List of Indian film directors

India has many regional film centres: Bollywood, the largest, in Mumbai, producing films in the Hindi language; Kolkata, for films in Bengali; Chennai, for films in Tamil: Hyderabad, for films in Telugu etc. Most Indian film directors are known for their work with one regional industry. Star directors can get funding to film in any language. Hence directors may be listed more than once.

Directors of parallel or independent cinema

* G Aravindan
* Jahnu Barua
* Shyam Benegal
* T. V. Chandran
* Budhdhadeb Dasgupta
* Adoor Gopalakrishnan
* Ritwik Ghatak
* Rituparno Ghosh
* Subhash Ghai
* Sonali Gulati
* Roopesh Rai Sikand
* Prakash Jha
* Shaji N. Karun
* Girish Kasaravalli
* Kalpana Lazmi
* Mira Nair
* Govind Nihalani
* Jabbar Patel
* Dadasaheb Phalke
* Sridhar Rangayan
* Mani Ratnam
* Satyajit Ray
* Bimal Roy
* Aparna Sen
* Mrinal Sen
* Partho Sen-Gupta
* V. Shantaram
* Biju Viswanath
* Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao
* Ram Gopal Varma
* K. Viswanath
* K. Raghavendra Rao

Parallel Cinema is otherwise known as "Art films" cinema, and is known for its serious and realistic films with real-life situations. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian government financed a number of such films, on Indian themes. Many of the directors were graduates of the FTII (Film and Television Institute of India), in Pune. Ritwik Ghatak was a professor at the institute and a well-known director in his own right. The best-known Indian "neo-realist" is Satyajit Ray.

Directors filming in several languages

* Bharathan (Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu)
* Basu Bhattacharya (Bengali, Hindi)
* Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Malayalam)
* Sonali Gulati (Hindi, English)
* Shaji Karun ( Malayalam, Hindi)
* Priyadarshan (Malayalam,Tamil,Hindi)
* Mani Ratnam (Tamil,Hindi,Telugu,Kannada,Malayalam)
* Shankar (Tamil, Telugu, Hindi)
* Bimal Roy (Bengali, Hindi)
* Sridhar Rangayan (Hindi, English)
* Mrinal Sen (Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, Telugu)
* Partho Sen-Gupta (Hindi, English, French)
* Aparna Sen (English, Bengali, Hindi)
* Ram Gopal Varma (telugu Hindi Tamil)
* Biju Viswanath(English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Sinhala)

Hindi film directors

:main|:Category:Hindi film directors
*Nikhil Advani
*Shaad Ali
*Abrar Alvi
*Chetan Anand
*Mukul S. Anand
*Siddharth Anand
*Vijay Anand
*Farhan Akhtar
*K.Asif
*Mudassar Aziz
*Sooraj R. Barjatya
*Nabhkumar 'RAJU'
*Shyam Benegal
*Sanjay Leela Bhansali
*Mahesh Bhatt
*Pooja Bhatt
*Vikram Bhatt
*Madhur Bhandarkar
*Vishal Bharadwaj
*Sachin Bhowmick
*Hyder Bilgrami
*K. C. Bokadia
*Abbas Burmawalla
*Mustan Burmawalla
*Tanuja Chandra
*Basu Chatterjee
*Aditya Chopra
*Baldev Raj Chopra
*Vidhu Vinod Chopra
*Yash Chopra
*Bhagwan Dada
*Dharmesh Darshan
*Suneel Darshan
*Manmohan Desai
*J.P. Dutta
*Guru Dutt
*Franz Osten
*Subhash Ghai
*Ashutosh Gowariker
*Gulzar
*Rajkumar Hirani
*Nasir Hussain
*Prakash Jha
*Sanjay Jha
*Karan Johar
*Raj Kapoor
*Shashi Kapoor
*Shekhar Kapur
*Anurag Kashyap
*Farah Khan
*Kabir Khan
*Mansoor Khan
*Mehboob Khan
*Raj Khosla
*Kunal Kohli
*Nagesh Kukunoor
*Anand Kumar
*Manoj Kumar
*Rajendra Kumar
*Shirish Kunder
*Bappi Lahiri
*Kavitha Lankesh
*Kalpana Lazmi
*Prakash Mehra
*Aziz Mirza
*Shantanu Moitra
*Hrishikesh Mukherjee
*Ravikant Nagaich
*Govind Nihalani
*Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
*Priyadarshan
*Himanshu Rai
*Rajiv Rai
*Mani Ratnam
*Sridhar Rangayan
*Rakesh Roshan
*Bimal Roy
*Ramanand Sagar
*Shakti Samanta
*Rajkumar Santoshi
*Pradeep Sarkar
*Arjun Sablok
*Partho Sen-Gupta
*Shakti Samanta
*Shankar
*Anil Sharma
*Kundan Shah
*Tapan Sinha
*Ramesh Sippy
*G. P. Sippy
*Ram Gopal Varma
*Ravi Chopra

