List of Indian film directors
India has many regional film centres, such as Bollywood (Hindi) in Mumbai, Marathi cinema in Pune Telugu cinema in Hyderabad, Tamil cinema in Chennai, Malayalam cinema in Kochi, Kannada cinema in Bangalore, Odia Cinema in Bhubaneswar and Bengali cinema in Kolkata . Most Indian film directors are known for their work with one regional industry, while many others are active directors of films from multiple industries.
Directors of parallel or independent cinema
Parallel Cinema is otherwise known as "Art films" cinema, and is known for its serious and realistic films with real-life situations. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian government financed a number of such films, on Indian themes. Many of the directors were graduates of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Ritwik Ghatak was a professor at the institute and a well-known director in his own right. The best-known Indian "neo-realist" is Satyajit Ray.
- Anurag Kashyap
- Dibakar Banerjee
- Mani Ratnam
- Ram Gopal Varma
- Onir
- Puneet Sira
- G Aravindan
- Jahnu Barua
- Shyam Benegal
- Sudhir Mishra
- T. V. Chandran
- Budhdhadeb Dasgupta
- Ajita Suchitra Veera
- Adoor Gopalakrishnan
- Ritwik Ghatak
- Rituparno Ghosh
- Tapan Sinha
- Sonali Gulati
- Prakash Jha
- Shaji N. Karun
- Vijay Singh
- Girish Kasaravalli
- Kalpana Lajmi
- Mira Nair
- Deepa Mehta
- Govind Nihalani
- Jabbar Patel
- Dadasaheb Phalke
- Sridhar Rangayan
- Satyajit Ray
- Bimal Roy
- Mani Ratnam
- Aparna Sen
- Mrinal Sen
- Partho Sen-Gupta
- V. Shantaram
- Suresh Joachim
- T. K. Rajeev Kumar
- Biju Viswanath
- Vijayakrishnan
- Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao
- Kasinadhuni Viswanath
- K. Raghavendra Rao
- Ganesh Acharya
- K. Balachander
- L. V. Prasad
- B. N. Reddy
- Bala
- Harpreet Sandhu (Actor)
- Joe Rajan
Active in multiple languages
The following is a list of film directors who have directed films from more than one regional film industry in India. This does not include directors who work in a single industry whose films have been dubbed into other languages.
| DIRECTOR | Assamese | Bengali | English | Bhojpuri | English | Gujarati | Hindi | Kannada | Malayalam | Marathi | Odia | Punjabi | Tamil | Telugu |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ram Gopal Varma | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||||||
| K. Raghavendra Rao | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||||||
| Dasari Narayana Rao | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| S. S. Rajamouli | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Puri Jagannath | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||
| S. Shankar | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Bharathan | Yes | |||||||||||||
| Basu Bhattacharya | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Gautham Menon | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||||||
| Girish Karnad | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Girish Kasaravalli | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Mani Ratnam | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||
| AR Murugadoss | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||||||
| Puttanna Kanagal | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Satish Rajwade | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Sachin Kundalkar | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Yogesh Dattatraya Gosavi | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Prasanta Nanda | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Hara Patnaik | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Radha Bharadwaj | ||||||||||||||
| Siddique | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||||||
| Mahesh Manjrekar | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Sunil Kumar Desai | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Upendra | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bengali film directors
- Satyajit Ray
- Srijit Mukherji
- Premankur Atorthy
- Bappaditya Bandopadhyay
- Riingo Banerjee
- Basu Bhattacharya
- Debaki Bose
- Nitin Bose
- Satyen Bose (director)
- Arjun Chakraborty
- Anjan Dutt
- Kushal Chakraborty
- Haranath Chakraborty
- Raj Chakraborty
- Basu Chatterjee
- Aniket Chattopadhaya
- Amar Choudhury
- Anjan Choudhury
- Buddhadev Dasgupta
- Chidananda Dasgupta
