Roti

Judgement of Allah

Set in the Ottoman Empire, it deals with the Caesar's (Pande) army and its skirmishes with the local Muslim rulers. The Sultan's (Asooji) son Ziyad (Kumar) is arrested by the Roman army. The Roman princess Rahil falls in love with him. A Muslim maid Leela (Sitara Devi) and the princess help him escape. Long chase scenes and fights follow, which ultimately lead to success for Ziyad and his people.

Watan

Ostensibly a Central Asian war fantasy about a conflict between the Cossacks and the Tartars, Mehboob’s film proposes a tale advocating national independence. The Cossacks are oppressed by the despotic Russian king (Siddiqui) and his minister Jabir (Kayamali), who has Tartar blood in him. General Murad (Kumar) covertly sides with the opposition, gets arrested for treason and escapes. He meets the wild Gulnar (Sitara Devi) and gets her to spy as a maid of Princess Nigar (Bibbo). Nigar falls for Murad and Gulnar withdraws from the scene for the sake of her nation. Eventually Nigar, at the head of an army of women, helps defeat the villains.

Garib

An unemployed graduate uses his charm to help a blind beggar. He then falls for a rich heiress and convinces her industrialist father to open a factory for the poor. It's a success, but a jealous fiancé tries to shut it all down and frame our hero. Can truth prevail and save the struggling community from returning to poverty?

Vengeance Is Mine

Film starring Sitara Devi and Kumar.

Taqdeer

In between his more ambitious Najma (1943) and Humayun (1945), Mehboob made this lightweight comedy about Justice Gangaprasad (Chandramohan) and theatre-owner Seth Badriprasad (Charlie) who lose their daughter and son respectively in the Kumbh Mela.

Manmohan

A social woman-centered film interrogating aspects of feudal patriarchy. The painter Ashok (Surendra) who loves the orphaned Vimala (Bibbo) is distressed to learn that she is due to marry Jagdish (Yakub). He paints Vimala's portraits with a frenzied obsession and becomes a famous artist. Paralleling this love story is the decline in Ashok's family fortunes.

Prarthana

An early Indian film explored themes of faith, hope, societal struggles, and the role of prayer or devotion in overcoming adversity

We Three

Mehboob presents the autonomous passion of Leela (Rose) for Moti (Motilal) who is promised to another woman, Bina (Maya). Leela is portrayed as irresponsible and impulsive as she acknowledges her desire for Moti and has a child by him. Bina then releases Moti from his promise. Moti suffers when he is told by Bina’s father (Sankantha) that she is dead, while Leela’s father (Pande) enjoins his daughter to commit suicide if Moti does not marry her. In spite of the film’s endorsement of ‘traditional’, lethally oppressive patriarchal mores, incarnated by the women’s fathers, Mehboob’s narrative at least dares to depict a woman who refuses to feel guilty about her desire.

Jagirdar

The follow-up to Manmohan (1936) again starred Surendra and Bibbo. She is Neela, he plays Jagirdar Surendra. They secretly marry and have a child. When Jagirdar is presumed dead in a shipwreck, the child is considered illegitimate. The poor peasant Shripat (Pande) helps Neela by marrying her and raising her son Ramesh (Motilal). The husband eventually returns and violently quarrels with Shripat about who ‘owns’ Neela. When the villain Banwarilal kills Shripat, the husband is framed for the killing. The real problem, however, is the son’s rejection of his father, solved when together they face the gangsters in Narayanlal’s (Yakub) den.

Bahen

Having saved his little sister Bina (Baby Meena Kumari) from the floods, Amar (Sheikh Mukhtar) becomes increasingly possessive about her over the years. Amar falls in love twice but forgoes marriage so he can look after the growing Bina. Bina (Nalini Jaywant), now a grown up young girl falls in love with the social activist Rajendra (Harish). However, Amar can not bear to lose Bina and so he plans her marriage to the thief Moti Kanhaiyalal, with the idea that he'll get her divorced after some time and then Bina would stay with him always. After several incidents that end up uniting Rajendra and Bina, Amar gets some happiness when a daughter is born to Bina.

Zarina

An early Indian sound film, Zarina is a dramatic tale featuring Zubeida as a vibrant and passionate circus girl. The film explores a bold romance that reportedly pushed the boundaries of on-screen intimacy for its era, leading to early censorship debates.

Son of India

The film is based on an incredible true story about a village woman who gets lost at a railway station and waits fourteen years for her husband to come.

Anokhi Ada

A traumatized beautiful woman loses her memory in a train accident.

Anmol Ghadi

Childhood sweethearts from opposing social standings are separated when one's family moves elsewhere, leaving behind only a watch as a token of their friendship. Years later, as adults, they strive to meet again.

Mother India

A poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

Amar

A delicately nuanced psychological drama, exploring a 3-way relationship between the main characters and the crisis of conscience that rocks it. A prosperous, well-respected lawyer, in love with and engaged to an educated, socially-conscious young woman, rapes a poor local village milkmaid. The rest of the story deals with the aftermath of this tragic event, with all the inevitable undercurrents of guilt, penitence and pervasive heartbreak that stem from it.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Per her mother's last wish, an 8 year old girl sets out to reunite her father with his college best friend who was in love with him.

Pad Man

Upon realizing the extent to which women are affected by their menses, a man sets out to create a sanitary pad machine and to provide inexpensive sanitary pads to the women of rural India.

Dev.D

The son of a wealthy businessman finds solace in drugs and alcohol when he breaks up with his childhood love.

Company

Mallik is a henchman of Aslam Bhai, a Mumbai underworld kingpin. He inducts local hothead Chandu into the gang, and the two of them soon form a formidable faction within the gang, eventually displacing Aslam. As the empire grows, however, the two of them start drifting apart.

Guru

A villager, Gurukant Desai, arrives in Bombay in 1958, and rises from its streets to become the biggest tycoon in India.

Swades

A successful Indian scientist returns home to his village to take his nanny back to America with him, and in the process rediscovers his roots.

Kismat Konnection

Raj Malhotra is a luckless architect who seeks success but in vain. He bumps into a social activist named Priya. Raj finds out that Priya is a lucky charm for him but unfortunately she is protecting the community center for which he aims to win the contract of demolishing for a brand new shopping mall.