History MediaNotes / Bollywood

* {{Reincarnation}}: This is actually a DeadHorseTrope these days and only used in movies in an "ironic" fashion as in "Om Shanti Om", but it used to be quite common in the older titles.

* ValuesDissonance: For Western and international audiences, Bollywood movies, on the rare instance they are watched (most usually [[JustHereForGodzilla are there for the song-and-dance number]]), will strike them oddly for its class biases, religious stereotypes, pre-First Wave Feminist sexism, questionable look at minorities and foreign stereotypes, of the kind that no film and TV producer would get away with for its TransAtlanticEquivalent in America and Europe. It often happens that the same film producers who criticize Westerners for portraying Indians in a stereotyped way, do the same or worse in their own films, with regional, religious and class minorities.

* AlmostKiss: Often happens in place for the Kiss. (It's only lately that kissing on screen has become "okay" in Indian movies).

* ChorusGirls: Often many backup singers

* EpicMovie: This is actually the rule in Bollywood filmmaking rather than the exception. Three hours is about the average movie length, and India's many religious traditions and great narrative epics, along with inspiration from American epic movies, provide fertile ground for movie-makers who want to go big.

* ForeignRemake: Many Bollywood films have been inspired by Western films, although putting their own twist.

* GettingCrapPastThe Radar

* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: This is actually rarely shown, at least among the hero and heroine of the story, (the parents are shown to have one).

* {{Reincarnation}}: This is actually a DeadHorseTrope these days and only used in movies in an "ironic" fashion as in "Om Shanti Om" but it used to be quite common in the older titles.

* ValuesDissonance: For Western and international audiences, Bollywood movies, on the rare instance they are seen (most usually [[JustHereForGodzilla are there for the song-and-dance number]]), will strike them oddly for its class biases, religious stereotypes, pre-First Wave Feminist sexism, questionable look at minorities and foreign stereotypes, of the kind that no film and TV producer would get away with for its TransAtlanticEquivalent in America and Europe. It often happens that the same film producers who criticize Westerners for portraying Indians in a stereotyped way, do the same or worse in their own films, with regional, religious and class minorities.

This is the informal name for the vast Hindi-language film industry (one of the world's largest film industries) in the world's largest democracy (UsefulNotes/{{India}}, for those of you playing along at home). The name is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (the former name of UsefulNotes/{{Mumbai}}, where it is based) and "Hollywood" created by white people, notably a Variety journalist but wholeheartedly embraced by the local film industry and the Indian public. There are also [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherwoods non-Hindi film industries]] based on other Indian languages such as Telugu ("Tollywood") and Tamil ("Kollywood"). Although these industries are huge, they don't receive much press and are not well known outside of India. The one exception of course is the Bengali film industry, whose independent film-makers, Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak went on to be influential across the world, with Creator/SatyajitRay being the first Indian (until music composer A. R. Rahman [[note]]Albeit not for an Indian film[[/note]]) to win an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

Unlike other 21st century democratic nations, India is bound by a censorship system that is comparable with UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode. The Censor Board of Film Certification ([=CBFC=]) tends to dictate changes and order cuts rather than merely provide moviegoers a general rating (like the [=MPAA=] after the Hays Code died). It also takes a major hands-on role on films with political content, sexual imagery and other films with subversive content. Unlike the Hays Code, formed by Hollywood itself as a self-policing venture to forestall government interference, the [=CBFC=] is an Indian government office, and likewise all predecessor organisations before that were on the state level. The heavy government and state influence on censorship, with isolated exceptions, often goes unchallenged by civil society and industry professionals. This censorship also extends to American films for local releases, i.e., not just on television (which is common for American networks as well) but even for theatrical releases, ''even for films restricted for adult audiences''. Nude scenes and violent scenes are censored in equal measure with the exceptions of big subject films like ''Film/SchindlersList'' and ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan''.

This is one reason for the widespread market of piracy in India for international films since this is often the main way Indians get to see the uncut versions and in many cases films that don't come to India because producers and directors for smaller films don't see a market for films with more ambitious content. In a roundabout way this pretty much ensures why, in contrast to Europe and other nations where local film industries compete, poorly, against Hollywood, Hollywood movies with select exceptions rarely outperform Bollywood movies at the local box-office though its influence is keenly felt, as can be seen in the many local remakes (often plagiarized without credit) of popular American films into Bollywood films.

