This Wednesday, film cataloguing social platform Letterboxd updated its list of top 500 films of all time, based on user ratings. Over the years, Letterboxd has carved out a niche as a repository of user-generated film reviews, establishing credibility. Therefore, the list is seen as the West’s best films of all time. And while the list is dominated by Hollywood and Japanese films, Indian cinema finds a place too, with nine films from various Indian industries featured. At the top is a classic that has been mentioned in most critics’ and publications’ lists of the top films.
Letterboxd’s top Indian film
The top Indian film on Letterboxd is Apur Sansar, Satyajit Ray’s masterful conclusion of the Apu trilogy, which also includes Pather Panchali and Aparajito. The other two films also make the list. But it’s Apur Sansar that is the highest-ranked Indian film in the list at number 93. Apu Trilogy is widely regarded as one of the greatest film trilogies ever, and was mentioned by Time magazine as one of the 100 films to see before dying in a seminal list two decades ago. Only two other Indian films – Mother India and Nayakan – made that list.
About Apur Sansar
Satyajit Ray is widely regarded as the finest Indian filmmaker ever. But when he began work on the Apu Trilogy in 1950, he was just a 28-year-old visual artist working in a press. Pather Panchali, the first film of the trilogy, was his directorial debut. Ray employed non-professional actors and an almost entirely amateur crew. He repeated his crew in the sequels Aparajito and Apur Sansar. The third film began production in 1958 when Ray and the crew had gained some experience, but were still all ‘amateurs’ in the true sense of the word.
Apur Sansar is also remembered for its lead pair. The film marked the debut of two actors who would go on to be screen legends – Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore, who was only 14 at the time. The film not only established the two actors, but also made them Ray’s favourites. The filmmaker collaborated with both in many of his subsequent films. Both would go on to win National Film Awards. Apur Sansar, released in 1959, was widely acclaimed. It won the National Award for Best Film and was nominated for a BAFTA Award after its overseas release. The film’s commercial success allowed Ray to experiment more in a career that would span three more decades.
Other Indian films in the Letterboxd list
There are 8 Indian films in the Letterboxd list apart from Apur Sansar. The top 300 includes the other 2 from the Apu trilogy – Pather Panchali at 139 and Aparajito at 211. The list also includes Malayalam films Meiyazhagan (310) and Kumbalangi Nights (357); SS Rajamouli’s blockbuster RRR (324); Anurag Kashyap’s cult film Gangs of Wasseypur 2 (339); Aamir Khan’s 3 Idiots (479); and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail (496).
Many Indian fans expressed disappointment at only 9 Indian films making it to the list of 500, even though India is the highest film-producing country in the world. Notable omissions, as per social media users, include Kamal Haasan’s Nayakan, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India, and all films by Guru Dutt.
How the list was chosen
Letterboxd listed the criteria required for a film to be in the top 500. It mentions that films must be feature-length (more than 40 minutes long) with a festival premiere, theatrical distribution or professional streaming release. All documentaries, TV shows, recuts, or plays are excluded, but TV movies are included. But most importantly, a film must have received a minimum of 25000 ratings on Letterboxd to be eligible. This ruled out many Indian classics.
