Released in: 1957
Cast: Guru Dutt, Mala Sinha, Waheeda Rehmaan, Johnny Walker, Rehmaan
Director: Guru Dutt
Music: S.D. Burman
Lyrics: Sahir Ludhianvi
 
By far one of the most influential works of literary cinema in post-independence India, Pyaasa portrays the restless poet-protagonist Vijay (Guru Dutt) as an insatiable traveller longing to find a place where his sensitivity won’t be belittled
 
Spurned by [...]

Released in: 1957
Cast: Sunil Dutt, Nargis, Raj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Kanhaiyalal
Director: Mehboob Khan
Music: Naushad
Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni
 
Mehboob Khan’s landmark film Mother India was the first Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar in the best foreign film category in 1958. Mehboob’s film missed the distinction by a solitary vote at the third poll.
 
Mehboob Khan’s melodrama [...]

Released in: 1957
Cast: V. Shantaram, Sandhya
Director: V. Shantaram
Music: Vasant Desai
Lyrics: Bharat Vyas
 
Like the prolific filmmaker’s other human drama ‘Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani’ made 15 years earlier with Shantaram and his real-life wife Jayshree in the lead, ‘Do Aankhen Barah Haath’ is the quasi-biographicalstory of a jailor (Shantaram) and his efforts to humanize six criminals. [...]

Released in: 1956
Cast: Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Motilal
Director: Sombhu Mitra/Amit Moitra
Music: Salil Chowdhury
Lyrics: Shailendra, Prem Dhawan
 
Moving away from the operatic opulence of his style Raj Kapoor hired 2 avant-garde Bengali filmmakers to direct a story about one thirsty man’s experiences in Kolkata during the course of one night.
 
Jagte Raho is largely arresting for the utterly innovative [...]

Released in: 1955
Cast: Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Nadira
Director: Raj Kapoor
Music: Shankar, Jaikishan
Lyrics: Shailendra, Hasrat Jaipuri
 
Aparable on the goodness of the heart as opposed to the evil designs of the city folk, Shri 420 features Raj Kapoor as the village bumpkin who finds out about the ways of the big bad city through his association with various [...]

Boot Polish is remarkable for being the precursor to cinema about street children and also for the cult of ghost-direction that many illustrious filmmakers in Bollywood devised as a means of spreading their creative wings. Raj Kapoor credited the direction of this film to his assistant, Prakash Arora.
 
A year ahead of Satyajit Ray’s Bengali masterpiece [...]

Released in: 1953
Cast: Balraj Sahani, Nirupa Roy, Rattan Kumar
Director: Bimal Roy
Music: Salil Chowdhury
Lyrics: Shailendra
 
Arguably the most potent social drama ever conceived in this country, Do Bigha Zameen follows the heartrending plight of a peasant from his village.
 
Burdened by feudal financial obligations, Shambhu (Balraj Sahani) migrates to kolkata with his son (Rattan Kumar). As the two [...]

Released in: 1953
Cast: Nasir Khan, Meena Kumari
Director: Kamal Amrohi
Music: Jamal Sen
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaif Bhopali
 
Kamal Amrohi’s Daera is a deeply experimental look at a young and frail woman’s mis-marriege with a man old enough to be her father and the suicidal fascination that her young neighbour (played by Dilip Kumar’s brother Nasir Khan) develops for [...]

Awara figures in the list of the 3 most influential films in Indian Cinema. Awara immortalized the Raj Kapoor-Nargis duo and made the blue-eyed hero the darling of the masses all the way to the former Soviet Union. Father and son Prithviraj Kapoor and Raj Kapoor came together in the first of such collaborations. Shashi [...]

Released in: 1949
Cast: Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Cuckoo
Director: Mehboob Khan
Music: Naushad
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
           
The mother of all romantic triangles featuring the dream cast of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Nargis, Andaz and its complexities dwelling on the man-woman relationship within the ‘modern’ post-independence Indian context is, to this day, a delightful passion play.
           
This layered study [...]