From Baahubali to Ramayana: Is India's Storytelling Moment Finally Global?
Indian films have travelled abroad for decades. What is new is the world treating an Indian epic as the main event. This week, that idea gets its biggest test.
When Baahubali 2 released in 2017, it became the first Indian film to cross ₹1,000 crore worldwide within days. It went on to a reported ₹1,788 crore. The film did not rely on a famous Bollywood name. It relied on a story, a scale and a world audiences wanted to step into.
Indian cinema reached audiences abroad long before that. But Baahubali showed that an Indian epic could be spectacle on its own terms, with no Western framing to make it acceptable. It also helped make "pan-India" a real category.
The next step came in 2023, when "Naatu Naatu" from RRR won the Oscar for Best Original Song. The world was not just watching Indian stories now. It was singing and dancing to them.
And in October 2025, Baahubali: The Epic, the two films cut together and re-released, reportedly earned around $5 million in its opening weekend and entered the global top 10. A ten-year-old Indian film had a place on the international charts.
Now comes Ramayana.
Ramayana: Part 1 opens worldwide on November 5, just ahead of Diwali, with a different set-up. Director Nitesh Tiwari is making it with producer Namit Malhotra, whose studio DNEG has won Oscars for visual effects. It is filmed for IMAX, Sony is handling the international release, and the music is a first-ever collaboration between A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer. Part 2 follows in Diwali 2027, and Part 1's reported budget of about ₹835 crore is the highest of any Indian production.
The difference from earlier films is that this one is built for a worldwide audience from the first day. The story is one that billions of people already know. The question is whether the rest of the world will arrive with them.
The verdict is still coming. Advance bookings have been strong, but a big budget and a big opening do not guarantee an audience that stays. What the film does show is a change in ambition. Indian producers are no longer asking whether the world might like their stories. They are building them for the world from the start.
What this means for artists.
A film like this needs far more than its stars. It needs dancers, stage performers, voice artists, costume and makeup artists, set and prop makers, VFX artists, musicians and casting teams, across many languages. When Indian stories travel, the demand for Indian talent travels with them.
The artists who get these opportunities will be the ones who can be found quickly: a clear profile, a showreel, real work and one link that holds it all. The stories are going global, and artists need to be easy to find when someone comes looking.
Sources: reports from The Hollywood Reporter India, Variety India, Sony Pictures and Prime Focus Studios, and trade box office reports. Images in this article are AI-generated illustrations.