Mid-Year Report Card: The Best Web Series Of 2023

Although Bollywood has had its hits and misses this year, the digital world kept the audience engaged with relevant content and standout performances. We take a quick look at some of the best from the lot:

-  Deepali Singh

SERIES: JUBILEE

Where to watch: Prime Video

The sepia-toned frames of this Vikramaditya Motwane directorial - a saga set in the 1940s, just a few years before the Partition - bring together stories of characters whose worlds collide in unpredictable ways. A celebration of the golden years of cinema, this is Motwane's tribute to a time when cinema and radio were the only two media of entertainment and information. There is a movie mogul Srikant Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee) who is looking to find his next leading man in the form of Madan Kumar.

What starts with one man's single-minded passion (Aparshakti Khurana as Roy's right-hand man, Binod Das) to achieve stardom has different consequences for different people, including theatre actor Jamshed Khan (Nandish Sandhu), up-and-coming actor Jay Khanna (Siddhant Gupta in a standout performance), courtesan-turned-actor Niloufer Qureshi (Wamiqa Gabbi), and superstar Sumitra Kumari (Aditi Rao Hydari) who is married to Roy, among others. Motwane makes these lives collide in a heady concoction of politics, showbiz, glamour and art, giving each character the chance to shine. The dialogues, set design, costumes and cinematography help recreate a bygone era and an old-world charm which lovers of Hindi cinema are bound to appreciate.

SERIES: FARZI

Where to watch: Prime Video

In March this year, an elated Shahid Kapoor took to Instagram to share that his web series Farzi had been declared "the most watched Indian web series of all time" according to an ORMAX survey. With a record viewership of 37.1 million at the time, this Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK-directorial hit the bull's eye with its sharp storytelling and solid performances, especially from its two leads - Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi.