Hindi cinema, often known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is the Indian Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai. The term is a portmanteau of "Bombay" and "Hollywood". The industry is part of the larger Indian cinema—the world's largest by number of feature films produced, along with the cinema of South India and other Indian film industries.
The cinema of India comprises films produced in India, where more than 1800 movies are produced annually. Major centres of film production in the country include Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, New Delhi, Amritsar, Kochi, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar-Cuttack, and Guwahati. As of 2018, India ranked first in terms of annual film output. In 2015, India had a total box office gross of US$2.1 billion, the third largest in the world. The overall revenue of Indian cinema reached US$2.7 billion in 2019.
Abhishek Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan.
Amar Akbar Anthony is a 1977 Indian Hindi-language masala film directed and produced by Manmohan Desai, and written by Kader Khan. The film stars Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan opposite Shabana Azmi, Neetu Singh and Parveen Babi are in the lead roles. The plot focuses on three brothers who are separated in childhood and adopted by three families of different faiths—Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. They grow up to be a policeman, a qawwali singer, and an owner of a country liquor bar, respectively.
Twinkle Khanna is a former film actress.
Salim–Javed were an Indian screenwriting duo, composed of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, working in Bollywood. They are noted for being the first Indian screenwriters to achieve star status, becoming the most successful Indian screenwriters of all time. They are regarded as "Hindi cinema's greatest screenwriters". They worked together on 24 films during 1971–1987, of which twenty were commercially and critically successful films. They worked together on 22 Bollywood films, as well as two Kannada films.
Om Shanti Om is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language musical romantic satirical fantasy comedy-drama film written and directed by Farah Khan and co-written by Mayur Puri and Mushtaq Shiekh. Spanning three decades, the film stars Shah Rukh Khan as Om, a junior artist in 1977 who has a crush on a secretly-married superstar, played by Deepika Padukone in her Hindi film debut. Her lover, a producer played by Arjun Rampal, kills her in a fire; Om witnesses this and dies from the injuries sustained from trying to rescue her. Reincarnated as a superstar in 2007, he seeks to avenge his love. The film also starred Shreyas Talpade, Kirron Kher, Nitesh Pandey, Yuvika Chaudhary, Asawari Joshi, Bindu Desai and Javed Sheikh feature in supporting roles, and saw cameos from many Bollywood celebrities in several sequences and songs.
Masala films of Indian cinema are those that mix genres in one work, that emerged in the 1970s and still running in 2020s. Typically these films freely mix action, comedy, romance, and drama or melodrama. They also tend to be musicals that include songs, often filmed in picturesque locations. The genre is named after the masala, a mixture of spices in Indian cuisine. According to The Hindu, masala is the most popular genre of Indian cinema. Masala films have origins in 1970s, and are most common in every major film industry in India. Production of these films were minimized since early 2020s.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is an Indian actress and the winner of the Miss World 1994 pageant. Primarily known for her work in Hindi and Tamil films, she has established herself as one of the most popular and influential celebrities in India through her successful acting career. Rai has received numerous accolades, including two Filmfare Awards, and was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2009 and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France in 2012. She has often been cited in the media as "the most beautiful woman in the world".
Enthiran (transl. Robot) is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language science fiction action film written and directed by S. Shankar. It is the first instalment in the Enthiran franchise. The film stars Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan; Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam and Karunas play supporting roles. The soundtrack album and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman while the dialogues, cinematography, editing and art direction were handled by Madhan Karky, R. Rathnavelu, Anthony and Sabu Cyril respectively.
Black is a 2005 Indian English- and Hindi-language drama film co-written, directed, and co-produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. It stars Rani Mukerji and Amitabh Bachchan, with Shernaz Patel and Dhritiman Chatterjee in supporting roles. The film narrates the story of Michelle (Mukerji), a deaf-and-blind woman, and her relationship with her teacher Debraj (Bachchan), an elderly alcoholic teacher who himself later develops Alzheimer's disease.
