Between them all, they’re proof that Bollywood is both more than, and the epitome of, song-and-dance cinema. Our top 100 is a bulging, wildly varied collection of our favourites: there are rom-coms like Jab We Met, canonical ‘curry westerns’ like Sholay, eternal romantic touchstones like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, modern classics like Swades and Barfi!, and art-house staples like Ardh Satya and Ankur. Which brings us to our next dilemma, because choosing a definitive ‘best-of’ list is an impossible task.
It’s an imperfect framework to examine a complex, multilingual film culture, but it’s a great way to introduce a tonne of worthy movies to dive into. But rightly or wrongly, the term has come to represent Indian cinema more broadly – taking in everything from the Telugu-language films of Hyderabad to the very un-Bollywood work of Kolkata great Satyajit Ray. This, we know, will upset purists who’ll point out – correctly – that it should only be used to refer to the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai. For the purposes of this list we’re using it as a catch-all for the full multitude of Indian film industries. Not as a source of magnificently uplifting movies with great songs and flamboyant costumes – that’s a given – but as a term.
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