Awaara

Awaara, directed by and starring Raj Kapoor, with a screenplay by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, is an Indian classic also featuring Nargis and Kapoor's own father, Prithviraj Kapoor. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix, the top prize at the time, at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival (the Palme d'Or had not yet been created). It opened in the Soviet Union in 1954 and reached 64 million viewers in its initial run, an unprecedented success for any Soviet or foreign film at the time; Raj Kapoor and Nargis's popularity in the region has been compared in some sources to the era's Beatlemania. The film was included in Time magazine's 2012 list of the All Time 100 Movies. Who it's for: anyone curious about an Indian classic tracing how a judge's conviction of an innocent man shapes his own son's fate years later, and which broke unprecedented audience records in the Soviet Union. Who it's not for: viewers wanting something short and simple, since the film blends crime drama, romance, and musical sequences.