This is a list of films produced by Bollywood film industry of Mumbai ordered by year and decade of release. Although 'Bollywood' films are generally listed under the Hindi language, most are in Hindi with partial Urdu and Punjabi and occasionally other languages. Hindi films can achieve national distribution across at least 22 of India’s 29 states.[1]
[2]
[2]
Speakers of Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi understand the mixed language usage of Bollywood thus extending the viewership to people all over the Indian subcontinent (throughout India and its neighboring countries). Here are some examples - partly English: Om Shanti Om, Dhoom 2 and No Entry; partly Urdu: Jodhaa Akbar, Fanaa, Saawariya and Kurbaan; partly Punjabi: Singh Is Kinng, Jab We Met, Patiala House, and Thande Koyle. The film Veer Zaara is an equal mix of Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.
Alam Ara (1931), the first Indian sound film
2020s[edit]
2010s[edit]
2000s[edit]
1990s[edit]
1980s[edit]
1970s[edit]
1960s[edit]
1950s[edit]
1940s[edit]
1930s[edit]
1920s[edit]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'India's 'Baahubali' Blasts Past 500 Crore / $78 Million Worldwide'.
- ^'Bollywood News and Gossip: PinkVilla.Com'.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lists_of_Bollywood_films&oldid=899014296'
1-50 of 32,840 titles.|Next »
1.The Godfather(1972)
R|175 min|Crime, Drama
Rate this
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director:Francis Ford Coppola| Stars:Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes:1,437,381|Gross:$134.97M
2.Catch-22(1970)
R|122 min|Comedy, Drama, War
Rate this
A man is trying desperately to be certified insane during World War II, so he can stop flying missions.
Director:Mike Nichols| Stars:Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Art Garfunkel
Votes:19,837|Gross:$24.91M
3.Alien(1979)
R|117 min|Horror, Sci-Fi
Rate this
After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, its landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
Director:Ridley Scott| Stars:Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright
Votes:712,256|Gross:$78.90M
4.Apocalypse Now(1979)
R|147 min|Drama, War
Rate this
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Director:Francis Ford Coppola| Stars:Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest
Votes:547,071|Gross:$83.47M
5.Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope(1977)
PG|121 min|Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Rate this
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.
Director:George Lucas| Stars:Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness
Votes:1,119,129|Gross:$322.74M
6.A Clockwork Orange(1971)
R|136 min|Crime, Drama, Sci-Fi
Rate this
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director:Stanley Kubrick| Stars:Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Download anime one piece episode. Feb 12, 2018 - Download Anime Batch Subtitle Indonesia Terlengkap ada lebih dari 1.800 judul anime dari tahun 1983-2018 yang bisa di dwonload gratis! Oct 28, 2018 - one piece sub indo, sub english, mugiwara no luffy, luffy anime, download anime, pirate king, 720p, 480p, 360p, kenhirou. One Punch Man BD Batch English Sub One Punch Man Batch Eng Sub One Punch Man BD Info. May 31, 2018 - Anime One Piece Full Episode [BATCH] Sub Indo, One Piece, Anime. Download One Piece Episode 51-100 [BATCH] Subtitle Indonesia. May 3, 2018 - Download Anime One Piece Subtitle Indonesia Batch Episode 1-708 60mb 480p pahe hemat mp4 no 90mb 720p hade One Piece Episode.
Votes:687,392
7.Taxi Driver(1976)
R|114 min|Crime, Drama
Rate this
A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action by attempting to liberate a presidential campaign worker and an underage prostitute.
Director:Martin Scorsese| Stars:Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks
Votes:635,036|Gross:$28.26M
8.Jaws(1975)
PG|124 min|Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Rate this
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director:Steven Spielberg| Stars:Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes:509,456|Gross:$260.00M
9.Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory(1971)
G|100 min|Family, Fantasy, Musical
Rate this
A poor but hopeful boy seeks one of the five coveted golden tickets that will send him on a tour of Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory.
Director:Mel Stuart| Stars:Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Roy Kinnear
Votes:160,842|Gross:$4.00M
10.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest(1975)
R|133 min|Drama
Rate this
A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.
Director:Milos Forman| Stars:Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Will Sampson, Michael Berryman
Votes:829,511|Gross:$112.00M
11.Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom(1975)
Not Rated|117 min|Drama, Horror, War
Rate this
In World War II Italy, four fascist libertines round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to one hundred and twenty days of physical, mental and sexual torture.
Director:Pier Paolo Pasolini| Stars:Paolo Bonacelli, Laura Betti, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle
Votes:48,101
12.The Godfather: Part II(1974)
R|202 min|Crime, Drama
Rate this
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.
