Netflix’s new spy thriller pulls out every trick in the espionage playbook to survive a dangerous double life on the Top 10 in 53 countries

Most of the time, a Netflix original movie dealing in spycraft, infiltration, or international espionage tends to carry a huge budget and at least one A-list superstar, but Khufiya has shown that you don’t need to break the bank to get the job done.

Made on a budget that’s a fraction of what the streaming service spent on the likes of The Gray Man, Red Notice, and Heart of Stone, co-writer and director Vishal Bhardwaj’s adaptation of Amar Bhushan’s novel Escape to Nowhere – itself purporting to be inspired by true events – has become must-see viewing for subscribers around the world.

Per FlixPatrol, the intense and suspenseful movie has been hovering around Netflix’s global Top 10 since premiering last week, and it’s been moving up the ranks to secure a spot on the upper reaches of the charts in 53 countries around the world. The Hindi-language exclusive may run for a lengthy 157 minutes, but that evidently hasn’t put anybody off.

Local superstar Tabu heads up the cast as Krishna Mehra, an operative for the agency known as R&AW, where she’s tasked to track down a mole within the organization that’s been selling secrets to the highest bidder, all while struggling to maintain her ever-loosening grip on the boundaries between her personal and professional lives.

Of course, there’s plenty of murder and subterfuge along the way as you’d expect from the genre, with Netflix discovering once again that fast-paced tales of shady government goings-on are about as bulletproof a form of storytelling as their is.