The cinema of India consists of films produced in the nation of India.[7] Cinema is immensely popular in India, with as many as 1,600 films produced in various languages every year.[8][9] Indian cinema produces more films watched by more people than any other country; in 2011, over 3.5 billion tickets were sold across India, 900,000 more than Hollywood. Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad are the major centres of film production in India.
As of 2013, India ranked first in terms of annual film output, followed by Nollywood,[8][10] Hollywood and China.[11] In 2012, India produced 1,602 feature films.[8] The Indian film industry reached overall revenues of $1.86 billion (₹93 billion) in 2011. In 2015, India had a total box office gross of US$2.1 billion,[5][12] third largest in the world.
The overall revenue of Indian cinema reached US$1.3 billion in 2000.[13] The industry is segmented by language. The Hindi language film industry is known as Bollywood, the largest sector, representing 43% of box office revenue. The combined revenue of the Telugu and Tamil film industries represent 36%.[14] The South Indian film industry encompasses five film cultures: Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Tulu. Another prominent film culture is Bengali cinema, which was largely associated with the parallel cinema movement, in contrast to the masala films more prominent in Bollywood and Telugu films at the time.
Indian cinema is a global enterprise.[15] Its films have a following throughout Southern Asia and across Europe, North America, Asia, the Greater Middle East, Eastern Africa, China and elsewhere, reaching in over 90 countries.[16] Biopics including Dangal became transnational blockbusters grossing over $300 million worldwide.[17] Millions of Indians overseas watch Indian films, accounting for some 12% of revenues.[18] Music rights alone account for 4–5% of net revenues.[13]
Global enterprises such as Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures[19][20] and Warner Bros. invested in the industry along with Indian enterprises such as AVM Productions, Prasad's Group, Sun Pictures, PVP Cinemas, Zee, UTV, Suresh Productions, Eros International, Ayngaran International, Pyramid Saimira, Aascar Films and Adlabs. By 2003 as many as 30 film production companies had been listed in the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE).[21]
