The 2025 Heist Thriller That's Taking Over Netflix's Top Charts

Netflix might have just delivered a gift for cinema fans in the form of a Hitchcock collection, but it's also yet to make up for the horrible "The Electric State," its most expensive movie and the Russo brothers' worst. More in the way of Hitchcock compendiums might well help in that regard, but not if the streamer also keeps churning out things like the Indian heist thriller "Jewel Thief — The Heist Begins."

Must-see actioner "RRR" gained international attention in 2022, becoming a box office smash and even winning a Best Original Song Oscar. It then expanded its audience when it hit Netflix in the U.S., and ever since, there's been a steady stream of Indian actioners finding their way onto the streamer domestically. It should be noted that there's also been an array of decent offerings from the country. In 2023, for example, the Indian crime drama "Jaane Jaan" broke into the Netflix top 10 and was well worth a watch. The following year, however, we got more outlandish action in the form of "Animal," an Indian action revenge movie that ripped its way through the streamer's charts worldwide. Now, "Jewel Thief — The Heist Begins" is here to continue the trend.

Unfortunately, unlike the Tollywood hit that was "RRR," Bollywood's latest attempt at a good heist film seems to have fallen flat with critics. But does that really matter when it's also managed to dominate the Netflix top charts? Well, yes, but still.

"Jewel Thief — The Heist Begins" is an Indian Hindi-language heist thriller from directors Kookie Gulati and Robbie Grewal. Saif Ali Khan stars as thief Rehan Roy alongside Jaideep Ahlawat's mafia boss Rajan Aulakh. The story sees Roy devising a heist to steal the African Red Sun jewel while trying to outsmart Aulakh and dodge Kunal Kapoor's detective Vikram Patel. "Jewel Thief" comes from Siddharth Anand's Marflix Pictures, the production company behind "War" and "Pathaan," and is described by Netflix as "a dazzling display of cunning and excitement that only Marflix and Netflix can deliver."

If you take a look at the critical reactions to the movie, however, it appears "Jewel Thief" has failed to live up to such a billing. But it's a different story over on the Netflix charts. "Jewel Thief" hit the platform on April 25, 2025, and according to FlixPatrol, a site that tracks viewership across the streaming services, quickly became a global hit.

"Jewel Thief" entered the U.S. charts on April 26, taking the number 10 spot before rising to number eight the following day. Ever since, the movie has been hovering around the same area, but considering its impressive global performance, it could very well climb higher. At the time of writing, "Jewel Thief" is charting in 79 countries and is number one in five of them, including its native India. The movie is also number two in 16 countries, all of which has allowed it to claim the number four spot on the worldwide Netflix top 10.

As well as "Jewel Thief" has fared on Netflix, the reviews just simply aren't very good. The movie currently has a lowly 8% score on Rotten Tomatoes, which, while based on just 13 reviews, isn't the best advertisement for this heist thriller. Not one of the three so-called "top critics" on RT liked the movie, with Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express criticizing the way in which the film is "so lazily constructed that it doesn't even bother thinking of a new or even a new-ish title." The Hollywood Reporter's Rahul Desai, meanwhile, was spurred into a contemplation of the streaming sphere as a whole and the negative effect it's having on movie-making, writing, "The problem with unserious cinema today is its templatization, as the streaming algorithm flattens the self-awareness."

It just sort of gets worse from here, with Indiewire dismissing "Jewel Thief" as a "self-serious wannabe action drama," while the Hindustan Times surmised that "'Jewel Thief' can also be titled 'Time Thief.' It stole two hours of my life for a story which was just simply ... predictable."

This isn't the first time we've seen a horrible streaming movie dominate the Netflix charts; just take a look at the time Kevin Hart's "Lift" inexplicably hit number one on the streamer. But 8%? That's rough. Not that the filmmakers or Netflix necessarily care. As the movie continues to dominate, it might just have a chance of taking the number one spot globally, which is currently occupied by Tom Hardy and Gareth Evans' hyper-violent shoot-em-up "Havoc."