Director:Francis Ford Coppola| Stars:Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
Votes:998,627|Gross:$57.30M
13.Grease(1978)
PG-13|110 min|Musical, Romance
Rate this
Good girl Sandy and greaser Danny fell in love over the summer. When they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance?
Director:Randal Kleiser| Stars:John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway
Votes:210,149|Gross:$188.76M
14.American Graffiti(1973)
PG|110 min|Comedy, Drama
Rate this
A couple of high school grads spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.
Director:George Lucas| Stars:Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith
Votes:74,560|Gross:$115.00M
15.Badlands(1973)
PG|94 min|Crime, Drama
Rate this
An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.
Director:Terrence Malick| Stars:Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri
Votes:58,348
16.National Lampoon's Animal House(1978)
R|109 min|Comedy
Rate this
At a 1962 college, Dean Vernon Wormer is determined to expel the entire Delta Tau Chi Fraternity, but those troublemakers have other plans for him.
Director:John Landis| Stars:John Belushi, Karen Allen, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst
Votes:104,949|Gross:$0.20M
17.The Exorcist(1973)
R|122 min|Horror
Rate this
When a teenage girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two priests to save her daughter.
Director:William Friedkin| Stars:Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb
Votes:333,037|Gross:$232.91M
18.Suspiria(1977)
R|92 min|Horror
Rate this
An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
Director:Dario Argento| Stars:Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé
Votes:67,949
19.Blazing Saddles(1974)
R|93 min|Comedy, Western
Rate this
In order to ruin a western town, a corrupt politician appoints a black Sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.
Director:Mel Brooks| Stars:Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman
Votes:115,713|Gross:$119.50M
20.Deliverance(1972)
Approved|109 min|Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Rate this
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.
Director:John Boorman| Stars:Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox
Votes:91,131
21.Young Frankenstein(1974)
PG|106 min|Comedy
Rate this
An American grandson of the infamous scientist, struggling to prove that his grandfather was not as insane as people believe, is invited to Transylvania, where he discovers the process that reanimates a dead body.
Director:Mel Brooks| Stars:Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle
Votes:133,082|Gross:$86.30M
22.Escape to Athena(1979)
PG|125 min|Action, Adventure, Comedy
Rate this
A World War II adventure, involving a group of Allied P.O.W.s, Nazis, black market priceless art treasures, Greek resistance, a Greek monastery, and a secret German rocket base.
Director:George P. Cosmatos| Stars:Roger Moore, Telly Savalas, David Niven, Stefanie Powers
Votes:3,876
23.Caligula(1979)
Unrated|156 min|Drama, History
Rate this
Details the graphic and shocking, yet undeniably tragic story of Rome's most infamous Caesar, Gaius Germanicus Caligula.
Directors:Tinto Brass, Bob Guccione, Giancarlo Lui| Stars:Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, Helen Mirren, Teresa Ann Savoy
Votes:31,236|Gross:$23.44M
24.The Deer Hunter(1978)
R|183 min|Drama, War
Rate this
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the U.S. Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of people in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania.
Director:Michael Cimino| Stars:Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage
Hindi Movies 1980 To 1990
Votes:283,874|Gross:$48.98M
25.Death Wish(1974)
R|93 min|Action, Crime, Drama
Rate this
A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be muggers on the mean streets after dark.
Director:Michael Winner| Stars:Charles Bronson, Hope Lange, Vincent Gardenia, Steven Keats
Votes:32,047|Gross:$22.00M
26.Rocky(1976)
PG|120 min|Drama, Sport
Rate this
A small-time boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight a heavy-weight champion in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.
Director:John G. Avildsen| Stars:Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers
Votes:471,726|Gross:$117.24M
27.Monty Python and the Holy Grail(1975)
PG|91 min|Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Rate this
King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table embark on a surreal, low-budget search for the Holy Grail, encountering many, very silly obstacles.
Directors:Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones| Stars:Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam
Votes:460,395|Gross:$1.23M
28.The Sting(1973)
PG|129 min|Comedy, Crime, Drama
Rate this
Two grifters team up to pull off the ultimate con.
Director:George Roy Hill| Stars:Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning
Votes:219,183|Gross:$159.60M
29.Westworld(1973)
PG|88 min|Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rate this
A robot malfunction creates havoc and terror for unsuspecting vacationers at a futuristic, adult-themed amusement park.
Director:Michael Crichton| Stars:Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Norman Bartold
Votes:46,703
30.Carrie(1976)
R|98 min|Horror
Rate this
Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.
