'Pather Panchali' Features In Variety's '100 Greatest Movies Of All Time' List

Satyajit Ray's neo-realist classic, 'Pather Panchali', is the only Indian film to feature in 117-year-old 'Variety' magazine's first-ever '100 Greatest Movies of All Time' list. The list is important because it has been put together by more than 30 editors and writers of the magazine that invented the word 'showbiz'. They include Manori Ravindran, the London-based international executive editor and Rajinikanth's biographer and 'Variety' contributor Naman Ramachandran.

Topped by Alfred Hitchcock's slasher masterpiece, 'Psycho' (1960), the list's top five movies are 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939), 'The Godfather' (1972), 'Citizen Kane' (1941) and 'Pulp Fiction' (1994).

Also included are memorable classics that are on the syllabus of every respectable film institute - from Charlie Chaplin's 'City Lights' to 'Casablanca', 'The Rules of the Game', 'Singin' in the Rain', 'All About Eve', 'It's a Wonderful Life' and 'Seven Samurai'.

What makes the list a collector's item is that it provides a link to the review carried by 'Variety' at the time of the release of each of the included films.

In their comment on why they included 'Pather Panchali' (ranked number 55), the jury noted, "Long before Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood', there was Satyajit Ray's exquisitely paced and structured Apu Trilogy, the holy peak of all chaptered coming-of-age narratives. Restrained but also universally relatable, the Bengali filmmaker's debut is the first of those three movies, that put Indian cinema on the international art-house map. Like a regional riff on Italian Neorealism, the inherently humanist 'Pather Panchali' is both a loving portrait of a mostly matriarchal upbringing and an awe-inspiring vision of rural life, as reflected through the impressionable eyes of its young protagonist. The film's captivating images include chasing after a passing train and playing in a monsoon, which add up to a pure and soul-nourishing experience."