Ranked #19 of 100
Ardh Satya
अर्ध सत्य · 1983
An honest sub-inspector is ground down by his father, his politics and his own violence. The parallel cinema answer to the Angry Young Man.
- Director
- Govind Nihalani
- Year
- 1983
- Genre
- Crime · Drama
- Cast
- Om Puri, Smita Patil, Amrish Puri, Sadashiv Amrapurkar
Why it's at number 19
Om Puri's greatest role. Dilip Chitre's poem inside it is the whole thesis of the film.
An honest sub-inspector is ground down by his father, his politics and his own violence. The parallel cinema answer to the Angry Young Man.
Ardh Satya sits in the 1980s alongside Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Umrao Jaan — a decade this canon treats as formative.
The Bollywood 100The essentials
- Directed by Govind Nihalani — also responsible for Aakrosh.
- Released in 1983, in the 1980s — see everything else from that decade.
- Filed under Crime, Drama.
- Read more on Wikipedia, check the full crew on IMDb, or find a legal stream via JustWatch.
Film record Wikipedia — Ardh Satya (1983) · data last revised 9 August 2026 · title, year, director and cast are read from that article; this site keeps no independent print record and does not claim one
Editorial The ranking and the case made for each placement — not a measurement · last revised 9 August 2026 · signed by Amit Sharma · the scoring is published in full so the machinery can be argued with, not just the result
No box-office figure, rating or audience score is printed on this page, because none has been independently verified for this film. The dated, sourced money figures the site does stand behind are on the box office page.
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