Director:Brian De Palma| Stars:Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta
Votes:151,386|Gross:$33.80M
31.The Rocky Horror Picture Show(1975)
R|100 min|Comedy, Musical
Rate this
A newly engaged couple have a breakdown in an isolated area and must pay a call to the bizarre residence of Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
Director:Jim Sharman| Stars:Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien
Votes:121,705|Gross:$139.88M
32.Mad Max(1979)
R|88 min|Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Rate this
In a self-destructing world, a vengeful Australian policeman sets out to stop a violent motorcycle gang.
Director:George Miller| Stars:Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley
Votes:176,704|Gross:$8.75M
33.Live and Let Die(1973)
PG|121 min|Action, Adventure, Thriller
Rate this
007 is sent to stop a diabolically brilliant heroin magnate armed with a complex organization and a reliable psychic tarot card reader.
Director:Guy Hamilton| Stars:Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Clifton James
Votes:87,650|Gross:$35.38M
34.Stalker(1979)
Not Rated|162 min|Drama, Sci-Fi
Rate this
A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
Director:Andrei Tarkovsky| Stars:Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko
Votes:97,647|Gross:$0.23M
35.The Warriors(1979)
R|92 min|Action, Crime, Thriller
Rate this
In the near future, a charismatic leader summons the street gangs of New York City in a bid to take it over. When he is killed, The Warriors are falsely blamed and now must fight their way home while every other gang is hunting them down.
Director:Walter Hill| Stars:Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright, Brian Tyler
Votes:85,444|Gross:$22.49M
36.Logan's Run(1976)
PG|119 min|Action, Sci-Fi
Rate this
An idyllic science fiction future has one major drawback: life must end at the age of thirty.
Director:Michael Anderson| Stars:Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne
Votes:47,535|Gross:$25.00M
37.Barry Lyndon(1975)
PG|185 min|Adventure, Drama, History
Rate this
An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
Director:Stanley Kubrick| Stars:Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger
Votes:132,223
38.All That Jazz(1979)
R|123 min|Comedy, Drama, Music
Rate this
Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid life of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.
Director:Bob Fosse| Stars:Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking
Votes:24,149|Gross:$37.82M
39.Halloween(1978)
R|91 min|Horror, Thriller
Rate this
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
Director:John Carpenter| Stars:Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes
Votes:205,022|Gross:$47.00M
40.Days of Heaven(1978)
PG|94 min|Drama, Romance
Rate this
A hot-tempered farm laborer convinces the woman he loves to marry their rich but dying boss so that they can have a claim to his fortune.
Director:Terrence Malick| Stars:Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz
Votes:45,678
41.Superman(1978)
PG|143 min|Action, Adventure, Drama
Rate this
An alien orphan is sent from his dying planet to Earth, where he grows up to become his adoptive home's first and greatest superhero.
Director:Richard Donner| Stars:Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando
Votes:147,784|Gross:$134.22M
42.Enter the Dragon(1973)
R|102 min|Action, Crime, Drama
Rate this
A martial artist agrees to spy on a reclusive crime lord using his invitation to a tournament there as cover.
Director:Robert Clouse| Stars:Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly, Ahna Capri
Votes:88,592|Gross:$25.00M
43.Chinatown(1974)
R|130 min|Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Rate this
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director:Roman Polanski| Stars:Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes:265,544|Gross:$29.20M
44.Papillon(1973)
R|151 min|Biography, Crime, Drama
Rate this
A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
Director:Franklin J. Schaffner| Stars:Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, Don Gordon
Votes:112,707|Gross:$53.27M
45.Lenny(1974)
R|111 min|Biography, Drama
Rate this
The story of acerbic 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, whose groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the Establishment as too obscene for the public.
Director:Bob Fosse| Stars:Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perrine, Jan Miner, Stanley Beck
Votes:13,065
46.Close Encounters of the Third Kind(1977)
PG|138 min|Drama, Sci-Fi
Rate this
Roy Neary, an electric lineman, watches how his quiet and ordinary daily life turns upside down after a close encounter with a UFO.
Director:Steven Spielberg| Stars:Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
Votes:167,060|Gross:$132.09M
47.The Texas Chain Saw Massacre(1974)
R|83 min|Horror
Rate this
Two siblings and three of their friends en route to visit their grandfather's grave in Texas end up falling victim to a family of cannibalistic psychopaths.
Director:Tobe Hooper| Stars:Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain
Votes:120,406|Gross:$30.86M
48.Diamonds Are Forever(1971)
GP|120 min|Action, Adventure, Thriller
Rate this
A diamond smuggling investigation leads James Bond to Las Vegas, where he uncovers an evil plot involving a rich business tycoon.
