Aandhi

Or kissa Indira ka. This was the film in which Suchitra Sen sprouted a white streak of hair and looked suspiciously like Indira Gandhi and Sanjeev Kumar pasted a long-suffering expression on his face in approximation of Feroz Gandhi. The government banned the film during the Emergency. But Sen's brilliant performance and R.D. Burman's music score made the film memorable. Songs such as Tere bina zindagi se, Is mod se jaate hain and Tum aa gaye ho refuse to fade away. 1975

Deewar

The film that launched a thousand formulae flicks-and the immortal line, mere pas ma hai-is best remembered for the conflict between good and bad embodied by a police officer and a don played by Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan respectively. The film's template with a Salim-Javed script would be done to death by Bollywood, but the magical screenplay was tough to replicate. 1975

Jana Aranya

The final film in Satyajit Ray's Kolkata trilogy, after Pratidwandi (1970) and Seemabaddha (1971), explored the seamier side of Kolkata's dying colonial corporate world. The protagonist, unfairly assessed in his graduate examination, becomes a corporate "middleman". 1975

Sholay

Kitne aadmi the? Bahut. Amjad Khan (making a memorable debut), Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar and the non-stop chattering Basanti. Ramesh Sippy's curry western continues to hold another generation in thrall. However hard Ram Gopal Varma tries, he may not be able to etch a character to take on Salim-Javed's Gabbar. 1975

Manthan

Five lakh dairy farmers put in Rs 2 each to make the film. Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil appeared together for the first time. Girish Karnad and Naseeruddin Shah completed the milky way of New Wave stars. 1976

Bhumika

The bhumika (role) Smita Patil played, based on the autobiography of Marathi/Hindi actor Hansa Wadkar, established her as a performer who could play complex, layered characters and hold her own against actors of the calibre of Amol Palekar, Anant Nag, Naseeruddin Shah and Amrish Puri. It also made her death in 1986 a huge setback for Bollywood women in search of progressive roles. 1976

Pasi

Durai's realistic portrayal of low life in Madras' shanty townships won the Best Tamil film of the Year Award. Actor Shobha, who played a rag picker, won the National Award for Best Actress. Shot on location, it used concealed cameras for some of the street shots. 1979

Mrigaya

Mithun Chakraborty's brilliant debut before he let his pelvis do the acting. He played a tribal hunter who takes the villain's head to a British colonial administrator in the climax. Set in 1930s Orissa, Mrinal Sen's comment on administrative tyranny was one of dissent against the Emergency. 1976

Satyam Shivam Sundaram

Truth, absolution and beauty: Raj Kapoor style. Zeenat Aman, as a wife vying to win the love of an engineer husband more interested in outer beauty than inner goodness, had the role of a lifetime. Many in the audience were facing the same dilemma: how to take their eyes off the statuesque Zeenie in various stages of semi-clad sublimity. 1978

Kodiyettam

Adoor Gopalakrishnan's take on human fallacies. The coming of age of the protagonist played by Gopi coincided with changes in Kerala society. A milestone in Malayalam cinema. 1977

Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastan

The second of the films made by the Yukt Co-op, a group of ftii filmmakers, it had eclectic influences from Michelangelo Antonioni to Ben Barka to Octavio Getino. Dilip Dhawan excelled as a businessman's son caught between the contradictions in his life and ideology. 1977

Arth

A breakthrough film. Not just because director Mahesh Bhatt said it was autobiographical. But because Bhatt handled the theme of extra marital affairs with honesty not seen before in Bollywood. What's more, the woman walked out. Magical moment: When Jagjit Singh sang Kaifi Azmi's Tum itna jo .... 1982

Amar Akbar Anthony

You see the coefficient of the linear is juxtaposition by the haemoglobin of the atmospheric pressure in the country. There was method to Manmohan Desai's masala madness. Some zany characters and a multi-star cast had the audience asking for more. 1977

Shankarabharnam

K. Vishwanath's musical hit is a landmark of sorts in Telugu cinema. The portrayal of a relationship between a classical Carnatic music teacher and a prostitute was ahead of its times. It spawned an entire genre of films like Thyagayya and Singeetham. 1979

Index