New Delhi: From big-fat weddings to brunch dates and designer wardrobes, Bollywood’s idea of urban romance looks a lot like Delhi-NCR. According to a new Ormax report, the region now punches well above its weight at the box office for urban rom-coms, emerging as the genre’s most culturally aligned and commercially rewarding territory.
Ormax analysts looked at films like Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023), Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023), Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024), Bad Newz (2024), Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari (2025), Bhool Chuk Maaf (2025), and Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri (2025) for their study.
Delhi accounted for 13 per cent of the overall box office performance for urban romances. The NCR contributed 19 per cent of the box office earnings for Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, 17.8 per cent of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani and 17 per cent of Bhool Chuk Maaf.
Brag culture, Punjabi music and multiplex ecosystem
The analysis defines urban rom-coms as among the “most culturally-coded” Hindi film genres. A large share of mainstream rom-coms are written within a North Indian urban milieu, either explicitly through setting or implicitly through language texture, social behaviour, and family dynamics.
As a result, urban rom-coms have a decisive advantage in Delhi-NCR.
With “big fat Indian weddings” seen as crucial to romances in Bollywood, Delhi NCR’s outward-facing lifestyles, where weddings, celebrations, fashion, visible consumption, and status signalling are prominent, become fodder for the genre.
Catering to Delhiites tastes, movies often include certain design styling, premium social spaces, lavish parties, and colourful celebratory environments.
“These cues are delivered through a tone that is light and emotionally positive. The opulence is not framed as class commentary. It is framed as entertainment. That makes the indulgence guilt-free and widely appealing. In a market where the wedding economy and lifestyle performance are culturally central, this genre becomes disproportionately ‘sticky’,” reads the report.
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Music and infrastructure
One unusual factor driving urban romances is the use of Punjabi music and “North pop”.
Delhi NCR has higher cultural closeness to Punjab, certain musical genres favouring Punjabi tonality, wedding beats, and celebratory songs are often effective and commercially successful.
The study find that this is coupled with a strong infrastructural advantage that Delhi NCR has.
Urban rom-coms are targeted at the multiplex-going crowds, and depend on casual social viewing rather than “spectacle-led” or mass movie turnout. Delhi’s exhibition ecosystem supports this perfectly.
Historically, India’s multiplex era effectively began in Delhi, with PVR opening the country’s first multiplex at Vasant Vihar in 1997. Since then, Delhi NCR has remained at the heart of that expansion, especially across affluent pockets of South Delhi, Gurugram and Noida.
As per the report, this high-density network of multiplexes increases access and convenience, improves mixed-group participation, and supports sustained weekday footfalls, strengthening the genre’s performance.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)