Category:Bollywood

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 Mumbai, where it is based) and "Hollywood" created by white people, notably a Variety journalist. There are also 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.

Hindi films tend to be musicals. The average Hindi movie is three hours long (some are much longer) because most of them draw inspiration from old-school Hollywood epics as well as the narrative epics of Hinduism. Many movies will incorporate themes from India's major religions (such as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Sikhism) as well as values common to Indian society to illustrate how they might clash with individualism or Western values. Many of the Hindi films are a form of escapist entertainment.

Not to be confused with Bollywood Nerd, although both come from India.