Top Ranked Films of Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray
5 titles, 84th in points with 9,953


Satyajit Ray is India’s most famous filmmaker, and might appropriately be called the Father of Indian Cinema. Just before his death, he received an honorary Oscar for his life’s work. After his death, hundreds of thousands of Indians gathered around his house in respect. Many other filmmakers outside of India are said to have been either influenced by his work or praised it, among them Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Elia Kazan, Abbas Kiarostami, Carlos Suara, and Danny Boyle.

These are all the films of classic Indian director Satyajit Ray that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of theTop Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

1. Pather Panchali / Apu Trilogy I (1955) #62 Most polls list the films separately, as they should be, but one poll had the trilogy ranked as one film. I couldn’t figure out how to divide the points, so I added them to the first film, but the position isn’t as important as getting the films listed. I guess I could have split the trilogy pts among all three films, so each of the three would have been helped a little.
2. World of Apu, The (1959) #297 The 3rd Apu film, that complete the trilogy
3. Aparajito (1956) #442 The 2nd Apu film, the title means “The Unvanquished”
4. Music Room, The (1958) #582
5. Charulata (1964) #698

Out of the top 1000
6. Days and Nights in the Forest (1970) #1564

I’ve yet to be able to rent the Apu Trilogy in the U.S. For some odd reason, Netflix chooses not to carry the most famous films in Indian history, and I’m not in a position to simply buy them new sight unseen. Maybe one day Netflix will get their head out of their pocket and their hand out of ours and become truly cultural. Until then, they are about as valuable as television to the history of cinema.

For those who would like a detailed expose of his life’s work, check out the elaborate and complete listing at Wikipedia

See the full list of top ranked 100 directors here: Top Ranked 100 Directors, 2011 Edition