List of Indian film directors

Last updated

Yash Chopra 2012.jpg
Yash Chopra (Hindi)
Satyajit Ray in New York.jpg
Satyajit Ray (Bengali)
SS Rajamouli, 2021.jpg
S. S. Rajamouli (Telugu)
Mani Ratnam at the Museum of the Moving Image.jpg
Mani Ratnam (Tamil)
Fazil.jpg
Fazil (Malayalam)
V. Shantaram.jpg
V. Shantaram (Marathi)

India has many regional film centres, such as Bollywood (Hindi) in Mumbai, Telugu cinema (Tollywood) in Hyderabad, Marathi cinema in Pune, Tamil cinema in Chennai, Malayalam cinema in Kochi, Kannada cinema in Bangalore, Odia Cinema in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, Assamese cinema in Guwahati, Punjabi cinema in Mohali, Gujarati cinema (Dhollywood) in Gujarat and Bengali cinema (Tollywood) in Kolkata. Most film directors are known for their work with one regional industry, while many others are active directors of films from multiple industries.

Contents

Directors of parallel or independent cinema

Parallel Cinema is otherwise known as "Art films" cinema, and is known for its serious and realistic films with real-life situations. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian government financed a number of such films, on Indian themes. Many of the directors were graduates of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Ritwik Ghatak was a professor at the institute and a well-known director in his own right. The best-known Indian "neo-realist" is Satyajit Ray.

Active in multiple languages

The following is a list of film directors who have directed films from more than one regional film industry in India. This does not include directors who work in a single industry whose films have been dubbed into other languages.

DIRECTOR Assamese Bengali Bhojpuri English Gujarati Hindi Kannada Malayalam Marathi Maithili Odia Punjabi Tamil Telugu
Ram Gopal Varma YesYesYesYesYes
K. Raghavendra Rao YesYesYesYes
Dasari Narayana Rao YesYesYes
S. S. Rajamouli YesYes
Mrinal Sen YesYesYesYes
Puri Jagannadh YesYesYesYesYes
S. Shankar YesYesYes
Bharathan Yes
Basu Bhattacharya YesYes
Gautham Vasudev Menon YesYesYes
Girish Karnad YesYes
Girish Kasaravalli YesYes
Mani Ratnam YesYesYesYes
Rituparno Ghosh YesYesYes
Sumitra Bhave–Sunil Sukthankar YesYes
AR Murugadoss YesYesYes
Puttanna Kanagal YesYes
Satish Rajwade YesYes
Sachin Kundalkar YesYes
Shonali Bose YesYes
Prasanta Nanda YesYesYes
Hara Patnaik YesYesYes
Siddique YesYesYes
Sunil Kumar Desai YesYes
Mahesh Manjrekar YesYes
Upendra YesYesYesYes
Nagraj Manjule YesYes
Om Raut YesYes
Anup Bhandari YesYesYesYesYes
Laxman Utekar YesYes
Srijit Mukherji YesYes
Shaji N Karun YesYes

Sanskrit film directors

Bengali film directors

Hindi film directors

Punjabi film directors

Gujrati film directors

Kannada film directors

Malayalam film directors

Marathi film directors

Odia film directors

Tamil film directors

Mari Selvaraj

Telugu film directors

Jammu and Kashmir film directors

References