Before Ramayana: Every Major Screen Version of the Epic and Where to Watch It in India

Nitesh Tiwari, who directed Dangal, is making the epic in two parts. Prime Focus Studios, run by Namit Malhotra, is producing, with Yash as a co-producer. Hans Zimmer and A.R. Rahman are composing the score together, and the film was shot for IMAX. Besides the leads, the cast includes Sunny Deol as Hanuman, Ravie Dubey as Lakshman, Lara Dutta, Rakul Preet Singh and Kajal Aggarwal. It is a theatrical release, so there is nothing to stream yet.

Babubhai Mistry, Hindi cinema's specialist in on-screen trickery, directed this three-hour Hindi telling for Homi Wadia's Basant Pictures, with Mahipal as Ram and Anita Guha as Sita. The effects were the selling point, and the film was a hit that made Anita Guha a household name. Vasant Desai's songs include two sung by Lata Mangeshkar.

The first full-length colour film in Telugu, with N.T. Rama Rao as Ram and Anjali Devi as Sita. It tells the last part of the story, after Sita's exile, through her twin sons Lava and Kusa. It was started in 1958, stalled for lack of money, and finished by C.S. Rao after his father, C. Pullayya, fell ill. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu. It streams on Sun NXT.

Ramanand Sagar's serial ran on Sunday mornings on Doordarshan from January 1987 to July 1988, and for many Indians it is still what the Ramayana looks like. Arun Govil played Ram and Deepika Chikhalia played Sita. When Doordarshan re-ran it during the 2020 lockdown, BARC India recorded a combined viewership of 170 million across its first four episodes, the highest for a Hindi entertainment programme since 2015. It is not on an Indian streaming service in our data at the time of writing.

A Japanese-Indian animated feature directed by Yugo Sako with Ram Mohan and Koichi Sasaki, made in the early 1990s. For years it was known in India mostly through television broadcasts. In January 2025 it was released in Indian cinemas in a 4K restoration, in Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu, with the adaptation overseen by V. Vijayendra Prasad. It is not on an Indian subscription service in our data at the time of writing.

The American animator Nina Paley tells the story from Sita's side, cut against the end of her own marriage and set to the 1920s jazz recordings of Annette Hanshaw. Paley made almost all of it herself, released it free in 2009, and later dedicated it to the public domain. It is the only film here in the public domain, so it can be watched free and legally online, including on the Internet Archive.

Mani Ratnam moved the Ramayana into a modern jungle: a policeman's wife is kidnapped by a tribal leader, and the film asks how much of a villain the kidnapper really is. He shot it twice at the same time, in Hindi as Raavan, with Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Vikram, and in Tamil as Raavanan, with Vikram in the title role. The Hindi version streams on Prime Video.

The last film by the Telugu director Bapu, with Nandamuri Balakrishna as Ram and Nayanthara as Sita. It covers the Uttara Kanda, the same final part of the story as Lava Kusa almost fifty years earlier, in which Balakrishna's father, N.T. Rama Rao, had played Ram. Ilaiyaraaja's score won the Nandi Award for Best Music Director. It is on several services in India, including Prime Video and Sun NXT.

A television Ramayana told from Sita's point of view, drawing on the Adbhuta Ramayana as well as Valmiki. Madirakshi Mundle made her debut as Sita, opposite Ashish Sharma as Ram. It is on JioHotstar, the streaming home of the Star channels.

Om Raut's big-budget version, with Prabhas as Raghav, Kriti Sanon as Janaki and Saif Ali Khan as Lankesh, is the most recent attempt before Tiwari's, and a cautionary one. Its visual effects and colloquial dialogue drew such a backlash that two days after release the makers announced they would rewrite some of the lines, including Hanuman's in the burning of Lanka. It streams on Netflix and Prime Video.

The most recent television version, produced by Siddharth Kumar Tewary's Swastik Productions, with Sujay Reu as Ram, Prachi Bansal as Sita and Nikitin Dheer as Ravan. It ran on Sony TV and then Sony SAB until March 2025, and it streams on SonyLIV.