Mohan harnesses energy from the local stream by building a small dam for the village.

As many of us who live in countries other than those of our birth do, he slowly comes to realise the truth of the adage spoken by one of the villagers: ‘It is the destiny of ice to melt in its own water.’ Shah Rukh Khan plays US resident Mohan, who makes a life-altering trip to an Indian village that’s short of electricity and riven with petty conflicts. In Swades, director Ashutosh Gowariker turned his gaze from pre-Independence India (his previous film was the Oscar-nominated Lagaan ) to the present day and served up a movie that took a loving but unflinchingly critical look at ‘our country’ (as the title translates). And whether you’re looking for musicals, action, comedy or romance, there’s something here for you.Ĭast: Shah Rukh Khan, Gayatri Joshi, Kishori Balal

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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