- Anjan Dutt
- Kaushik Ganguly
- Ritwik Ghatak
- Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri
- Atanu Ghosh
- Goutam Ghose
- Rituparno Ghosh
- Sujit Guha
- Goutam Halder
- Ravi Kinagi
- Tarun Majumdar
- Suman Mukhopadhyay
- Arin Paul
- Sandip Ray
- Tapan Sinha
- Bimal Roy
- Prabhat Roy
- Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury
- Swapan Saha
- Shakti Samanta
- Hiralal Sen
- Mrinal Sen
Marathi film directors
- Satish Motling
- Baburao Painter
- Shyam Benegal
- Jabbar Patel
- V. Shantaram
- Dadasaheb Phalke
- Dada Kondke
- Amol Palekar
- Nishikant Kamat
- Mahesh Kothare
- Sachin Pilgaonkar
- Mahesh Manjrekar
- Gajendra Ahire
- Pralhad Keshav Atre
- Ravi Jadhav
- P. L. Deshpande
- Satyadev Dubey
- Chandrakant Kulkarni
- Sachin Kundalkar
- Paresh Mokashi
- Yogesh Dattatraya Gosavi
- Bhalji Pendharkar
- Raja Paranjape
- Ram Gabale
- Ramesh Deo
- Satish Rajwade
- Sayaji Shinde
- Sanjay Surkar
- Suryakant Mandhare
- Smita Talwalkar
- Mrinal Kulkarni
- Dadasaheb Torne
- Vijay Gokhale
- Vishnupant Damle
- Sujay Dahake
- Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni
- Avdhoot Gupte
- Nitin Chandrakant Desai
- Ashutosh Gowarikar
- Amol Palekar
- Madhur Bhandarkar
- Amol Gupte
- Sandeep Sawant
- Anand Patwardhan
- Bhagwan Dada
- Master Vinayak
- N. Chandra
- Kunal Deshmukh
- Vishram Sawant
- Abhinay Deo
- Gauri Shinde
- Sachin Kundalkar
- Nagraj Manjule
- Dinkar D. Patil
- Rahul Sharma
Kannada film directors
- Upendra
- Yograj Bhat
- Duniya Soori
- Pawan Kumar
- Dinesh Baboo
- Nagathihalli Chandrasekhar
- B Ramamurthy
- G. V. Iyer
- B. S. Ranga
- Puttanna Kanagal
- Kashinath
- Girish Kasaravalli
- Girish Karnad
- S. V. Rajendra Singh Babu
- D. Rajendra Babu
- Sunil Kumar Desai
- Om Prakash Rao
- Baraguru Ramachandrappa
- Indrajith Lankesh
- Shankar Nag
- Prem
- T. N. Seetharam
- Suresh Krissna
- V. Ravichandran
- Preetham Gubbi
- Prashant Raj
- Roopa Iyer
- Kavita Lankesh
- R. Chandru
- A. M. R. Ramesh
- Rama Narayanan
- S. Narayan
- Dayal Padmanabhan
- Abhaya Simha
- P. Vasu
- Ramesh Aravind
- Mohan Shankar
- Tushar Ranganath
- Sudeep
- Shashank
- Sabapathy Dekshinamurthy
- Prakash Raj
- Sadhu Kokila
- Agni Shridhar
- Jayatheertha
Malayalam film directors
- John Abraham
- Aashiq Abu
- G. Aravindan
- Sathyan Anthikkad
- Dinesh Baboo
- P. A. Backer
- Bharathan
- T. V. Chandran
- Lal Jose
- T. K. Rajeev Kumar
- Fazil
- Adoor Gopalakrishnan
- K. G. George
- Hariharan
- Kamal
- Shaji Karun
- K. P. Kumaran
- Lal
- Lohithadas
- Joy Mathew
- Anjali Menon
- Balachandra Menon
- Gautham Menon
- P.N. Menon
- Mohan
- K. R. Mohanan
- M. T. Vasudevan Nair
- Amal Neerad
- P. Padmarajan
- Rajesh Pillai
- Dileesh Pothan
- Priyadarsan
- Alphonse Putharen
- Lenin Rajendran
- Anwar Rasheed
- Rajeev Ravi
- V.R. Sankar
- I. V. Sasi
- K. S. Sethumadhavan
- Shyamaprasad
- Siddique
- Sreenivasan
- Sameer Thahir
- Vijayakrishnan
- A. Vincent
Tamil film directors
- J. Mahendran
- Balu Mahendra
- Bala
- Mani Ratnam
- S.Shankar
- K. Balachander
- Ram
- Vetrimaaran
- Mysskin
- Selvaraghavan
- Thiagarajan Kumararaja
- Karthik Subbaraj
- Nalan Kumarasamy
- Kamal Hassan
- Bhagyaraj
- Gautham Menon
- Balaji Sakthivel
- C. V. Sridhar
- K. V. Anand
- John Abraham
- Jeeva
- Ameer Sultan
- Agathian
- Thangar Bachan
- Bharathan
- Bharathiraja
- A. Bhimsingh
- Cheran
- S. P. Jananathan
- Prabu Solomon
- S. P. Muthuraman
- Rajiv Menon
- AR Murugadoss
- A. P. Nagarajan
- M. Raja
- T. Rajendar
- Pa. Ranjith
- K.S. Ravikumar
- Rudraiya
- Samuthirakani
- Sasikumar
- Neelan.K.Sekar
- Santosh Sivan
- R. K. Selvamani
- Silambarasan
- P. C. Sreeram
- S. J. Surya
- Suseenthiran
- Vishnu Vardhan
- Vikraman
- Vasanthabalan
Telugu film directors
- Krishna Vamsi
- Teja (film director)
- Adurthi Subba Rao
- Priyadarshan
- R. Narayana Murthy
- Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao
- Bapu
- K. Vijaya Bhaskar
- Bhaskar
- YVS Chowdary
- Prabhu Deva
- Gunasekhar
- Jandhyala
- Puri Jagannadh
- Muppalaneni Shiva
- A. Karunakaran
- Sekhar Kammula
- S. V. Krishna Reddy
- Raghava Lawrence
- AR Murugadoss
- Neelakanta
- L. V. Prasad
- C. Pullaiah
- Vedantam Raghavaiah
- S. S. Rajamouli
- B. S. Ranga
- Dasari Narayana Rao
- K. Raghavendra Rao
- Katta Subba Rao
- S.Shivgopal Krishna
- A. Kodandarami Reddy
- Trivikram Srinivas
- Sukumar
- G. C. Sekhar
- Dr. K. Vishwanath
- Chandra Sekhar Yeleti
- Harish Shankar
- Maruthi