Feature films in India have a legacy of more than ten decades starting from the first silent film Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke in 1913 where the female characters were also played by male artists. After more than 15 years, the first talkie film Alam Ara was made by Ardeshir Irani in 1931. Thereafter, the realm of feature films expanded. Parallel cinema also got established simultaneously during the 1940s to 1960s which emphasized presenting art and social realism. This period was the Golden Age of Indian Cinema as the commercial cinema also flourished during these times. While Commercial films like Pyaasa, Kagaz Ke Phool, Awara, Shree 420 and Mother India are considered as epics and masterpieces of Indian Cinema, parallel cinema films like Neecha Nagar won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, thus, giving international recognition to the Indian talent.

This also gave us some amazing filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, and actors like Dilip Kumar. Other actors like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Jitendra also came to the limelight and established a new genre of Masala Films in the industry. This put the other genre like Biopics on a back step as filmmakers stopped giving preference to these films.

Feature films are considered the backbone of the film industry. Feature films used to be entirely fictional unless the concept of stories inspired by true events emerged lately. The difference between parallel and commercial cinema has started blurring now. Method acting has started gaining the momentum which was once lost in the shadow of masala films.

To summarize, we can say that stories, scripts, and artists play a significant role in all films irrespective of the genre or era they are made