25 must see Bollywood films

1. SHOLAY (1975) :
After his family is murdered by a notorious and ruthless bandit, a former police officer enlists the services of two outlaws to capture him.

2. PYAASA (1957) :
A talented but indigent poet Vijay struggles for love and recognition in this selfish world.

3. ANAND (1971) :
The classic story of a terminally ill man who wishes to live life to the full before the inevitable occurs, as told by his best friend.

4. LAGAAN (2001) :
The people of a small village in Victorian India stake their future on a game of cricket against their ruthless British rulers.

5. DEEWAR(1975) :
As a youth, Vijay struggles as a dockworker. Eventually, he becomes a leading figure of the underworld, while younger brother, Ravi, is an educated, upright policeman. But in the end, it all comes down to, who does mother love more?

6. RANG DE BASANTI (2006) :
A young woman from England comes to India to make a documentary about her grandfather's diary which was written in the 1920s about the Indian Independence with five young men.

7. MOTHER INDIA (1957) :
In this melodrama, a poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

8. AWAARA (1951) :
Story of Raju who lives as a derelict as a result of being estranged from his bitter father, a district judge, who threw Raju's mother out of the house years ago.

9. GUIDE (1965) :
A Guide falls in love with a married woman, then is jailed for forgery and stealing money from her.

10. DEVDAS (1955) :
Childhood sweethearts, Devdas and Paro struggles with thier family intervening their love.

11. HUM AAKE HAIN KAUN...! (1994) :
Rajesh's younger brother, Prem meets his wife's younger sister, Nisha, and after a few meetings both fall in love with each other.

12. ANDAAZ APNA APNA (1994) :
Two conmen competing for the hand of a heiress get drawn into love - and into trying to save her from an evil criminal.

13. CHUPKE CHUPKE (1975) :
A newly wedded husband plays a practical joke on his wife's family with full support from his wife and friends.

14. 3 IDIOTS (2009) :
Two friends are searching for their long lost companion. They revisit their college days and recall the memories of their friend who inspired them to think differently, even as the rest of the world called them "idiots".

15. BOBBY (1973) :
Raja (Rich) is the 18-year-old  meets Bobby Poor), the 16-year-old. They fall head over heels for each other, but they'll need everything they have to defend their love as their families won't accept them marrying each other...
16. PAKEEZAH (1972) :
The story of a prostitute, with a pure heart (PAKEEZAH), and grand dreams...

17. PADOSAN (1968) :
A simple man from a village falls in love with his new neighbor. He enlists the help of his musical-theater friends to woo the lovely girl-next-door away from her music teacher.

18. MUGHAL-E-AZAM (1960) :
Inspired by true events, a 16th century prince falls in love with a court dancer and battles with his emperor father.

19. SHAHIB BIBI AUR GHULAM (1962) :
A lowly servant, Bhootnath gets close to the wife of his employer, and narrates her story through his eyes and perspective.

20. GOL MAAL (1979) :
Ramprasad is a recent college graduate who modifies his pesonality to job with a finicky man, Bhavani Shankar, who believes that a man without a mustache is a man without a character. 

21. BLACK (2005) :
The cathartic tale of a deaf, mute and blind girl, and her teacher who brings a ray of light into her world of BLACK.

22. DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE (1995) :
A young man and woman - both of Indian descent but born and raised in Britain - fall in love during a trip to Switzerland. However, the girl's traditional father takes her back to India to fulfill a betrothal promise.

23. KATI PATANG (1970) :
A runaway bride promises her dying widowed friend that she will assume her identity and look after her infant child.

24. TAARE ZAMEEN PAR (2007) :
An eight year old boy is thought to be lazy and a troublemaker, until the new art teacher has the patience and compassion to discover the real problem behind his struggles in school.

