Bollywood Film Don
Dhara Lyford
This is a ranking of the highest-grossing Indian films, which includes films from various languages based on the conservative global box-office estimates as reported by reputable sources. There is no official tracking of domestic box-office figures within India, and Indian sites publishing data are frequently pressured to increase their domestic box-office estimates.[1]
Indian films have been screened in markets around the world since the early 20th century.[2] As of 2003, there are markets in over 90 countries where films from India are screened.[3] During the first decade of the 21st century, there was a steady rise in the ticket price, a tripling in the number of theatres and an increase in the number of prints of a film being released, which led to a large increase in the box office collections.[4]
As of 2014, Hindi cinema represents 43% of the net box office revenue in India, while Telugu and Tamil cinema represent 36%, and other industries constitute 21%.[5] In 2022, the Hindi film industry represented 33% of box office revenue, followed by the Telugu film industry, representing 20% and the Tamil film industry, representing 13%.[6] Other prominent languages in the Indian film industry include Kannada (8%) and Malayalam (6%), as well as Bengali, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bhojpuri. As of 2020, the combined revenue of all other language film industries has surpassed that of the Hindi film industry,[7] By 2021, Telugu cinema became the largest film industry of India in terms of box-office.[8][9][10]
Bengali cinema was the center of Indian cinema in the 1930s,[100] and accounted for a quarter of India's film output in the 1950s.[101] Cinema in South India accounted for nearly half of India's cinema halls in the 1940s.[2]
Bengali cinema, also known by the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, is the Bengali language film industry centered in the Tollygunge neighbourhood of Kolkata, West Bengal.
The Gujarati cinema produces films in Gujarati language and is primarily focused on the audience in Gujarat and Mumbai. The film industry is sometimes referred to as Dhollywood or Gollywood.
The Hindi language film industry, based in Mumbai, India, is frequently known as Bollywood.[129] Bollywood is one of the largest film producers in India and one of the largest centres of film production in the world.[130][131][132]
Malayalam cinema is a part of Indian cinema based in Kerala dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Malayalam language. It is sometimes known by the nickname "Mollywood" by certain media outlets.
The Marathi cinema industry produces films in the Marathi language and is based in the state of Maharashtra, India. India's first full-length film, Raja Harishchandra, was released in 1913 in Marathi.[177]
Odia cinema is primarily based in Odisha state producing movies mainly in the Odia language and a few movies in Sambalpuri language. The first Odia movie was Sita Vivaha which was released in 1936.
Telugu cinema, also known by its nickname "Tollywood," is a part of Indian cinema producing films in the Telugu-language, in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and is centered in the Hyderabad neighbourhood of Film Nagar.[213]
This romantic comedy fits the Bollywood template perfectly: it boasts flamboyant colours, songs and dance and, more importantly, a big fat Indian wedding. It tells of two characters, Bunny (Kapoor) and Naina (Padukone), and their group of friends, who we first meet as they leave university before the film flashes forward to the end of their twenties. What made the film doubly successful was that its two stars were former lovers in real life, lending them a special chemistry onscreen.
The big scene
The entire film is a series of highlights, including a boxing match, a glass mansion on fire and a climactic song with the three heroes and their girls dressed as characters including matadors, Cossacks and Chaplin.
This 1961 drama helped to set the template for what would become a Bollywood staple: stories of brothers on opposite sides of the law. Poverty-stricken villager Gunga (Kumar) scrapes together just enough money to fund an education for his younger brother Jumna (Khan). Jumna becomes a police officer, while Gunga joins a group of bandits after heroically defending his love against a powerful landowner. The brothers head towards an unavoidable face-off.
The big scene
When Insia tells her mother that they should flee their abusive home, leaving her young brother, Guddu, behind, and her mother says that Guddu will grow up to be just like his father if they abandon him.
