India is home to one of the largest film industries in the world. Every year thousands of movies are produced in India. Indian film industry comprises of Hindi films, regional movies and art cinema. The Indian film industry is supported mainly by a vast film-going Indian public, though Indian films have been gaining increasing popularity in the rest of the world, especially in countries with large number of emigrant Indians. India is a large country where many languages are spoken.

Many of the larger languages support their own film industry. Some of the popular regional film industries in India are Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Punjabi. The Hindi/Urdu film industry based in Mumbai formerly Bombay is called Bollywood. Similar neologisms have been coined for the Tamil film industry Kollywood and the Telugu film industry. Tollygunge is metonym for the Bengali film industry, long centered in the Tollygunge district of Kolkata. The Bengali language industry is notable as having nurtured the director Satyajit Ray, an internationally renowned filmmaker and a winner of many awards.

The Bollywood industry is the largest in terms of films produced and box office receipts, just as Urdu/Hindi speakers outnumber speakers of other Indian languages. Many workers in other regional industries once established generally move to Bollywood for greater spotlight or opportunity. An interesting example of this phenomenon is the famous music director A.R. Rahman. He started his career in Tamil film industry and later moved to the Bollywood.

A cinema hall in Delhi India is a large country where many languages are spoken. According to the 1991 Census of India there are about 10,400 ‘raw mother tongues’ in India. If closely related and mutually comprehensible dialects are grouped, the number can be reduced to 1576 ‘rationalised’ mother tongues, or with even more consolidation,114 main languages. These 114 languages are the ones surveyed in the Indian census. Indian film producers have made films in thirty of the largest languages. However, only the very largest language groups support major regional industries. These are: Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam.

Official statistics categorise Indian films according to the languages in which they are distributed. There is a great deal of mobility between the regional industries. Many workers in other regional industries, once their talent and popularity is established move on to work in other film industries nationally as well as internationally. For example, A. R. Rahman, one of the best known film music composers in Indian cinema, started his career in Tamil cinema in Chennai but has since worked in Bollywood, London and New York. Similarly, films that succeed in one language are often remade or dubbed in others. Films like Padosan and Roja for example were re-made or dubbed from their original Bengali and Tamil versions respectively, into Hindi. The Tollywood industry is the largest (243 Movies a year) in terms of films produced and box office receipts.

Distinctions between regional cinemas may be eroding with the new practice of simulaneous release in several languages. Producers used to be highly cost-conscious they would only pay to have a film dubbed into another language if it had been a hit in the first language. Dubbed films were always later rereleases. Now film-makers are releasing versions in multiple languages simultaneously. One journalist credits this innovation to the Telugu movie industry. It has been picked up by Bollywood as well.