The 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire has been a subject of discussion among a variety of people in India and the Indian diaspora. Some film critics have responded positively to the film. At the same time, others objected to issues such as Jamal's use of British English or the fact that similar films by Indian filmmakers have not received equal recognition. A few notable filmmakers such as Aamir Khan and Priyadarshan have been critical of the film. Author and critic Salman Rushdie argues that it has "a patently ridiculous conceit."
Ajay Devgn is an Indian actor, director and producer who works in Hindi films. His debut as an actor in Phool Aur Kaante (1991), which won him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. Devgn then played a kickboxer in the martial arts film Jigar (1992) and a blind character in the film Vijaypath (1994). Further success came with roles in the 1994 box-office hits Suhaag and Dilwale. He garnered his first Filmfare Award for Best Actor nomination for his performance in the action drama Naajayaz (1995). Devgn received critical acclaim for his roles in Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha and the political drama Zakhm, winning National Film Award for Best Actor for the latter. In 1999, he starred in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, earning a Filmfare Best Actor nomination. In 2000, Devgn established his production house Ajay Devgn FFilms, produced and appeared as the protagonist in the commercially unsuccessful Raju Chacha. He received a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as a dacoit in the drama Lajja (2001).
Hrithik Roshan is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi-language films. As a child, he made uncredited appearances in three films directed by his maternal grandfather, J. Om Prakash, the first of which was in Aasha (1980). In 1986, Roshan played the adopted son of Rajinikanth's character in Prakash's crime drama Bhagwaan Dada. Roshan subsequently worked as an assistant director on four films, including Khudgarz (1987) and Karan Arjun (1995), all of which were directed by his father, Rakesh.
Abhishek Bachchan is an Indian actor and producer known for his work in Hindi films. He made his debut in 2000, opposite Kareena Kapoor, in the J. P. Dutta-directed war drama Refugee. His portrayal of the titular unnamed refugee garnered him a nomination for Best Male Debut at the Filmfare Awards ceremony. However, the film was a box office failure, as were a series of his subsequent films, including Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai (2001), and Shararat (2002). His career prospects improved in 2004, when he played a gangster in the Mani Ratnam-directed political drama Yuva, and a police officer in Sanjay Gadhvi's action thriller Dhoom. For the former, he won his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the latter became one of the highest-grossing films of the year and his first commercial success.
Naman Ramachandran is an Indian critic and journalist. He is the author of Rajinikanth: The Definitive Biography and Lights Camera Masala: Making Movies in Mumbai. He writes for Variety, Sight & Sound, and Cineuropa. Based in London, he is also on the steering group of the London Indian Film Festival. He has also written the independent film Brahman Naman, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Rajinikanth: The Definitive Biography is a 2012 biography of the Indian actor Rajinikanth, written by Naman Ramachandran. It is the second biography of the actor, following The Name is Rajinikanth (2008) by Gayathri Sreekanth.
Denzil Leonard Smith is an Indian film and stage actor and producer. Born to Anglo-Indian parents in Mumbai, he is known for his stage and screen roles as a character actor. Smith has acted in over 50 plays and 60 films.
Fanney Khan is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language musical comedy film written and directed by debutant Atul Manjrekar. It was jointly produced by the banners T-Series Films, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Pictures and Anil Kapoor Films & Communication Network. A remake of the 2000 Belgian film Everybody's Famous!, it stars Anil Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Rajkummar Rao in lead roles. The film follows Kapoor as the titular character, the middle-aged father of a young, aspiring, and overweight teenage girl whom he pushes to be a singer. He kidnaps a famous soloist to make way for his daughter to become a star.
Still Reading Khan is a 2006 biographical book that was written by the Indian author and journalist Mushtaq Shiekh, chronicling the life of the actor Shah Rukh Khan. The book describes his birth in 1965 in New Delhi, his marriage to Gauri Chibber in 1991, with whom he has two children, and his sixteen-year-long career as an actor, film producer, and television presenter.
