Links to the Hindi movie collections for the periods covered in this section:
1950s 1960s 1950s & 1960s (All) 1950s & 1960s GEMs
Commentary:
The 1950s represent the beginning of the Golden Age of Hindi cinema (which had actually started a year earlier, in 1949).
1950, the first year of the decade, was a lean year for notable Hindi movies, almost as if the industry was taking a breather after 1949, which was a watershed in the history of Hindi films as detailed here. I could not find a single movie from that year worth including on my list. However, starting in 1951, the creative process for Hindi films jumped to a whole new level, and the quality of the movies produced over the next three decades (until the culmination of the Golden Age) was simply unmatchable.
The triumvirate of Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor cemented their dominance as the leading lights of the industry, along with Ashok Kumar, Nargis and Madhubala. In addition to these, a galaxy of stars and producers/directors made their mark in the 1950s and 1960s:
1950s
- [Male stars] Balraj Sahni, Guru Dutt, Kishore Kumar, Raaj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt
- [Female stars] Asha Parekh, Mala Sinha, Meena Kumari, Nutan, Suchitra Sen, Vyjayantimala, Waheeda Rehman
- [Producers/Directors] B.R. Chopra, Bimal Roy, Dev Anand (Navketan), Guru Dutt, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Nasir Hussain, Raj Khosla, Sashadhar & Subodh Mukherjee, Shakti Samanta, Vijay Anand, Yash Chopra
1960s
- [Male stars] Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Manoj Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Shashi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar
- [Female stars] Babita, Hema Malini, Leena Chandavarkar, Mumtaz, Nanda, Sadhana, Saira Banu, Sharmila Tagore, Tanuja
- [Producers/Directors] Asit Sen, G.P. Sippy, J. Om Prakash, Prakash Mehra, Tarachand Barjatya (Rajshri Productions)
(This period also marked the emergence of character actors like Ajit, Pran and Premnath, who often acted as villains but had the same name recognition as the actors in the lead roles.)
The above roster reads like a Who’s Who of legendary stars and movie makers of the Hindi film industry, and most of them continued their amazing work into the 1970s until the conclusion of the Golden Age.