JioHotstar’s headliner in August is an American show. Lanterns, DC’s Series from HBO, airs in India after its US airing.
The more subtle story is in the Malayalam section. Two crime thrillers arrived three weeks apart. Both are dubbed into four other languages. Between them they show more about what this platform is for than Lanterns does.
This is a release guide, not a review. So the recommendations given below are from published reviews and acknowledged to the reviewer. Figures have been checked on 23 August 2026.
The two the critics rated highest
Lanterns
It has eight weekly episodes which run through 5 October in India, in English with Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubbed versions.
Kyle Chandler plays Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart. In the series, two intergalactic cops are investigating a murder in small town USA. Garret Dillahunt and Poorna Jagannathan play supporting roles and Chris Mundy is the showrunner. Jagannathan being in it is a small bonus for anybody who followed her since Delhi Belly.
This lies in the Chapter One of the DCU, the run Warner started with Creature Commandos in December 2024. IndieWire gave it an A minus and headlined its review “powerfully bright”.
HBO airs it on Sunday nights at 9pm Eastern, which is early Monday morning here. Episode one was available for streaming in India on 17 August and every week another episode is released on Monday.
Uyir
Uyir premieres on the 4th of August 2026 in Malayalam on Jio Hotstar along with dubbed versions in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi.
The film has been directed by M Padmakumar and has been written by Shaji Maarad and Nikhil K Menon. This film features Roshan Mathew as SI Ajeeb. This film also stars Saiyami Kher, Shruthy Menon, Baiju Santhosh and Athulya Chandra. As mentioned by JioHotstar, this film is inspired by true events.
This film has received praise for its realistic portrayal of police work. The thing that people have mentioned the most is how this film has steered clear of the typical commercial cop drama. When checked on IMDb this week (week of 23 August), this film had a rating of 6.4 based on around 1600 ratings.
Coming on 25 August
The one you should definitely watch in the next two days is I, Nobody. In this film Prithviraj Sukumaran plays a government clerk named Rajeevan who gets drawn in to a bank robbery. Parvathy Thiruvothu plays his wife, and Hakkim Shajahan is alongside them.
This film has received a mixed response from critics and audiences. Like Uyir, it has been released in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi along with Malayalam.
What else arrived in August
Highlights on the most important releases, as of 23 August 2026.
| Date | Title | Language | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | Khatron Ke Khiladi, season 15 | Hindi | Reality |
| 2 Aug | Bhojpuri Bawaal | Bhojpuri | Reality |
| 4 Aug | Uyir | Malayalam and four dubs | Film, crime thriller |
| 15 Aug | 108 Base Hospital Uri | Hindi | Series, weekends on Colors and here |
| 17 Aug | Lanterns | English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu | Series, eight episodes weekly |
| 21 Aug | Welcome to the Jungle | Hindi | Film, previously in cinemas |
| 21 Aug | Conan O’Brien Must Go, season 3 | English | Travel comedy |
| 25 Aug | I, Nobody | Malayalam and four dubs | Film, heist thriller |
Two titles people keep expecting to find here are completely absent from JioHotstar.
- Toxic, the Yash film, is opening in theaters on 26 August 2026. There has not been any announcement on when and where it will stream.
- Irumudi, the Ravi Teja film, was released in theaters on 21 August 2026. The ott release and platform have not been disclosed yet.
The one that also airs on television
108 Base Hospital Uri was released on 15 August. It is a Hindi drama about army surgeons in a war zone that is a limited series produced by The Epic Company and co-produced by A-Game Entertainment. It stars Erica Fernandes and Gashmeer Mahajani with Hiten Tejwani, Smita Bansal and Nikkhil Khurana.
The part to understand is the format. It airs on Colors at 8PM every Saturday and Sunday, and streams here at the same time. It releases two episodes each week and is built to a television format rather than a streaming one.
The one everyone watched anyway
Welcome to the Jungle released on 21 August. It was released eight weeks after the movie premiered in theaters on 26 June.
The movie was directed by Ahmed Khan, written by Farhad Samji and Neeraj Vora. It stars Akshay Kumar alongside Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Johny Lever and Jackie Shroff. According to Bollywood Hungama, the worldwide collection of the movie was around Rs 186.84 crores.
The movie was rated 4.4 on IMDb by over 21,000 people when checked on 23 August. This is a very low rating for a movie that sold such a huge number of tickets. Different aggregators have different critic scores but none of them are good for this movie.
Plenty of people enjoyed this movie and such type of movies was never meant for the critics. And my personal opinion is that sometimes it makes sense to watch the comedy movies for the freshness of mind rather than believe blindly in the ratings. Who knows if it would become in the list of the movies that refresh your mind, or it could be a better option to watch with colleagues for a laugh.
Still worth watching from July
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, The Calamity began streaming on 25 July. It is the fourth and final part of the arc.
If you want something more light hearted, then Mollywood Times could be your best fit which was released on 3 July.
Working out whether it is worth paying for
JioHotstar is the most pocket friendly of the major three at Rs 149 per month (Super) with the flexibility of purchasing three months at a time. It is the only one of the three that sells a quarterly plan at all. JioHotstar also increased their Premium subscription by 47% in January. We broke down the actual annual costs of their plans on our subscription comparison.
For what the other two put out this month, August on Netflix and August on Prime Video cover the same ground.