Cinema of West Bengal, also known as Tollywood or Bengali cinema, is a part of Indian cinema. It is based in the Tollygunge region of Kolkata, West Bengal, and is dedicated to the production of films in the Bengali-language. The Indian Bengali film industry has been known by the nickname Tollywood, a blend word of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, since 1932.[1] In the 1930s, West Bengal was the centre of Indian cinema, and Bengali cinema accounted for a quarter of India's film output in the 1950s.[1][2] A 2014 industry report noted that while approximately 100 films were produced annually in Bengali, fewer than ten percent were financially successful.[3] The Bengali film industry, which was valued at around ₹120–150 crore in terms of revenue in 2014, has declined over the years, with its valuation dropping to ₹66 crore in 2023.[4][5]
This ranking lists the highest-grossing Indian Bengali films produced by Bengali cinema, based on conservative global box office estimates as reported by organizations classified as green by Wikipedia.[a] The figures are not adjusted for inflation. However, there is no official tracking of figures, and sources publishing data are frequently pressured to increase their estimates.
^The franchise gross is calculated using the lowest reported gross for each film in the franchise.
References
^ abSarkar, Bhaskar (2008). "The Melodramas of Globalization". Cultural Dynamics. 20: 34. doi:10.1177/0921374007088054. S2CID143977618. Madhava Prasad traces the origin of the term to a 1932 article in the American Cinematographer by Wilford E. Deming, an American engineer who apparently helped produce the first Indian sound picture. At this point, the Calcutta suburb of Tollygunje was the main center of film production in India. Deming refers to the area as Tollywood, since it already boasted two studios with 'several more projected' (Prasad, 2003) 'Tolly', rhyming with 'Holly', got hinged to 'wood' in the Anglophone Indian imagination, and came to denote the Calcutta studios and, by extension, the local film industry. Prasad surmises: 'Once Tollywood was made possible by the fortuitous availability of a half-rhyme, it was easy to clone new Hollywood babies by simply replacing the first letter' (Prasad, 2003).
^"The India Magazine of Her People and Culture". The India Magazine of Her People and Culture. 16. A. H. Advani: 16. 1995. In 30 years, Apur Sansar and Teen Kanya have earned Rs 75 to 80 lakh for their Indian distributors.
