Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

A Mumbai teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"

Directors:

Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan (co-director)

Writers:

Simon Beaufoy (screenplay), Vikas Swarup (novel)

Stars:

Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Saurabh Shukla

Won 8 Oscars. Another 146 wins & 129 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dev Patel	...	Older Jamal
Saurabh Shukla	...	Sergeant Srinivas
Anil Kapoor	...	Prem
Raj Zutshi	...	Director
Jeneva Talwar	...	Vision Mixer
Freida Pinto	...	Older Latika
Irrfan Khan	...	Police Inspector
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail	...	Youngest Salim
Ayush Mahesh Khedekar	...	Youngest Jamal
Jira Banjara	...	Airport Security Guard (as Hira Banjara)
Sheikh Wali	...	Airport Security Guard
Mahesh Manjrekar	...	Javed
Sanchita Choudhary	...	Jamal's Mother
Himanshu Tyagi	...	Mr Nanda
Sharib Hashmi	...	Prakash

Storyline

The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's Kaun Banega Crorepati? (2000) (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really ...

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Plot Keywords:

papadum | india | prostitute | murder | television show | 

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Taglines:

The boy who had the answer to every question.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some violence, disturbing images and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [UK]

Country:

UK India

Language:

English Hindi French German

Release Date:

25 December 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Slumdog Millionaire

Filming Locations:

India

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$360,018, 16 November 2008

Gross USA:

$141,319,928

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$377,910,544

Company Credits

Production Co:

Celador Films, Film4, Warner Bros.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup wrote his debut novel 'Q and A' after he was inspired by Professor Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiment, which set up computer kiosks in Indian slums so that anyone could use them and have access to the Internet. The novel was then adapted into the screenplay of Slumdog Millionaire. The Hole in the Wall experiment has gone on to become Hole in the Wall Education Limited (HiWEL), which has 300 kiosks available to over 300,000 children in India and several African countries.

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Goofs

When Javed says, "The cricket is on," and switches the TV channel away from "Who wants to be a millionaire?", it is obviously a rugby game that he switches over too, yet on the TV in the next room it is actually cricket.

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Quotes

Police Inspector: Well, well. The slumdog barks.

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Crazy Credits

Several of the cast perform a traditional Bollywood song and dance number set in a train station over the end credits.

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Connections

Featured in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Million Dollar Movie Week 1 (2010)

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Soundtracks

Millionaire
Music by A.R. Rahman
Performed by Madhumita

User Reviews

Over-rated! Slum Dog should not win the Best Picture

Good movie, but Christ, it is over rated. It shouldn't get best picture, it really was not that entirely original or innovative. I am just so upset because it was good, maybe even great, but it was not anything that should win best picture or be in the top 30 movies of all time...I mean, seriously, the top 30? Wow, there are so many better films than this. There was not any part in it where I stopped and was like, "That's great, never been done before or at least has never been done that well." I don't know, even the ending was like, what the hell? I guess you could call it fairy-tale, because it definitely was not realistic...it didn't even really follow the themes of the movie, that greed and money is not what's important. He should have lost and felt content anyway because he got his love, it would have better made the point I suppose.