Artwork drawn from the title — how & why

The Extended Canon

Sadma

सदमा · 1983

A woman with retrograde amnesia reverts to a child's mind, and the man who protects her cannot be thanked when she recovers.

Director
Balu Mahendra
Year
1983
Genre
Drama
Cast
Sridevi, Kamal Haasan

Why it's in the canon

The final railway-platform scene is the most devastating ending in Hindi cinema. Nothing else is close.

A woman with retrograde amnesia reverts to a child's mind, and the man who protects her cannot be thanked when she recovers.

Sadma sits in the 1980s alongside Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Umrao Jaan — a decade this canon treats as formative.

The Bollywood 100

The essentials

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