Alternate versions for
Sholay (1975) More at IMDbPro »

There has recently been a director's cut of Sholay shown on the asian u.k. satellite channel 'Zee TV', this has not been released up till now on cinemas. It contains the original ending director Ramesh Sippy intended that shows GabarSingh being killed at the hands of Thakur, instead of just being arrested by police. The film ran into problems with Indian Censors who claimed their rules about people taking the law into their own hands and not being punished for it was not permitted and may corrupt naive viewers; for this reason the ending of the film had to be re-shot for a 'U' Rating. Other unrated footage includes a more graphic footage of the fight between Gabar and Thakur in the film's ending, the subsequent pre-torture footage of a young village boy (showing Gabar's ruthlessness), Veeru dragging a bandit with a neck-noose galluping on horse- back, Ramlal fitting metal-spiked studs on Thakur's shoes, a village person on fire during a raid by Gabar.
Sholay was originally filmed in 70mm and in 4:3 ratio. It was released in cinemas in a matted 2.35:1 ratio from the original 4:3 print.
The 'original' cut version of the movie ran for 188 minutes and had about 16 minutes of footage removed from the end. The uncut version runs for 204 minutes.