animals exist respectively. The investigative thriller won five major awards at the 2020 Filmfare OTT Awards, including Best Series, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Story, and Best Screenplay, with six additional nominations. Paatal Lok also won two Indian Television Academy Awards.