Director:Guy Hamilton| Stars:Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood
Votes:86,643|Gross:$43.82M
49.The Man with the Golden Gun(1974)
Hindi Movies 1950 1970 Movies
PG|125 min|Action, Adventure, Thriller
Rate this
James Bond is led to believe that he is targeted by the world's most expensive assassin while he attempts to recover sensitive solar cell technology that is being sold to the highest bidder.
Director:Guy Hamilton| Stars:Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams
Votes:86,577|Gross:$20.97M
50.Three Days of the Condor(1975)
R|117 min|Mystery, Thriller
Rate this
A bookish CIA researcher finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.
Director:Sydney Pollack| Stars:Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow
Votes:42,521|Gross:$41.51M
1-50 of 32,840 titles.|Next »
Prem Sanyas/The Light of Asia (Franz Osten, 1925)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
Among the few silent films that remain are three Indo-German co-productions that predate the arrival of the German technicians and directors who worked in the Bombay Talkies studio in the 1930s. The Light of Asia was shot in India but edited and processed in Germany and intertitled in English. The script was adapted from Sir Edwin Arnold's epic poem The Light of Asia (1861) while the opening credits proclaim it was 'Shown by Royal Command at Windsor Castle, April 27 1926' and that it benefited greatly from help offered by the Maharaja of Jaipur. The film shows westerners touring India (Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi) who come to Bodh Gaya, the site of Gautam Buddha's Enlightenment. An old man tells the story of the life of the Buddha, from his royal childhood to his death, allowing the film-makers to juxtapose Orientalist fantasies alongside fascinating, if anachronistic, images of Rajasthan in the 20s.
Sant Tukaram (Sheikh Fattelal and Vishnupant Govind Damle, 1936, Marathi)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
The biopic of Sant Tukaram (1568-1650), a devotee of Vishnu as Vitthal, whose major shrine is in Pandharpur in Maharashtra, is an extraordinary film. Vishnupant Pagnis, a theatre actor who usually played female roles, brings an otherworldly quality to the role, which includes singing Tuka's well-known religious songs. Both plot and film move through several worlds – of earthly power, as the nationalist hero Chatrapati Shivaji visits the saint after hearing about his devotion; of religion, where Tuka's simple devotion to God is contrasted with a venal Brahmin who visits a courtesan; and of domesticity where his down-to-earth wife, never happier than when washing her beloved buffalo, which represents the family's wealth, cannot understand her husband, even though she loves him.
Andaz (Mehboob Khan, 1949)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
Three of the great stars of Hindi film act in a love triangle, as Neeta (Nargis) appears to be in love with Dilip (Dilip Kumar), but is engaged to Rajan (Raj Kapoor). Nargis and Kapoor comprised one of the most popular couples in the 1950s but in this film she is shown to be in love with Dilip and struggling with her sense of duty. Her westernised lifestyle and dress are in part to blame and the film ends with her in prison after shooting Dilip dead, declaring: 'Foreign flowers cannot flourish on Indian soil.' Andaz has songs by the 'Nightingale of India', Lata Mangeshkar, who has sung for heroines for more than seven decades, and whose work in the other major films of this year, Kamal Amrohi's Mahal and Raj Kapoor's Barsaat, are enduring favourites.
Pyaasa (Guru Dutt, 1957)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
The 1950s is the hardest decade from which to pick a film – featuring the classics of Raj Kapoor (Awara, Shree 420), Bimal Roy (Madhumati) and Mehboob Khan (Aan, Mother India). Guru Dutt's melodramatic Pyaasa or 'The desirous one' is extraordinary, a film that draws on all the features of a mainstream movie to achieve a high aesthetic, from the beautiful photography of the Christ-like tormented poet, the beauty of the streetgirl (Waheeda Rehman) and the wonderful music with some of the great Sahir Ludhianvi's best lyrics. One of the most celebrated songs asks who can be proud of India (Jinhe naaz hai) while another voices the bitterness of the artist confronted with the shallowness of the money-seeking world (Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai?). This was also the decade that India's greatest film-maker, Satyajit Ray, made his first film, Pather Panchali (1955).
