SHOLAY
I watched Sholay for the Nth time this weekend and enjoyed it just as much as I have on previous viewings. Sholay is perhaps India's most successful and memorable film of all time. The movie has several assets, which I have tried to rank as follows. Multi-super-star cast including Dharminder Deol (Veeru), Amitabh Bachchan (Jai), Sanjeev Kumar (Thakur), Amjad Khan (Gabbar), Hema Malini (Basanti), Jaya Bahaduri (Radha), Govardhan Asrani (Jailor), Helen, Sachin (Ahmed), Keshto Mukherjee (Hariram), Om Shivpuri, Mac Mohan (Sambha), Jagdeep (Soorma Bhopali) and many more. Stupendous writing (story and script) by the Salim-Javed pair (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar). Tremendous music by Rahul Dev Burman. Superb direction by Ramesh Sippy. Among intangible reasons for the movie's success is the daring and tragic move to allow the co-leading character, Jai, to perish -- thereby causing Radha to be widowed a second time around. Furthermore, I've taken great pains to list below