By Genre
The Best Bollywood
Historical Films
4 films in the canon are filed under Historical, from 1960 to 2021.
4 films in this canon are filed under Historical, running from 1960 to 2021. The highest-ranked is Mughal-e-Azam (1960) at #3 — Sixteen years, a fortune, and a court dancer who says no to an emperor.
The genre is spread across the 1960s, 1970s, 2000s, 2020s, with K. Asif, M. S. Sathyu, Shoojit Sircar, Ashutosh Gowariker doing the heaviest lifting. Hindi cinema rarely respects a single genre for a whole runtime, so most of these titles are cross-filed — follow the tags on any film page to find its neighbours.
Every entry links out to Wikipedia, IMDb, a trailer and a legal streaming search. See also the full ranked 100 and how we scored them.
| Rank | Film | Year | Director | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Mughal-e-Azam मुग़ल-ए-आज़म | 1960 | K. Asif | Historical, Romance |
| 25 | Garam Hava गरम हवा | 1974 | M. S. Sathyu | Drama, Historical |
| 83 | Sardar Udham सरदार उधम | 2021 | Shoojit Sircar | Biography, Historical |
| – | Jodhaa Akbar जोधा अकबर | 2008 | Ashutosh Gowariker | Historical, Romance |
Other genres
Everything else in the canon
Drama 158Comedy 51Romance 36Thriller 30Crime 27Musical 18Biography 15Action 10Political 9Sports 7Satire 6Legal 5Horror 4Family 4Mystery 4Neo-noir 4Coming-of-age 3Anthology 3Documentary 3Sci-Fi 2Fantasy 2Road 2Philosophy 1Heist 1Revenge 1Survival 1Adventure 1Surreal 1Avant-garde 1Dark comedy 1Children 1