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The Best Hindi Shows Of 2024, Ranked: 'Raat Jawaan Hai,' 'Killer Soup' And More
From a deep dive into the thrilling world of wildlife crime fighting to a coming-of-age story about parenting, here are our picks for the best Hindi shows of 2024
To say 2024 was an underwhelming year for Hindi streaming shows would be an understatement.
Regardless of the choppiness of Hindi cinema on the big screen in recent years, we could always depend on streaming series to plug the gap, deliver the goods and push boundaries. This is why I’ve repeatedly, and proudly, proclaimed that over the last few years, the finest Hindi language storytelling, writing and performances have all been on streaming.
But 2024 came close to challenging that achievement.
While there was no lack of memorable storytelling and promising elements and ideas, there were very few game-changing or bar-raising titles. I don’t think it’s ever been this much of a struggle to find five undeniable series worth celebrating. That said, here are my picks for the best shows of 2024:
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5. Killer Soup
In Netflix’s delicious dark comedy from director Abhishek Chaubey, characters backstab casually, drop dead frequently, fumble hilariously and plot, plan and scheme furiously.
A delirious cocktail of the outrageous, unhinged and unlikely, Killer Soup follows a tremendous Konkona Sen Sharma and Manoj Bajpayee as opportunistic lovers, trying to frantically cover up a murder and stay one step ahead of the investigation.
The result is a masterclass in actors playing characters who are forever performing.
Konkona Sen Sharma’s Swati is the overlooked, underestimated housewife who is suddenly thrown into a murderous mess and finds herself oddly thriving. And Manoj Bajpayee is equally excellent as the hilariously bewildered chump, disguised as another man, struggling to hold onto his own identity, whilst flung into a world of crime and deceit.
At once madcap and menacing, Killer Soup’s greatest triumph is cooking up a delicate tone that’s absurd, tense and dramatic, but also sprinkled with surprising moments of humanity.
My compliments to the chefs.
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4. Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein (Season 2)
Find someone who loves you as much as writer-director Sidharth Sengupta loves putting his lead character Vikrant, played by Tahir Raj Bhasin, in increasingly hot water. Sidharth delivers a crackling, outrageously entertaining, thoughtfully-plotted second season which continues to see Vikrant’s plans backfire.
Our crooked, depraved joy comes from the constantly escalating stakes and watching the smart everyman scrambling to put band-aids on bullet wounds and building an unsteady Jenga tower of lies to plug one hole after another. I love that you can’t easily put this show in a box. It is part gender-flipped obsessive love story and part relentlessly tense undercover ‘behind enemy lines' drama, with Vikrant forever plotting and scheming to kill his captors — his wife and her family — and outmanoeuvre them to survive.
With its smashing second chapter, Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein has quickly become one of the most enjoyable thrillers on streaming and, with the show now renewed for a third season, I’m all in for wherever this deliciously twisted ride takes us.
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3. Bandish Bandits (Season 2)
The second season of Amazon Prime Video’s Bandish Bandits quietly swooping in and making me feel love like few shows and movies in 2024 was a year-ending twist I didn’t see coming.
Like the musicians it follows, with its second season, Bandish Bandits has come into its own. This tremendously well-plotted second chapter does a glorious job of mining the world of music for human drama and rooting an affecting tale of art and artists in love and connection.
Radhe (Ritwik Bhowmik) and Tamanah (Shreya Chaudhry) are one of the most thoughtful, interesting and deeply felt romances I’ve come across on screen this year. I loved how the series explores their delicate, inextinguishable connection. It’s not easy to craft a show-defining romance that’s rarely heavy-handed or silly, and keep it from veering into shallow, irritating will-they-won’t-they territory. Instead, the makers marvellously keep us on that heart-tugging line between hopeful and tragic; between what if and if only.
Equally remarkable is that the big twists, character pivots and redemption arcs this season never feel forced or convenient, but organic to the characters. Plot and character come together beautifully as a single soulful voice.
2. Poacher
Delhi Crime creator Richie Mehta once again set his sights on dramatising true events with his Amazon Prime Video series, which takes us into the dangerous, thrilling world of wildlife crime fighting.
While technically not a Hindi series per se (considering the show flits between Malayalam, Hindi and English) if there’s a series that demands an exception to make it to this list, it’s this one. One of 2024’s most unputdownable shows, with Poacher, Richie once again offers us tremendously self-assured storytelling with his keenly observed dedication to authenticity in examining true events but also coating them in arresting drama, layered characters and a high-pressure race-against-time investigative narrative.
Not to mention that glorious cast firing on all cylinders with the likes of Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Roshan Mathew and of course 2024’s MVP Kani Kusruti. But it’s a fierce Nimisha Sajayan who supercharges the narrative with one of the year’s finest performances as Mala — a ruthless, relentless forest officer with the spirit of a vigilante.
Poacher is, in many ways, filmmaking at its purest: a storyteller using fiction and narrative to make us feel for a thing as much as they do. I’ll remember the series for its pulsating fury and the idea that, amidst the horrors of humanity, there are still heroes. That there is still… hope.
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1. Raat Jawaan Hai
We’ve seen countless coming-of-age stories before. Of young adults and young love. Of road trips, heartbreaks and self-discovery. Of looking outward to see within. But rarely have we seen a coming-of-age story about parenting, the seismic shift and forever change that comes with having your first child and crossing that holy threshold to become truly and entirely responsible for someone else. Personhood evaporates in favour of parenthood.
It took me mere minutes into the first episode to fall unapologetically and absolutely in love with SonyLIV’s unassuming, charming, and utterly delightful Raat Jawaan Hai, about three childhood friends navigating the ebbs and flows of marriage and parenting.
Writer-creator Khyati Anand Puthran and director Sumeet Vyas give us a gentle, reassuring, warm hug disguised as a series. Over eight wholesome, life-affirming episodes Raat Jawaan Hai uses the deceptive packaging of charm and chemistry to offer an examination of intimacy and provide a gentle, reassuring perspective on the everyday scuffles, tiffs and trials that come with being a young parent. I walked away feeling possible and hopeful and reminded that there is good and love in this world. It is for us to merely relish the ride, and recognise the extraordinary within the ordinary.
Raat Jawaan Hai is a show that’s at its best when it’s not about much of anything at all. One that recognises that this life is merely an ongoing series of small joys, near misses and almost wins.
Above all, it gave us three new friends that I won’t soon forget.
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Special Mentions:
The industrial-sized sincerity and ambition of SonyLIV’s Freedom at Midnight. The crowd-pleasing laughs of Netflix’s Maamla Legal Hai as the rare streaming series that remembers the comedy genre still exists. Prime Video’s Angry Young Men as the rare vanity docu-series that has something worthwhile to say about screenwriting and the lives of writers. Prime Video’s Panchayat 3 for its devastating examination of grief. And finally Disney+Hotstar’s Lootere for its distinctive, clutter-breaking narrative and ambitious setting.