What is Bollywood?

Bollywood is the name given to the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry in India. When combined with other Indian film industries (Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada), it is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced, and maybe also the number of tickets sold.

The term Bollywood was created by conflating Bombay (the city now called Mumbai) and Hollywood (the famous center of the United States film industry).

Bollywood films are usually musicals. Few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number. Indian audiences expect full value for their money; they want songs and dances, love interest, comedy and dare-devil thrills, all mixed up in a three hour long extravaganza with intermission. Such movies are called masala movies, after the spice mixture masala. Like masala, these movies have everything.

The plots are often melodramatic. They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, conniving villains, angry parents, courtesans with hearts of gold, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.

How big is it?

Bollywood makes more than 800 films a year – twice as many as Hollywood. About 4 billion cinema tickets are sold each year for Bollywood films, a billion more than Hollywood.

How does it connect people?

It connects 4 billion customers worldwide; Bollywood helps to meet the needs of different audiences. From escapism for people who have little else; through a sense of identity for diasporic communities; to jobs and business opportunities. Most Bollywood movies follow a tried-and-tested formula of love/romance/ comedy and good guy-bad guy scenarios which have a universal appeal. Bollywood has produced some exceptional movies over the years such as ‘Lagaan’, ‘Devdas’ and ‘Black’ which are highly respected in film circles. The UK general public is very familiar with ‘cross-over’ movies such as ‘Bend it like Beckham’, ‘Bhaji on the Beach’, ‘Monsoon Wedding’ and ‘Bride and Prejudice’.

What language is used?

Bollywood films are made in Hindi with a smattering of the more poetic Urdu. Some English is not uncommon. So the first targets are Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bangla-speaking people throughout the world – and that’s a big audience. But it’s only a start. Bollywood films are regularly subtitled or dubbed into Arabic, English, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and so on.

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