following on my brief comments on indian art cinema in anothe thread i thought i’d make some recommendations of bollywood films for the benefit of those who might be interested in a somewhat structured experience of the industry. first, a little definitional clarification: “bollywood” refers to the popular bombay hindi film industry. it is not a catch-all term for any indian cinema (as it is often used in american circles) and nor are people like gurinder chadha or mira nair bollywood filmmakers. these people use certain bollywood conventions in some of their films (nair entirely exploitatively/exotically) but they’re no more bollywood than someone like baz luhrman in “moulin rouge”. second clarification: this list, sorted by decade, is restricted to what’s available from netflix. i can expand it to other titles as well if people are interested (i am not sure if netflix is a good indicator of availability) . this is, of course, an idiosyncratic, highly personal list. as it should be. not sure which of these will “translate”–take your chances.