Compared to other national cinemas, the striking aspect of Indian cinema is the fact that there's very little changes in style and narrative. In general, the average Indian film of the 50s would differ from one made in the 2000s with only minimal changes in props, costumes and technique. The standard Bollywood narrative still involves the "masala film" involving family-dramas/unrequited-love/rich-girl-poor-boy romances. A tendency that has only gradually changed in the 21st Century and even then, far from mainstream. Bollywood producers and distributors generally make distinctions between films for the urban market and rural market. Urban films, which exploded in number in the 2000s, tend to be youth-focused, college set and concern young professionals or privileged rich kids while rural films tend to be family dramas set in the "heartland" and feature more traditional elements.

The main feature that ties Indian audiences however is the music and songs from popular Hindi movies, often [[CultureChopSuey in highly incongruous styles]] bind Indians the world over, and also some Hollywood movies (such as the opening of Creator/SpikeLee's ''Film/InsideMan''[[note]]It has A. R. Rahman's Chaiya Chaiya from ''Dil Se'', way before Rahman, the Mozart of Madras, became cool for ''Film/SlumdogMillionaire''[[/note]]). Where the music industry in America, England and France is essentially independent from the movies, in India they are practically the same thing and the music composer, singer and dance choreographer is as much a part of the film as the director and producer (and sometimes more). Indian musicals also differ from American ones in that they mainly feature non-specialist singers and dancers as compared to the classic musicals which had Broadway dancers and singers act before the camera. Playback singers are highly sought after, singers who sing for an actor in the soundstage while actors and actresses lip-synch before the camera (much like Lina Lamont insisted in ''Film/SinginInTheRain'' [[note]]In a bit of ValuesDissonance, Lamont insisting that Kathy Selden sing permanently, rather than perform as a movie star in her own right, is perfectly ''normal'' in India, differing only in that the industry and the public know that the actors and actresses don't do their own singing and "playback singers" are highly respected/coveted in their own right[[/note]]).

A short list of notable films (see BollywoodMovies for a fuller list, and BollywoodActors for its best-known personalities):-
* ''Film/NeechaNagar'' (1946) - Roughly based on Theatre/TheLowerDepths by Creator/MaximGorky, it is considered India's first social-realist film. ''Neecha Nagar'' is also the only Indian film to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes (then known as the 'Grand Prix du Festival').
* ''Film/MotherIndia'' (1957) - Shows the poverty and precarity of India's farmers through the tragedy of one young family.

* ''Film/{{Sholay}}'' (1975) - Probably the most famous film from Bollywood, featuring the infamous [[BreakoutCharacter Gabbar Singh]]. A couple of thieves are hired by a retired policeman to take out the aforementioned Gabbar Singh, a feared bandit.

* ''Film/{{Dangal}}'' (2016) - (Loosely) based on the life of wrestlers [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeta_Phogat Geeta Phogat]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babita_Kumari Babita Kumari]], Dangal marked a watershed for sports movies in India.

%%* BareYourMidriff
%%* BashBrothers
%%* BellyDancer
%%* BeYourself
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Almost every Hindi film has a big musical number (sometimes more than one), and often doesn't even feature the stars of the film. For an exhaustive list, see on the other wiki.
%%* CantLiveWithThemCantLiveWithoutThem
%%* ChildMarriageVeto
%%* ChorusGirls
%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}
%%* CrowdSong
%%* DanceSensation
* DancingOnABus: Not the most unusual location for a dance. Unusual ones involve moving trains, i.e. actual moving trains through a mountain pass as in "Chaiya Chaiya".

%%* DramaticThunder
%%* DrunkenSong

%%* {{Fanservice}}
%%* FilmiMusic
%%* ForeignRemake
%%* {{Forgiveness}}
%%* FriendToAllChildren
%%* TheGenerationGap
%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
%%* GorgeousPeriodDress

%%* HowWeGotHere
%%* IdenticalStranger
%%* IHaveNoSon
%%* ImpracticallyFancyOutfit
%%* IncendiaryExponent
%%* TheItemNumber
%%* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy
%%* IWantSong
%%* KickTheDog
%%* KissingDiscretionShot
%%* LongLostSibling
%%* LostInTranslation
%%* MeetCute
%%* {{Melodrama}}
%%* MistakenIdentity
%%* TheMusical
* MyGirlIsNotASlut: There has been a progression (or regression) in morality in Bollywood movies that reflects Indian culture. Older movies (pre-80s) usually showed both male and female leads as virgins until marriage. 80s-00s movies usually had male-slut-female-virgin leads. This has carried over into the 21st century, although it is more common that movies that are targeted towards the middle-to-upper-class/younger/NRI crowd show the female lead character is not a virgin.

