E-Paper
Bengali films top Bollywood flicks
In a list of the top 20 Indian movies of all time as chosen by close to 2 million voters.
Over 1.9 million Indians voted for the country’s 20 best films ever made. Surprisingly, the top three were all classics from Bengali cinema.
Ritwik Ghatak’s
Meghe Dhaka Tara
was No. 1, followed by Satyajit Ray’s
Charulata
and
Pather Panchali
. The idea was for people to select the best of Indian cinema, from the website
. Voters were allowed to add the names of films that did not feature on the list. As a promotional event for the recently concluded 40th International Film Festival of India, the Entertainment Society of Goa launched the ‘T20 of Indian Cinema’
contest.
An eclectic mix of genres and generations, the list featured a variety of movies but Ramesh Sippy’s
Sholay
(1975), was the only out-and-out masala movie on it.
Others included Bimal Roy’s
Do Bigha Zameen
(1953), Guru Dutt’s
Pyaasa
(1957), Mrinal Sen’s
Bhuvan Shome
(1969), Mehboob Khan’s
Mother India
(1957) and K Asif’s epic extravaganza
Mughal-e-Azam
(1960).
Not one film dated beyond the ‘80 except for Kundan Shah’s laugh riot
Jane Bhi Do Yaaro
(1983).
