Sholay (1975)
Two small-time crooks, a retired policeman with a score to settle, and the most famous villain in Hindi cinema.
- Year
- 1975
- Language
- Hindi
- Director
- Ramesh Sippy
- Starring
- Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri, Amjad Khan
- Also
- Written by Salim–Javed · Music by R. D. Burman
The story
A retired police officer, Thakur Baldev Singh, hires two charming petty criminals, Jai and Veeru, to help him capture the bandit Gabbar Singh, who terrorises the village of Ramgarh. Over the course of the film the pair become part of the village: Veeru falls for the talkative tonga driver Basanti, while the quiet Jai is drawn to the Thakur's widowed daughter-in-law, Radha.
The film mixes friendship, comedy, romance and action, and builds slowly towards the reason the Thakur wants Gabbar so badly. It is long, at more than three hours, but it moves.
Why it matters
- Gabbar Singh, played by Amjad Khan in his breakthrough role, became the template for the Hindi film villain. His lines are still quoted across India.
- The friendship of Jai and Veeru, and the song "Yeh Dosti", made it the defining buddy film of Hindi cinema.
- It was shot in the rocky hills of Ramanagara near Bengaluru, which gave it the look of a Western.
- It ran for about five years at the Minerva cinema in Mumbai.
Where to watch
Sholay is widely available on licensed streaming services and is regularly shown on Indian TV movie channels. Availability changes from country to country and month to month; see how to find a legal stream. Please don't use pirate download sites: they are illegal in India and a common source of malware.
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