Bollywood For Beginners

New to Bollywood? Appreciating its artistry is simply a matter of understanding India's unique way of filmmaking. Our primer explains the basics:

What is Bollywood?

Bollywood is a term that refers to the Hindi-language film industry based in the Indian city of Mumbai, which used to be called Bombay. Bombay + Hollywood = Bollywood. The term is believed to have been coined by a Western journalist in the 1970s. Many Indians take issue with the word because it implies that Bollywood is a lesser offshoot of Hollywood, when in fact, India produces far more films annually that attract far greater audience numbers globally than the U.S. And, the Indian film industry is older than Hollywood-by one year.

No. Bollywood is only one of many film industries in India. Imagine if the U.S. had a thriving Spanish-language film industry that gave Hollywood a run for its money, or regional film industries in Chicago, Atlanta, and Seattle that rivaled L.A.'s. That's how it is in India. The various Indian film industries are both language- and location-specific. They include Kollywood, which refers to Tamil-language films made in the Kodambakkam district of the city of Chennai; Mollywood, which is Malayalam-language cinema from the state of Kerala; and Tollywood, which refers to both Telugu-language films from the state of Andhra Pradesh and Bengali-language films made in the Tollygunge neighborhood of Kolkata.

While Bollywood and India's other film industries primarily produce commercial movies, India also has a strong and respected art-film tradition, which is referred to as "parallel cinema." The delineation between commercial and art film in India is stronger than it is in the U.S. However, that line is beginning to blur as Bollywood is delving into artier projects and Indian art films are aiming for broader appeal.

Are all Bollywood films musicals?

Most Bollywood films include musical numbers. Today's movies generally have fewer musical numbers than older films. While 10 musical numbers in a film wasn't unusual in the past, four to six are more typical today. And more and more Bollywood movies don't have any musical numbers at all.