Pyaasa, Apu Trilogy in Time list of best films

Guru Dutt's Pyaasa and Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, the two masterpieces of Indian cinema, have found place in Time magazine's list of all-time 100 great movies.

Time magazine has listed Guru Dutt's Pyaasa, narrating the pathos of an unpublished poet, and Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, about a child growing into manhood in modern India, in its list of all-time 100 great movies.

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"His triumphs are small, his tragedies large, but Ray's filmmaking is direct in manner, simple in its means and profound in its impact," stated the Time website while eulogising Ray's craftsmanship.

The website described Pyaasa as the most soulfully romantic film of the 1950s and calls the era as Indian cinema's golden age.

Ray made Apu in three parts - part one, released in 1955, was titled Pather Panchali and revolved around Apu, a small boy in Bengal. In 1956, he released the second edition called Aparajito (The Unvanquished). This film shows the eternal struggle between the ambitions of a young man, Apu, and the mother who loves him. The last instalment came in 1959 in the form of Apur Sansar starring Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore.

Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Kandahar (2001) too finds a place on the prestigious list that includes masterpieces like The Godfather Part I and II, Goodfellas, Casablanca, Raging Bull and Pulp Fiction.