%%* ThePowerOfFriendship
%%* ThePowerOfLove

%%* RelationshipUpgrade

%%* SeparatedAtBirth
%%* SiblingTeam

%%* StoryWithinAStory

%%* TriangRelations

%%* WellDoneSonGuy

%%* WhyWasteAWedding
%%* WorldOfHam

'''See also:'''
+ [[{{UsefulNotes/India}} Useful Notes On India]]
+ BollywoodMovies
+ BollywoodActors

* SimSimSalabim: Oftentimes, Bollywood would release films that are set in the Mughal empire.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Due to [[ValuesDissonance India's censor policy]], Indian filmakers use rather… imaginative ways of getting their point across. This is the reason for the use of the AlmostKiss and KissingDiscretionShot tropes, as noted elsewhere. Bollywood films adopt Hollywood's fair acceptance of violence (in age-appropriate contexts) and fair taboo against sexuality and magnify both conditions.

* ArrangedMarriage: One curious irony is the fact that most marriages in India, especially among middle-class families, tend to be arranged marriages but almost every Bollywood movie is about couples who MarryForLove and have a HappyEnding. Most films about arranged marriage tend to never portray it positively, so much so, that the film ''Bollywood/HumDilDeChukeSanam'' [[spoiler:was shocking in its time for showing the heroine settle for her arranged spouse, simply because it didn't do the cliche HappyEnding thing again]].

%%* WetSariScene

* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: A little something the English left behind from colonial times. [[AsianSpeekeeEngrish Sometimes]] [[TotallyRadical averted]] [[NarmCharm hilariously.]]

* DanceSensation

%%* DanceSensation

%%** BareYourMidriff
%%** BellyDancer
%%** TheItemNumber
%%** WetSariScene

** One problem with Indian movies is that they generally are done entirely in one base language with loan-words thrown in. This is especially odd for movies set in Punjab and Gujarat where you don't hear full dialogues entirely in Gujarati or Punjabi when those are the languages spoken there. In the case of movies set in Mumbai, a city that is polyglot it's weird to see whole scenes done in Hindi without smattering of Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali and several other languages spoken there.

%%* TheGenerationGap
%%* TheMusical
%%* ThePowerOfFriendship
%%* ThePowerOfLove

This is the informal name for the vast Hindi-language film industry (one of the world's largest film industries) in the world's largest democracy (UsefulNotes/{{India}}, for those of you playing along at home). The name is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (the former name of UsefulNotes/{{Mumbai}}, where it is based) and "UsefulNotes/{{Hollywood}}" created by white people, notably a Variety journalist but wholeheartedly embraced by the local film industry and the Indian public. There are also [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherwoods non-Hindi film industries]] based on other Indian languages such as Telugu ("Tollywood") and Tamil ("Kollywood"). Although these industries are huge, they don't receive much press and are not well known outside of India. The one exception of course is the Bengali film industry, whose independent film-makers, Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak went on to be influential across the world, with Creator/SatyajitRay being the first Indian (until music composer A. R. Rahman [[note]]Albeit not for an Indian film[[/note]]) to win an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

* SidequestSidestory: Bollywood has an obsession with providing value for money, leading many filmmakers to pad out their movies with arbitrary [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools but often fun]] subplots featuring popular supporting actors. This makes the Indian film industry one of the few places you would see this trope outside of video games.

* SidequestSidestory: Bollywood has an obsession with providing value for money, leading many filmmakers to pad out their movies with arbitrary [[TropesAreNotBad but often fun]] subplots featuring popular supporting actors. This makes the Indian film industry one of the few places you would see this trope outside of video games.

* AdaptationAmalgamation: Often what is to expect when you have action or horror movie from Bollywood: they have a shortage of ideas in this so they produce tons of unofficial remakes (and they've started to have a shortage there, as well: ''Film/TheGodfather'' was remade at least 7 times, for example). A particular example is a movie named ''Commando'' (no, [[{{Film/Commando}} not that one]]) by Bubbar Subhash starring Mithun Chakraborti which combines ''Film/RomancingTheStone'' with ''Film/AmericanNinja''.

* ArrangedMarriage: One curious irony is the fact that most marriages in India, especially among middle-class families, tend to be arranged marriages but almost every Bollywood movie is about couples who MarryForLove and have a HappyEnding. Most films about arranged marriage tend to never portray it positively, so much so, that the film ''Bollywood/HumDilDeChukheSanam'' [[spoiler:was shocking in its time for showing the heroine settle for her arranged spouse, simply because it didn't do the cliche HappyEnding thing again]].

!!Tropes

* ArrangedMarriage: One curious irony is the fact that most marriages in India, especially among middle-class families, tend to be arranged marriages but almost every Bollywood movie is about couples who MarryForLove and have a HappyEnding. Most films about arranged marriage tend to never portray it positively, so much so, that the film ''Hum Dil De Chukhe Sanam'' [[spoiler:was shocking in its time for showing the heroine settle for her arranged spouse, simply because it didn't do the cliche HappyEnding thing again]].

