Song, dance, heartbreak, and a billion hearts — the world's most prolific film industry.
No film industry on Earth produces more films, sells more tickets, or provokes more emotion than Indian cinema. It began in 1913, when a self-taught filmmaker mortgaged his wife's jewelry to make a silent movie about a mythological king. It survived the transition to sound by inventing something no other cinema had: every film is also a musical. The Golden Age of the 1950s produced Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt. The '70s gave us Sholay and the Angry Young Man. The '90s reinvented romance for a global diaspora. And in 2023, a Telugu film's dance number won the Academy Award, proving that Indian cinema's maximalist magic had finally conquered the world. This is the story of Bollywood — and beyond.
A curated dispatch of forgotten moments, pivotal turning points, and the stories behind the dates.