‘India’s Top Gun’ is Netflix’s most ambitious local production

Netflix is turning one of India’s most politically defining chapters into its biggest production in the country yet, betting that a spectacle on the scale of Top Gun can strengthen its position in the world’s most populous market as a premium video platform.

The six-part Operation Safed Sagar depicts the Indian Air Force’s role in the 1999 Kargil War with Pakistan, a conflict that continues to shape relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Produced with “unprecedented” access to Indian Air Force bases, filming at altitudes of nearly 16,000 feet and relying on more than 1,200 local visual-effects artists to create 50 minutes of aerial combat sequences, Netflix India said the project was its largest operational undertaking and contributed more than US$24 million (S$30.7 million) to the Indian economy.

“Operation Safed Sagar is also a celebration of 10 years of Netflix in India and the cinematic scale of this series is a first from Netflix India to the world,” co-chief executive officer Ted Sarandos said in a statement. “It demonstrates that India has the talent, the technical expertise and the production capabilities to create entertainment that stands alongside the very best in the world.” 

Operation Safed Sagar follows a string of successful Indian productions inspired by modern history whose political resonance continues today.

Dhurandhar, a fictional spy thriller set amid real-world acts of terrorism, became both a domestic box-office hit and Netflix’s most-watched non-English film globally in the first half of 2026. Netflix’s IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack (2024), based on the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight by Pakistan-based militants, showed strong audience interest in dramas drawn from real geopolitical events.

Such a large-scale production of the new title required close cooperation with the Indian Air Force. Netflix said it became the first streaming production to film at active Air Force bases in India, gaining access to operational MiG-21 and Mirage 2000 fighter jets, while Air Force veterans gave advice on everything from cockpit procedures to military terminology and uniforms.

The title refers to Operation Safed Sagar, meaning “White Ocean”, the Indian Air Force codename for the 1999 air operation over the snowcapped Himalayas during the Kargil War. The series was released on Aug 7. 

The Ministry of Defence reviewed the series through its standard screening process before release, while the production team consulted Air Force veterans and a war widow to recreate the events as accurately as possible.

The Air Force’s involvement was intended to ensure authenticity rather than shape the story, said Tanya Bami, Netflix India’s director of series. “I think it’s a collaboration that went very deeply into a common shared vision of making a successful story.”

The project also reflects Netflix’s broader investment in India’s production industry.

The local production team worked with 15 Indian VFX studios in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai, while creating new training programmes for editors and visual-effects specialists. More than 850 local businesses, spanning construction and set-building to logistics and post-production, participated in the production, Netflix said. It declined to disclose the series’ budget.

Operation Safed Sagar arrives at a time when India’s film industry debates the boundaries of politically sensitive storytelling.

While patriotic military dramas and national-security stories have recently found commercial success, film-makers have warned that projects dealing with subjects such as the contested territory of Kashmir are facing heightened scrutiny. In July, the authorities blocked the release of Satluj, a film centred on a Sikh human-rights activist, prompting concerns about growing censorship in the industry. BLOOMBERG