Ranked #37 of 100
Manthan
मंथन · 1976
A vet arrives to build a milk cooperative and collides with caste, the local dairy monopoly and village politics. Funded by 500,000 farmers at ₹2 each.
- Director
- Shyam Benegal
- Year
- 1976
- Genre
- Drama
- Cast
- Girish Karnad, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Amrish Puri
Why it's at number 37
India's first crowdfunded film, and the clearest picture of how change actually happens in a village.
A vet arrives to build a milk cooperative and collides with caste, the local dairy monopoly and village politics. Funded by 500,000 farmers at ₹2 each.
Manthan sits in the 1970s alongside Sholay and Deewaar — a decade this canon treats as foundational.
The Bollywood 100The essentials
- Directed by Shyam Benegal — also responsible for Ankur, Bhumika, Nishant.
- Released in 1976, in the 1970s — see everything else from that decade.
- Filed under Drama.
- Read more on Wikipedia, check the full crew on IMDb, or find a legal stream via JustWatch.
Film record Wikipedia — Manthan (1976) · 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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