Sholay (1975)

After his family is murdered by a notorious and ruthless bandit, a former police officer enlists the services of two outlaws to capture the bandit.

Director:

Ramesh Sippy

Writers:

Javed Akhtar (as Salim-Javed), Salim Khan (as Salim-Javed)

Stars:

Sanjeev Kumar, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan

Top Rated Indian Movies #48 | 2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sanjeev Kumar	...	Thakur Baldev Singh
Dharmendra	...	Veeru
Amitabh Bachchan	...	Jai
Amjad Khan	...	Gabbar Singh
Hema Malini	...	Basanti
Jaya Bhaduri	...	Radha
A.K. Hangal	...	Imaam Saheb
Satyendra Kapoor	...	Ramlal (as Satyen Kappu)
Iftekhar	...	Narmalaji (Radha's father)
Leela Mishra	...	Mausie (as Leela Misra)
Vikas Anand	...	Jailer assigned to bring Veeru & Jaidev
Mac Mohan	...	Sambha
Keshto Mukherjee	...	Hariram
Sachin	...	Ahmed
Alankar Joshi	...	Deepak (as Master Alankar)

Storyline

Sholay means embers in Hindi. In this particular movie, a Police Officer, who's family was killed by a bandit named Gabbar Singh, decides to fight fire with fire and recruits two convicts, Jai and Veeru to capture Gabbar. He approaches them in jail, puts the proposal in front of them, and they agree to bring in Gabbar Singh alive - for a hefty price. After their discharge from jail, they travel by train to the village where the Police Officer lives - now with only his widowed daughter-in-law. The three band together to fight one of the most elusive and dreaded bandits of all time. Will the two ex-cons be able to bring Gabbar alive to the Police Officer?

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Plot Keywords:

cult film | melodrama | low budget film | police | bandit | 

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Taglines:

The greatest star cast ever assembled.......The greatest story ever told

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Musical | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Release Date:

15 August 1975 (India)

Also Known As:

Embers

Filming Locations:

Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Company Credits

Production Co:

NH Studioz

Technical Specs

Runtime:

198 min 204 min (director's cut) 246 min (rough cut)

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) Mono (35 mm prints) Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Amit's song "Daaku" was a remix of several Gabbar Singh's dialogue's. This was released in the international album The Parallel.

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Goofs

Thakur's home does not have electricity, but the village has an overhead tank which needs electricity to fill the tank. Thakur being the richest person in the village does not have electricity, so how does the village have an overhead tank?

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Quotes

[first lines]
Jailer: Errr... Thakur sahib?

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Alternate Versions

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.

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Connections

Referenced in Darling (2010)

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Soundtracks

Koi Haseena
Performed by Kishore Kumar
Lyrics by Anand Bakshi
Music by Rahul Dev Burman

User Reviews

Plain Excellent

This movie is just the best movie i have seen. (I have watched around 570 movies) (Its my favorite movie).It has all the elements that a good movie must have:

Excellent Dialogues.

Excellent Music.

Excellent Acting. (Even the extra's where excellent)

Excellent Story/Plot.

Good Songs.

And it has much genres, who are handled very well in this movie: Action/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Adventure/Thriller (not really, but a kind of Thriller)/Musical/Crime. Each word of this movie is excellent. I think it has the greatest story ever! I was hurted when i came to know that Mr. Ram Gopal Varma is remaking this classic... Despite becoming the most successful film of its time, it failed to win any major popular or critics awards. The lone Filmfare award it got went to M.S. Shinde for Best editing. The plot is about a retired police officer Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar) who hires two convicts Veeru and Jai (Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan) to capture Gabbar Singh (a Dacoit) who had killed the cop's entire family (except the cop and his daughter-in-law).

Who has not seen this movie, try it once, you will love it. *****