PANAJI: The T20 of Indian Cinema – the top 20 films made in India since the first film ‘Raja Harichandra’ by D G Phalke in 1913 – has thrown up Ritwik Ghatak’s Bengali film ‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’ as the best film of the last 96 years.
After a nation-wide poll conducted by the Entertainment Society of Goa to which 1.9 million people responded, the names were announced at a gala event held here to coincide with the ongoing 40th International Film Festival of India. The ballot closed at 5 pm on 29 November. It was launched at the hands of Dev Anand in Mumbai, and Suniel Shetty and Sameera Reddy in New Delhi, early last month.
According to the selections, cine master craftsman Satyajit Ray finds mention thrice in the list, while Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy figure twice each.
In all, 12 Hindi films feature in the list, with Bengali coming second. Interestingly, the voters have selected Satyajit Ray’s film as the second most popular, but also voted for the Apu Trilogy which includes ‘Aparjito’ and ‘Apur Sansar’.
The event was presided over by Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat at the Open Air Theatre of Kala Academy, where a fashion show was staged with Pooja Shukla as the designer, in the presence of celebrities like Goa Assembly Speaker Pratap Singh Rane, Film Festivals Director S M Khan, and film personalities Aftab Shivdasani, Sayali Bhagat, Madhur Bhandarkar, Vishal Bhardwaj, and Riya Sen, and captured the changing fashions in cinema over the decades.
The top 20 films selected are:
Meghe Dhaka Tara - Ritwik Ghatak (Bengali, 1960)
Charulata - Satyajit Ray (Bengali, 1964)
Pather Panchali - Satyajit Ray (Bengali, 1955)
Sholay - Ramesh Sippy (Hindi, 1975)
Do Bigha Zameen - Bimal Roy (Hindi, 1953)
Pyaasa - Guru Dutt (Hindi, 1957)
Bhuvan Shome - Mrinal Sen (Hindi, 1969)
Garam Hawa - M S Sathyu (Hindi, 1973)
Mother India - Mehboob Khan (Hindi, 1957)
Ghattashradha - Girish Kassarvali (Kannada, 1977)
Elippathayam - Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Malayalam, 1981)
Mughal-e-Azam - K Asif (Hindi, 1960)
Nayagan - Mani Ratnam (Tamil, 1987)
Kaghaz Ke Phool - Guru Dutt (Hindi, 1959)
Apu Triology (Pather Panchali 1955, Aparajito 1956, Apur Sansar 1959) - Satyajit Ray (Bengali)
Sant Tukaram - Vishnupant Govind Damle, Sheikh Fattelal (Marathi, 1936)
Jaane Bhi Do Yaro - Kundan Shah (Hindi, 1983)
Guide - Vijay Anand (Hindi, 1965)
Madhumati – Bimal Roy (Hindi, 1958)
Anand - Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Hindi, 1971)
