The non-English movie climbing the Netflix charts
The best thing about Netflix is that the more you dig deeper, the more likely you are to find a treasure trove. And it looks like viewers have visibly found one in the top ten titles strutting its non-English movies weekly chart, the Hindi-language film, Homebound.
Ranked fifth on the most popular movies chart globally, Homebound has amassed 1.3million views in the week dated November 24th to November 30th. It is currently a top ten movie in ten countries this week.
Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, Homebound is based on Basharat Peer’s 2020 New York Times article, A Friendship, a Pandemic, and a Death Beside the Highway. For those uninitiated, the drama revolves around two childhood friends, Chandan and Shoaib, from a small, quaint village of North India, who share the dream of growing up to be police officers.
While it’s not unusual for children to dream of joining law enforcement, their aspirations are rooted in the anticipation that the job will bring them the stature, status, and respect they’ve yet to find in life. It’s not a dream formed out of a vacuum; it’s one that’s influenced by their social, cultural, religious, and financial backgrounds. Then again, it’s not just an ordinary dream, but a dreamscape to turn their lives around and escape their marginalised identities.
Having faced incredible discrimination on the grounds of their religion and caste, Chandan and Shoaib see the job as their only way out to live with their heads held high. But in pursuit of their childhood dream, what they don’t see coming is their friendship being put to the test. While the societal and financial pressures are aplenty, what further complicates the situation is the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, they are forced to opt for a long, turbulent journey back home during the COVID-19 lockdown and widespread quarantine. The film explores a complex theme of friendship against the background of social prejudice and inequality, subtly representing the plight of sidelined communities in India during the all-consuming pandemic.
Homebound had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and has been selected as the entry for India for the ‘Best International Feature Film’ at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards.
The film has already bagged the ‘Polish Institute Award’ at the Warsaw Film Festival and ‘Best International Feature Film’ at Zurich Film Festival. Meanwhile, at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, Ghaywan took home the ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Film’ trophies.
Homebound had already been one of the most talked-about movies in the world of cinema. But if you’re still out of the loop, it’s currently streaming on Netflix.