Mughal-e Azam (K Asif, 1960)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
The story of Akbar, the Great Mughal (reign 1556-1605) has been told countless times in India and several film versions were made. This one concerns his son Salim (later Emperor Jahangir), played by Dilip Kumar, who falls in love with a slave girl, Anarkali. In order to win her hand, Salim leads a military campaign against his father and is condemned to death, but it is Anarkali who pays the price and is buried alive – though in this version she escapes. While most of the film is shot in black-and-white, the songs are in colour, including the spectacular dance in the hall of mirrors. The narration is by 'India' – an attempt to show that, even after the Partition of 1947, Hindus and Muslims can live together. The film, which took more than 10 years to complete, is redolent of the 50s, the decade that saw popular romances filmed in colour in tourist destinations, with stars singing and dancing to some of the best-loved melodies of Indian film music.
Sholay (Ramesh Sippy, 1975)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
In the 70s the box office was dominated by Amitabh Bachchan as the Angry Young Man, a character written by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar – the most popular of these films remains Sholay. The story has echoes of spaghetti westerns, and Bachchan's Jai will remind you of a classic Clint Eastwood character. The film's surprise was that the villain, Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan), almost stole the show with his memorable dialogue, including 'Kitne aadmi the?' ('How many men were there?') before committing another stylishly heinous atrocity (it is a very violent film). Sholay showed that you can take any genre and make it into a Hindi film, with all the twists. Bachchan also acted in romantic films, such as Kabhi Kabhie, and in comedies such as the hilarious caper Amar, Akbar, Antony, a gem of Hindi films' 'lost and found' genre where families are separated only to enjoy chance reunions.
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (Kundan Shah, 1983)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
The 80s are thought of as Hindi cinema's lost decade, but much of the best 'parallel' or 'middle' cinema was made in these years. Such films were more realistic than mainstream Hindi cinema, and appealed to the middle classes, given their sensitive heroes and lively heroines, and the absence of big song-and-dance numbers (although usually they include music). Shyam Benegal has been making such films from the 1970s and is one of parallel cinema's greatest exponents. Actors Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Amol Palekar all emerged from parallel cinema, though mainstream stars also appeared, notably Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra. JBDY is a slapstick, satirical comedy. Some of it has dated, but not all. The interruption of the staging of a play of the Mahabharata remains one of the classic scenes of Hindi cinema.
Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra, 1995)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
The Indian economy was deregulated in 1991 and, after a hesitant start, society changed in ways that were previously unimaginable. The internet, satellite TV and the mobile phone helped to usher in a new youth culture that linked the metropolitan cities with each other and with overseas cities with Indian populations, notably New York and London. DDLJ presents a traditional romance in which the rich boy and poorer girl are Londoners who fall in love on an InterRail holiday in Europe. The girl has to marry an Indian man chosen by her traditional father. The British Asian hero then convinces the girl's family that he is the right husband because he loves her and understands Indian traditions. DDLJ confirmed Shah Rukh Khan as a superstar and its precocious young director, Aditya Chopra, as heir to his father, the late Yash Chopra, one of the towering figures of the Hindi film industry in the past 60 years.
Hindi Songs 1950 To 1970
Lage Raho Munnabhai (Rajkumar Hirani, 2006)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
Lovable rogue Munnabhai is one of the great characters of Hindi cinema, a thug who really has a heart of gold. In his first film, Munnabhai MBBS, Munna fails to live up to his parents' dreams of becoming a doctor, so has to force his way into medical school, where his 'magic hugs' give patients the happiness that medicine can not provide. In his second film, he fakes being a Gandhi scholar in order to win over his beloved. His unorthodox appropriation of the Mahatma's tactics leads to wrongs being put right as well as his realisation that Gandhi is his inner conscience. Sanjay Dutt (son of Nargis, who played the lead role in Mother India) plays Munnabhai, and the final film in the trilogy remains on hold while he serves a prison sentence in Mumbai for arms offences.
Gangs of Wasseypur I and II (Anurag Kashyap, 2012)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
Anurag Kashyap cast himself as an enfant terrible, subverting a complacent, cliched Bollywood, yet its all-encompassing, unavoidable embrace meant he and his offbeat cinema inevitably became part of it. Kashyap now enjoys a godfather role helping other aspirants. After some uneven films, and the excellent Black Friday about the Mumbai blasts of 1993, Kashyap proved his mettle with this five-and-a-half hour film, split in two for release. The exemplary casting of Manoj Bajpai, Tigmanshu Dhulia (himself a director) and the new superstar of indie cinema, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, works well alongside a strong screenplay and the sharp dialogue of a Muslim gangster epic set amid the coalmines of Bihar, India's poorest state. Its depictions of relationships between men and women; their dreams of Bollywood; as well as its flashes of comedy and stark cruelty make this a remarkable film.
•Rachel Dwyer is professor of Indian cultures and cinema at Soas, University of London. Her Bollywood's India will be published by Reaktion early next year