25. MUNNA BHAI MBBS (2003), LAGE RAHO MUNNA BHAI (2006) :
Munna Bhai series is combination of full entertainment. A gangster sets out to fulfill his father's dream of becoming a doctor. In second film, Munnabhai meets Mahatma Gandhi.

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Bollywood modern Cinema - part 4

In the early 2010s, established actors like Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar became known for making big-budget masala entertainers like Dabangg and Rowdy Rathoreopposite younger actresses like Sonakshi Sinha. These films were often not critically acclaimed, but were often major commercial successes. While most stars from the 2000s continued their successful careers into the next decade, the 2010s also saw the rise of a new crop of actors like Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan, Ranveer Singh, and Arjun Kapoor, as well as actresses like Vidya Balan, Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma, and Parineeti Chopra. These Stars gave many successful films like Barfi!, The Dirty Picture, Ishaqzaade, Delhi Belly etc.

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Bollywood modern Cinema - part 3

The 2000s saw a growth in Bollywood's popularity in the world. This led the nation's filmmaking to new heights in terms of quality, cinematography and innovative story lines as well as technical advances in areas such as special effects, animation, and so on. Some of the largest production houses, among them Yash Raj Films andDharma Productions were the producers of new modern films. Some popular films of the decade were Koi... Mil Gaya (2003), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Veer-Zaara(2004), Dhoom (2004), Hum Tum (2004), Dhoom 2 (2006), Krrish (2006), and Jab We Met (2007). These films starred established actors. However, the mid-2000s also saw the rise of a new generation of popular actors like Hrithik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan, Shahid Kapoor, and Abhishek Bachchan, as well as a new generation of popular actresses like Rani Mukerji, Preity Zinta, Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor, and Priyanka Chopra.

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Bollywood modern Cinema - part 2

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the pendulum swung back toward family-centric romantic musicals with the success of such films as Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak(1988), Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Dil (1990), Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), making stars out of a new generation of actors (such as Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan) and actresses (such as Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla and Kajol). In that point of time, action and comedy films were also successful, with actors like Govinda and actresses such as Raveena Tandon and Karisma Kapoor appearing in popular comedy films, and stunt actor Akshay Kumar gaining popularity for performing dangerous stunts in action films in his well known Khiladi (film series) and other action films. Furthermore, this decade marked the entry of new performers in arthouse and independent films, some of which succeeded commercially, the most influential example being Satya (1998), directed by Ram Gopal Varma and written by Anurag Kashyap. The critical and commercial success of Satya led to the emergence of a distinct genre known as Mumbai noir, urban films reflecting social problems in the city of Mumbai. This led to a resurgence of Parallel Cinema by the end of the decade. These films often featured actors like Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai, Manisha Koirala, Tabu and Urmila Matondkar, whose performances were usually critically acclaimed.

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Bollywood modern Cinema - part 1

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, romance movies and action films starred actors like Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar and Shashi Kapoor and actresses like Sharmila Tagore, Mumtaz andAsha Parekh. In the mid-1970s, romantic confections made way for gritty, violent films about gangsters (see Indian mafia) and bandits. Amitabh Bachchan, the star known for his "angry young man" roles, rode the crest of this trend with actors like Mithun Chakraborty, Anil Kapoor and Sunny Deol, which lasted into the early 1990s. Actresses from this era included Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan and Rekha.

Some Hindi filmmakers such as Shyam Benegal continued to produce realistic Parallel Cinema throughout the 1970s, alongside Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani and Vijaya Mehta. However, the 'art film' bent of the Film Finance Corporation came under criticism during a Committee on Public Undertakings investigation in 1976, which accused the body of not doing enough to encourage commercial cinema. The 1970s thus saw the rise of commercial cinema in the form of enduring films such as Sholay (1975), which solidified Amitabh Bachchan's position as a lead actor. The devotional classic Jai Santoshi Ma was also released in 1975. Another important film from 1975 was Deewar, directed by Yash Chopra and written by Salim-Javed. A crime film pitting "a policeman against his brother, a gang leader based on real-life smuggler Haji Mastan", portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan, it was described as being "absolutely key to Indian cinema" by Danny Boyle. The most internationally acclaimed Hindi film of the 1980s was Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! (1988), which won the Camera d'Or at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