Believe it or not, this massive action extravaganza and even bigger box-office hit is actually based on two real-life historical figures during the British rule in India. Director SS Rajamouli does give their lives a fully fictionalised and highly bombastic skew, imbuing the men with superhuman powers, fighting against (and, for good measure, with) a myriad of CG animals, as well as the evil Brits, and throws in some musical bangers and some top-notch dance choreography for good measure. The story revolves around tribal leader Komaram Bheem (NT Rama Rao Jr), the protector of a village and its children, and his bromance with A Rama Raju (Ram Charan), a policeman with a hidden identity. They work together to save Malli, the daughter of Loki (not the God of Mischief, but a tribal Indian mum), who is forcefully taken from a forest as a trophy for a colonial wife and her brutal husband, the governor of the district. Cue, well, total mayhem.
The big scene
Just when a colossal battle at the British colonial headquarters seems to have capped-out for explosions, fights and all-round chaos, someone turns up with a truck full of ferocious wild animals.
The first Hindi film to be nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film at the Oscars, this is a heartbreaking story of the complexities of rural farming in newly independent India and the exploitation of farmers by their feudal landlords. It follows the hardships faced by Radha (Nargis), a village mother of three sons who is abandoned by her husband and forced to toil the paddy fields to survive. The film entrenched the idea of the pure, self-sacrificing mother figure as synonymous with the notion of an idealised Indian (Hindu) nation.
The main entrance to the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center is now open. Van Pelt Library and the Fisher Fine Arts Library are currently open to Penn Card holders, Penn affiliates, and certain visitors. See our Service Alerts for details.
The Penn Libraries is home to one of the largest South Asian collections of any research library system in the United States. It follows that the libraries have actively collected films from the Subcontinent, with expansive coverage of Hindi cinema from its earliest years to present, an in-depth collection of Bollywood films, and other films from other regional and local-language film industries in India as well, representing the South Asian languages taught at Penn. In addition to films in the Van Pelt Video Collection, we collect monographs, e-books, and other materials about directors, figures in film and the motion picture industry in South Asia, from popular biographies and memoirs to scholarly monographs.
Either way, these must-watch movies are well worth the two-plus hours you'll probably have to block off in your day to watch them (Bollywood movies are famously long). Whether you're a fan of romance, tragedy, or comedy, there's definitely a film for you in this colorful world. Below, a list of Bollywood staples that you need to add to your watch list, from epic historical dramas to kickass action movies.
This epic drama focuses on an impoverished woman who is forced to care for her two sons alone while surviving threats from a nefarious money-lender when her husband leaves the family in disgrace. At the time it was made, Mother India was one of the most expensive Hindi movies ever made and is considered one of the most revered movies in Bollywood history.
This movie has it all. It's a romantic comedy. It's a drama. It's a heartfelt coming-of-age movie. Dil Chahta Hai, which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, tells the stories of three college friends as they try to navigate life and love after graduation.
You can't talk about Bollywood without mentioning Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. The 1995 classic is widely considered the gold standard for Bollywood rom-coms, featuring a cheeky Shah Rukh Khan and starlet Kajol (and her signature unibrow) as two young people who fall in love on a backpacking trip across Europe.
We STAN an inspiring, goose-bump-inducing female-led sports flick. This biopic, starring Parineeti Chopra, dives into the life of Saina Nehwal an Indian professional badminton player who is a former world number 1.
When shy Rani Mehra gets left at the altar on her wedding day, she shocks her conservative family and friends by turning what was supposed to be a romantic honeymoon for two into an ambitious solo trip.
The Lunchbox is one of those beautifully touching movies that tells a story you didn't know you desperately needed until you've seen it. In the movie, a woman named Ila tries to rekindle the spark in her marriage by preparing a special lunch for her (not-so-great) husband. The plan goes awry, however, and the lunch ends up in front of an antisocial widower instead. When her husband doesn't mention his special meal, Ila adds a note to the next lunch she prepares (which also goes to said widower) and an unlikely friendship is born.
"Lagaan" translates to "Agricultural Tax," but don't let that put you off. Only within the genius that is Bollywood could a movie about a town outraged by an unprecedented tax increase also be this genuinely engrossing and earn an Oscar nom. It doesn't hurt that the villagers end up playing a game of cricket against the British army officers for the right not to pay it.
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