Rituparno Ghosh: His Films in Order and Where to Begin

Every Rituparno Ghosh film from Hirer Angti to Satyanweshi, and which one to watch first

Rituparno Ghosh's films begin with Hirer Angti (1992) and end with Satyanweshi, released in September 2013, three months after his death. If you are starting out, begin with Unishe April (1994), the film that made his name, and then choose between Utsab, Dosar and Chokher Bali depending on whether you want a family, a marriage or a period drama.

He was born in Calcutta on 31 August 1963, worked as an advertising copywriter at Response India before he made films, and died in Kolkata on 30 May 2013, of a heart attack, at 49. In about twenty years he directed some twenty films, most in Bengali, one in Hindi and one in English, and changed what the Bengali middle-class drama could hold. Here are the Rituparno Ghosh films in order, with a line on each and a place to begin.

The films in order

Hirer Angti (1992). His first film, from a Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay story. A stranger arrives at a wealthy house during its Durga Puja and claims to be the family's lost heir.

Unishe April (1994). A classical dancer (Aparna Sen) and her daughter (Debashree Roy), a doctor, who has never forgiven her for choosing dance over family. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film, and Debashree Roy won Best Actress.

Dahan (1997). A young wife is assaulted on a Kolkata street; a schoolteacher who intervenes becomes a public heroine while the victim is blamed at home. From a Suchitra Bhattacharya story, with Rituparna Sengupta and Indrani Haldar, who shared the National Film Award for Best Actress. It also won Best Feature Film in Bengali and Best Screenplay.

Asukh (1999). A film star (Debashree Roy) whose mother falls ill, and who begins, wrongly, to suspect her father (Soumitra Chatterjee). It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali.

Bariwali (2000). Kirron Kher as Banalata, a lonely woman whose big house is taken over by a film crew and who half falls for the director. Kirron Kher won the National Film Award for Best Actress.

Utsab (2000). A family gathers at its ancestral house for Durga Puja while the house itself is up for sale. Ghosh won the National Film Award for Best Director.

Titli (2002). A teenage girl (Konkona Sen Sharma) with a crush on a film star (Mithun Chakraborty) discovers that her mother (Aparna Sen) once loved the same man.

Shubho Mahurat (2003). Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side moved to a Kolkata film set, with Sharmila Tagore, Raakhee and Nandita Das. It won Best Feature Film in Bengali, and Raakhee won Best Supporting Actress.

Chokher Bali (2003). Tagore's 1903 novel, with Aishwarya Rai as the widow Binodini, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Raima Sen and Tota Roy Chowdhury. It competed at Locarno and won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali.

Raincoat (2004, Hindi). O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi retold as the reunion of two former lovers, played by Ajay Devgn and Aishwarya Rai. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi.

Antarmahal (2005). A landlord in late nineteenth-century Bengal, his two wives and the young sculptor making the family's Durga idol, from a Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay story, with Jackie Shroff, Roopa Ganguly, Soha Ali Khan and Abhishek Bachchan.

Dosar (2006). In black and white. A car accident kills a man's mistress and leaves him to win back his wife's trust. Prosenjit Chatterjee won a National Film Award Special Mention, and Konkona Sen Sharma plays the wife.

The Last Lear (2007, English). Amitabh Bachchan as an old Shakespearean actor, from Utpal Dutt's play Aajker Shahjahan, with Preity Zinta and Arjun Rampal. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in English.

Khela (2008).

Shob Charitro Kalponik (2008 or 2009, sources differ).

Abohomaan (2010). A celebrated film director falls for a young actress who looks like his wife when she was young. Ghosh won Best Director for the second time, Ananya Chatterjee won Best Actress, and it won Best Feature Film in Bengali.

Noukadubi (2011). Tagore's 1906 novel of a boating accident and a mistaken marriage, set in the 1920s, with Jisshu Sengupta, Riya Sen, Raima Sen and Prosenjit Chatterjee.

Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish (2012). Ghosh plays Rudra, a choreographer staging Tagore's Chitrangada who decides to transition. It won a Special Jury Award at the National Film Awards.

Satyanweshi (2013). His Byomkesh Bakshi film, from Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Chorabali, with the director Sujoy Ghosh as Byomkesh and Anindya Chatterjee as Ajit. Ghosh had shot most of it before he died, and his team finished it. It was released on 6 September 2013.

Two more titles complete the list. Sunglass, in Hindi, is dated 2010 or 2013 depending on the source, and Jeevan Smriti (2013) is a documentary. He also acted, notably in Arekti Premer Golpo and Memories in March, both in 2011.

Where to begin

Start with Unishe April. It is short on incident and long on feeling, and it is the film that established him: a Best Feature Film award for a second feature, in 1995. The critic Shubhra Gupta wrote that he "displayed a rare understanding of human nature" and "was fearless when it came to emotion", and this is the film where you see it most plainly.

Then choose by taste. For a family, Utsab. For a marriage, Dosar. For period, Chokher Bali. For something lighter, Shubho Mahurat, which is a straight Christie whodunit. For the late, personal Ghosh, Chitrangada, in which he plays the lead himself.

Threads to follow

Once you have seen a few, the films start to talk to each other, and following a thread is a good way through the rest.

Actors. Ghosh returned to the same people. Prosenjit Chatterjee is in Utsab, Chokher Bali, Dosar and Noukadubi, and the run shows a popular star being given very different work. Debashree Roy leads Unishe April and Asukh. Aparna Sen is the mother in both Unishe April and Titli. Raima Sen appears in Chokher Bali, Noukadubi and Chitrangada.

Tagore. Chokher Bali, Noukadubi and Chitrangada form his Tagore films, two novels and one film about staging a Tagore work, and they are worth seeing in that order.

Durga Puja. Hirer Angti, Utsab and Antarmahal all turn on the festival: a stranger at the family Puja, a family gathered at the ancestral house, and a landlord who wants Queen Victoria's face on the Durga idol.

Houses. Many of these films are set mostly inside one house, from the dancer's home in Unishe April to Banalata's mansion in Bariwali and the zamindar's inner rooms in Antarmahal. Ghosh made the Bengali interior his country.

Awards, and why the count varies

Wikipedia credits him with twelve National Film Awards over his career. Counts differ between sources, because some tally only the awards he received himself (for example Best Director for Utsab and for Abohomaan) while others include awards to his films and to his actors. We have not found a single authoritative list, so treat any one number with caution.

Aishwarya Rai and Byomkesh

Aishwarya Rai starred in two of his films: Chokher Bali (2003), as Binodini, and Raincoat (2004), opposite Ajay Devgn. He directed one Byomkesh Bakshi film, Satyanweshi (2013), his last feature.

Where to watch

Streaming rights for his films change often and differ between services. Each film's page on Cholochitro Diary lists dated streaming links, and it is the best place to check first.