%%* EpicMovie

This is one reason for the widespread market of piracy in India for international films since this is often the main way Indians get to see the uncut versions and in many cases films that don't come to India because producers and directors for smaller films don't see a market for films with more ambitious content. In a roundabout way this pretty much ensures why, in contrast to Europe and other nations where local film industries compete, poorly, against Hollywood, Hollywood movies with select exceptions rarely outperform Bollywood movies at the local box-office though its influence is keenly felt, as can be seen in the many local remakes (often plagiarised without credit) of popular American films into Bollywood films.

Compared to other national cinemas, the striking aspect of Indian cinema is the fact that there's very little changes in style and narrative. In general, the average Indian film of the 50s would differ from one made in the 2000s with only minimal changes in props, costumes and technique. The standard Bollywood narrative still involves the "masala film" involving family-dramas/unrequited-love/rich-girl-poor-boy romances. A tendency that has only gradually changed in the 21st Century and even then far from mainstream. Bollywood producers and distributors generally make distinctions between films for the urban market and rural market. Urban films, which exploded in number in the 2000s, tend to be youth-focused, college set and concern young professionals or privileged rich kids while rural films tend to be family dramas set in the "heartland" and feature more traditional elements.

* ParentalMarriageVeto: All love marriages, especially the inter-class and inte-community and inter-religious ones will face opposition. Though the Parent eventually gives in and goes along with it anyway.

This is the informal name for the vast Hindi-language film industry (one of the world's largest film industries) in the world's largest democracy (India, for those of you playing along at home). The name is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (the former name of UsefulNotes/{{Mumbai}}, where it is based) and "UsefulNotes/{{Hollywood}}" created by white people, notably a Variety journalist but wholeheartedly embraced by the local film industry and the Indian public. There are also [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherwoods non-Hindi film industries]] based on other Indian languages such as Telugu ("Tollywood") and Tamil ("Kollywood"). Although these industries are huge, they don't receive much press and are not well known outside of India. The one exception of course is the Bengali film industry, whose independent film-makers, Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak went on to be influential across the world, with Creator/SatyajitRay being the first Indian (until music composer A. R. Rahman [[note]]Albeit not for an Indian film[[/note]]) to win an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

The main feature that ties Indian audiences however is the music and songs from popular Hindi movies, often [[CultureChopSuey in highly incongruous styles]] bind Indians the world over, and also some Hollywood movies (such as the opening of Creator/SpikeLee's ''Film/InsideMan''[[note]]It has A. R. Rahman's Chaiya Chaiya from ''Dil Se'', way before Rahman, the Mozart of Madras, became cool for ''Film/SlumdogMillionaire''[[/note]]). Where the music industry in America, England and France is essentially independent from the movies, in India they are practically the same thing and the music composer, singer and dance choreographer is as much a part of the film as the director and producer (and sometimes more). Indian musicals also differ from American ones in that they mainly feature non-specialist singers and dancers as compared to the classic musicals which had Broadway dancers and singers act before the camera. Playback singers are highly sought after, singers who sing for an actor in the soundstage while actors and actresses lip-synch before the camera (much like Nina Lamont insisted in ''Film/SinginInTheRain'' [[note]]In a bit of ValuesDissonance, Lamont insisting that Kathy Selden sing permanently, rather than perform as a movie star in her own right, is perfectly ''normal'' in India, differing only in that the industry and the public know that the actors and actresses don't do their own singing and "playback singers" are highly respected/coveted in their own right[[/note]]).

%%* SadBollywoodWedding

* FilmiMusic

* WellDoneSonGuy
* WhyWasteAWedding
* WorldOfHam

** ParentalMarriageVeto: All love marriages, especially the inter-class and inte-community and inter-religious ones will face opposition. Though the Parent eventually gives in and goes along with it anyway.
%%** ChildMarriageVeto
** PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: This is actually rarely shown, at least among the hero and heroine of the story, (the parents are shown to have one).

** YouAlwaysHearTheBullet: The ricochet sound effect is heard frequently when a shot is fired, even if the bullet doesn't bounce off anything.

* RelationshipUpgrade

* StoryWithinAStory

* TriangRelations

* AdaptationAmalgamation: * Often what is to expect when you have action or horror movie: they have a shortage of ideas in this so they produce tons of unofficial remakes (and they've started to have a shortage there, as well: ''Film/TheGodfather'' was remade at least 7 times, for example). A particular example is a movie named ''Commando'' (no, [[{{Film/Commando}} not that one]]) by Bubbar Subhash starring Mithun Chakraborti which combines ''Film/RomancingTheStone'' with ''Film/AmericanNinja''.