About the list and how to use it
We set out to make a list encapsulating the essential films of Indian cinema. This was always going to be difficult since India has about 23 official languages, multiple film industries inside of it, and produces about 1200-1600 films per year.

We’ve accumulated essential films from most of these industries spanning multiple languages. The most popular and the largest among the industries in India is undoubtedly Bollywood. For most people around the world, it is the gateway to Indian cinema. Typically, these movies mix multiple genres, are made for entertainment, and feature multiple song-and-dance routines within the film. However, historically Indian cinema has always had parallel cinema. These films have a more artsy/indie feel or forego musical numbers entirely. Increasingly, the lines between the two are getting very blurry and there are quite a few movies that even fall between the two.

Since all of this could be very confusing, I’ve added a few “tags” to each film in the notes section along with a short comment on the movie. The tags are:

Language - What language the film is in primarily.

Spectrum - Where does the movie fall in the spectrum of the type of movie? The categories are:

“Gateway film” - These films are a good gateway into Indian cinema. They’re more traditional, have musical numbers, are usually films that are readily available since they were huge hits, or feature popular actors/actresses, or are slightly indie but essential viewing for getting into Indian cinema. If you’ve never seen, or are just getting into Indian cinema, these are the films you should start with.

“Non-Mainstream films” - If you’ve seen almost all the Gateway films or are looking for a break to watch a film that has a little more depth, these are the ones to watch. These are also a little more indie than the mainstream films.

“Connoisseur films” - These films are very artsy/indie and may not have a single musical number. If you’ve watched a lot of Indian movies and are looking for more character-driven and plot driven stories, these are the films to watch. Some absolutely fantastic films on this list that any hardcore film connoisseur will like.

This list is a WIP and is made with the help of a lot of people from the community. Feel free to leave a comment if you agree/disagree with the list. Hopefully we'll end up with a list that encapsulates Indian cinema!

How/Why we made the list
Some years back (when I was more active), DirkH and the LB community put together a set of "Essentials" list covering different genres.

Ever since then, I've wanted to put one together for Indian cinema. Took me some time (about 7 years) but I'm going to try and do this with the help of the community if possible.

Don't think it's possible/makes sense to split it by genres since we have very few genre movies but let's see.

The idea is to collect 75/100/150 movies from Indian cinema that encompass it (to a large extent). Since this list is indicative of all of Indian cinema, it should encompass both the traditional/relevant to pop culture (K3G, DDLJ) vs critical/non mainstream (Udaan, Kahaani) films. Films should be across multiple regions, languages, and time.

Open to more ideas! Hopefully we will get enough people collaborating on this, because I alone cannot hope to cover the entire spectrum of Indian cinema. I'll put in 3 from my end as a start.

A film gets removed if there are good points against it from the commenters. People commenting in support of the film makes it stickier on the list.

List is in no specific order yet.

Update: the list sits at 120 movies and doesn't look we can remove more.