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Golden Age of Bollywood - International fame

Since the social realist film Neecha Nagar won the Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film Festival, Hindi films were frequently in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, with some of them winning major prizes at the festival. Guru Dutt, while overlooked in his own lifetime, had belatedly generated international recognition much later in the 1980s. Dutt is now regarded as one of the greatest Asian filmmakers of all time, alongside the more famous Indian Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll of greatest filmmakers ranked Dutt at No. 73 on the list. Some of his films are now included among the greatest films of all time, with Pyaasa (1957) being featured in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list, and with both Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) tied at #160 in the 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll of all-time greatest films. Several other Hindi films from this era were also ranked in the Sight & Sound poll, including Raj Kapoor's Awaara(1951), Vijay Bhatt's Baiju Bawra (1952), Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957) and K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (1960) all tied at #346 on the list.

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Golden Age of Bollywood - Evolution

Following India's independence, the period from the late 1940s to the 1960s is regarded by film historians as the "Golden Age" of Hindi cinema. Some of the most critically acclaimed Hindi films of all time were produced during this period. Examples include the Guru Dutt films Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) and the Raj Kapoor films Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955). These films expressed social themes mainly dealing with working-class urban life in India; Awaara presented the city as both a nightmare and a dream, while Pyaasa critiqued the unreality of city life. Some of the most famous epic films of Hindi cinema were also produced at the time, including Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (1960). Madhumati (1958), directed by Bimal Roy and written by Ritwik Ghatak, popularised the theme of reincarnation in Western popular culture.Other acclaimed mainstream Hindi filmmakers at the time included Kamal Amrohi and Vijay Bhatt. Successful actors at the time included Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt, while successful actresses included Nargis, Vyjayanthimala, Meena Kumari, Nutan, Madhubala, Waheeda Rehman and Mala Sinha.

While commercial Hindi cinema was thriving, the 1950s also saw the emergence of a new Parallel Cinema movement. Though the movement was mainly led by Bengali cinema, it also began gaining prominence in Hindi cinema. Early examples of Hindi films in this movement include Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar (1946) and Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin (1953). Their critical acclaim, as well as the latter's commercial success, paved the way for Indian neorealism and the Indian New Wave. Some of the internationally acclaimed Hindi filmmakers involved in the movement included Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal and Vijaya Mehta.

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History of Bollywood

Raja Harishchandra (1913), by Dadasaheb Phalke, is known as the first silent feature film made in India. By the 1930s, the industry was producing over 200 films per annum.

 The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara (1931), was a major commercial success. There was clearly a huge market for talkies and musicals; Bollywood and all the regional film industries quickly switched to sound filming.

The 1930s and 1940s were tumultuous times: India was buffeted by the Great Depression, World War II, the Indian independence movement, and the violence of thePartition. Most Bollywood films were unabashedly escapist, but there were also a number of filmmakers who tackled tough social issues, or used the struggle for Indian independence as a backdrop for their plots.

In 1937, Ardeshir Irani, of Alam Ara fame, made the first colour film in Hindi, Kisan Kanya. The next year, he made another colour film, a version of Mother India. However, colour did not become a popular feature until the late 1950s. At this time, lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were the staple fare at the cinema.

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Bollywood as by wikipedia

Bollywood is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (Bombay), Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; however, it is only a part of the large Indian film industry, which includes other production centres producing films in multiple languages. Bollywood is one of the largest film producers in India and one of the largest centres of film production in the world.

Bollywood is also formally referred to as Hindi cinema. There has been a growing presence of Indian English in dialogue and songs as well. It is common to see films that feature dialogue with English words (also known as Hinglish), phrases, or even whole sentences.

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