Portal:Hindi cinema


The Hindi cinema portal

Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and Bombay cinema, refers to India's Hindi-language film industry, based in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (another name for Mumbai) and "Hollywood". The industry, producing films in the Hindi language, is a part of the larger Indian cinema industry, which also includes South Indian cinema and other smaller film industries. The term 'Bollywood', often mistakenly used to refer to Indian cinema as a whole, only refers to Hindi-language films, with Indian cinema being an umbrella term that includes all the film industries in the country, each offering films in diverse languages and styles.

In 2017, Indian cinema produced 1,986 feature films, of which the largest number, 364, have been in Hindi. In 2022, Hindi cinema represented 33% of box office revenue, followed by Telugu and Tamil representing 20% and 16% respectively. Mumbai is one of the largest centres for film production in the world. Hindi films sold an estimated 341 million tickets in India in 2019. Earlier Hindi films tended to use vernacular Hindustani, mutually intelligible by speakers of either Hindi or Urdu, while modern Hindi productions increasingly incorporate elements of Hinglish.

The most popular commercial genre in Hindi cinema since the 1970s has been the masala film, which freely mixes different genres including action, comedy, romance, drama and melodrama along with musical numbers. Masala films generally fall under the musical film genre, of which Indian cinema has been the largest producer since the 1960s when it exceeded the American film industry's total musical output after musical films declined in the West. The first Indian talkie, Alam Ara (1931), was produced in the Hindustani language, four years after Hollywood's first sound film, The Jazz Singer (1927).

Alongside commercial masala films, a distinctive genre of art films known as parallel cinema has also existed, presenting realistic content and avoidance of musical numbers. In more recent years, the distinction between commercial masala and parallel cinema has been gradually blurring, with an increasing number of mainstream films adopting the conventions which were once strictly associated with parallel cinema. (Full article...)

Selected article

Sholay is an Indian action-adventure film produced by G. P. Sippy and directed by his son Ramesh Sippy. It is considered by the Encyclopaedia of Hindi cinema to be among the greatest films in Indian cinema. Released on 15 August 1975, it stars Dharmendra (pictured), Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bhaduri and Amjad Khan. The film, shot in the rocky terrain of Ramanagara, Karnataka, follows two criminals who are hired to capture a ruthless dacoit named Gabbar Singh. The film drew its plot heavily from the conventions of Westerns. When first released, Sholay opened to a tepid response, but owing to word of mouth promotion it soon became a box office phenomenon. It ran for 286 weeks straight (more than five years) in a theatre in Mumbai and achieved a still-standing record of 60 golden jubilees (50 consecutive weeks) across India. It is the first film in the history of Indian cinema to celebrate a silver jubilee (25 weeks) in over a hundred theaters across India. The Indian Central Board of Film Certification initially mandated cuts of several scenes involving violence and death. As such, Sholay was released with a length of 188 minutes. After 15 years, the original director's cut of 204 minutes was made available.

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Hindi cinema
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Urdu-language Indian films

Selected biography

Preity Zinta (born 31 January 1975) is an Indian film actress. She has appeared in Hindi- , Telugu-, Punjabi- and English-language films. After graduating with a degree in criminal psychology, Zinta made her acting debut in Dil Se.. in 1998, followed by a role in Soldier the same year. These performances earned her a Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut, and she was later recognised for her role as a teenage single mother in Kya Kehna (2000). She subsequently played a variety of character types; her film roles, along with her screen persona, contributed to a change in the concept of a Hindi film heroine. Zinta received a Filmfare Award for Best Actress in 2003 for her performance in the drama Kal Ho Naa Ho. She went on to play the lead female role in two consecutive annual top-grossing films in India: the science fiction film Koi... Mil Gaya (2003), her biggest commercial success, and the star-crossed romance Veer-Zaara (2004), which earned her critical acclaim. Her first international film role was in the Canadian film Heaven on Earth, for which she was awarded the Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress at the 2008 Chicago International Film Festival.

Selected image

Anu Malik, Waheeda Rehman and Asha Parekh with Raveena Tandon at Raveena's NDTV chat show

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Topics

Awards: Bollywood Movie Awards (defunct) • Filmfare AwardsGlobal Indian Film Awards (defunct) • International Indian Film Academy AwardsNational Film AwardsScreen AwardsStar Guild AwardsStardust AwardsZee Cine Awards

Institutions Asian Academy of Film & Television • Central Board of Film CertificationDirectorate of Film FestivalsFilm and Television Institute of IndiaFilm CityFox Star StudiosNational Film Development Corporation of IndiaSatyajit Ray Film and Television Institute

Lists: List of Bollywood filmsFilm clansHighest-grossing films in overseas marketsHighest-grossing films

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Cleanup needed
Bot-generated cleanup listingHindi films and plagiarismRamoji Film CityIIFA AwardsIIFAAnand BakshiAjay DevganN. T. Rama Rao Jr.
Requested articles
List of missing Indian Films (see also lists of Indian films for redlinks) • Beary Cinema • Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Requested articles#Cinema
Expansion needed
Draft articles: Tulu cinemaAnahat (film)Filmfare Awards SouthKerala Film Critics Association AwardsHindustan Photo FilmsSanskrit cinema
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Central Board of Film Certification

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