Our monthly feature The India Box Office Report tracks the performance of the various films released every month at the Indian (domestic) box office. Monthly reports are published on this website in the third week of the following month. This is the August 2026 edition of the report. You can access the previous reports in the Insights section of this website.

Cumulative Box Office: August 2026

Films released in August 2026 grossed ₹1,768 Cr at the domestic box office, including projected future collections of August releases. Hanuman Ansh, Toxic and Irumudi were the major contributors, followed by Malayalam film Bethlehem Kudumba Unit and Hindi film Awarapan 2. August 2026 has emerged as the best month of the year and the third-best month ever (after Dec 2024 and Dec 2023 respectively) at the domestic box office.

The cumulative box office of 2026 stands at ₹9,868 Cr, which is 18% higher compared to the same period in 2025. 

Top 10 Films

The chart below lists the top 10 films released in August 2026, based on their box office performance in India, including future projected collections for films still running in theatres.

Hanuman Ansh is the top film of the month with estimated lifetime domestic gross box office of ₹360 Cr. Bethlehem Kudumba Unit has almost touched the gross lifetime domestic box office of the 2025 Malayalam film Lokah: Chapter 1 - Chandra. Bethlehem Kudumba Unit's Tamil and Telugu versions released in September and hence have not been accounted for in the ₹185 Cr number in the chart above. With the incremental box office from these language versions, the film is set to emerge as the highest-grossing Malayalam film of all-time at the Indian box office, across all language versions put together.

The top 10 list of August 2026 is linguistically diverse, featuring three Hindi films, two Telugu films, two Malayalam films, two Tamil films, and one Kannada film.

Hanuman Ansh and Toxic also enter the list of top 10 films of the year so far, at no. 4 and no. 5 respectively.

Language Share

For language share calculation, language-wise box office of films releasing in multiple languages is assigned to the corresponding language. However, for International films (Hollywood and other global markets), the data for all languages is reported under the language head ‘International’.

Hindi cinema’s share continues to do well, maintaining its share around the 40% mark through the year. Shares of Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam languages remain steady vis-à-vis 2025, whereas International cinema holds strong at 15% share, compared to 10% in 2025, despite no major releases in August.

How to read the numbers in this report?

Different language industries follow different reporting conventions (Gross, Nett or Share). We have used Gross Box Office as the unified measure for this report. For films releasing in multiple languages, collections are added up across languages to arrive at the film’s Gross Box Office at an all-India level.

Some films may be running in theatres at the time of publishing this report every month. For these films, Gross Box Office is estimated based on the latest trends available. Hence, it is normal that some numbers may be updated in the following month’s report, once actual collections have been estimated.

Numbers for a film are assigned to the month of its release, even if the business is spread over two or more months. For example, Kalki 2898 AD released on June 27, 2024, and a sizeable component of the film’s business was registered in July 2024. However, in the analysis, Kalki 2898 AD’s entire box office has been credited to the month of June.

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