Bengali film directors

* Basu Bhattacharya
* Raj Chakravorty
* Ravi Kinagi
* Ritwik Ghatak
* Satyajit Ray
* Bimal Roy
* Mrinal Sen
* Shakti Samanta
* Aparna Sen
* Subrata sen
* Anjan Dutta
* Sekhar Das
* Anjun Das
* Robin Das

Marathi film directors

* Jabbar Patel
* V. Shantaram
* Dadasaheb Phalke
* Bhalji Pendharkar
* Sai Paranjape
* Dada Kondke
* Amol Palekar
* Chitra Palekar
* Nishikant Kamat
* Sumitra Bhave
* Sandeep Sawant
* Soumitra Ranade
* Arun Khopkar
* Kedar Shinde
* Mahesh Kothare
* Sachin Kundalkar
* Sachin Pilgaonkar
* Satish Rajwade

Kannada film directors

*Dinesh Baboo
*Nagathihalli Chandrasekhar
*G V Iyer
*Puri Jagannath
*Puttanna Kanagal
*Kashinath
*Girish Kasaravalli
*Girish Karnad
*B V Karanth
*Sunil Kumar Desai
*Indrajith Lankesh]
*S Mahendar
*T S Naagabharana
*Shankar Nag
*S Narayan
*Prem
*M.S Rajshekar
*S P Rajendra singh Babu]
*A.M.R. Ramesh
*Ratnaja
*T N Seetharam
*V. Ravichandran
*Siddalingaiah
*P Sheshadri
*Upendra

Malayalam film directors

* John Abraham
* G. Aravindan
* Sathyan Anthikkad
* Dinesh Baboo
* P.A. Backer
* Bharathan
* T.V. Chandran
* Fazil
* Adoor Gopalakrishnan
* K.G. George
* Hariharan
* Shaji Karun
* K.P. Kumaran
* Lohithadas
* Kamal
* Balachandra Menon
* P.N. Menon
* Mohan
* K.R. Mohanan
* M.T. Vasudevan Nair
* P. Padmarajan
* Syama Prasad
* Lenin Rajendran
* Rajivnath
* I.V. Sasi
* K.S. Sethumadhavan
* Shyamaprasad
* Sreenivasan
* A. Vincent

Tamil film directors

* Sridhar (kaathalikka neramillai)
* John Abraham
* Agaththian
* Thangar Bachan
* Bala
* K. Balachander
* Bharathan
* Bharathiraja
* A. Bhimsingh
* S.S. Vasan
* Cheran
* Kamal Hassan
* S.P. Jhananathan
* Lingusamy
* Balu Mahendra
* S.P. Muthuraman
* J. Mahendran
* Gautham Menon
* Rajiv Menon
* A. R. Murugadoss
* A.P. Nagarajan
* M. Raja
* T. Rajendar
* Mani Ratnam
* K.S. Ravikumar
* Rudraiya
* Santosh Sivan
* Selvaraghavan
* R. K. Selvamani
* Shankar
* Balaji Shaktivel
* P C Sreeram
* S.J. Suryaah
* Vishnu Vardhan
* Vikraman
* K.Bhagyaraj

Telugu film directors

* Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao
* V.N. Aditya
* Bapu
* Relangi Narasimha Rao
* K. Vijaya Bhaskar
* Bhaskar
* Y.V.S Chowdary
* Prabhu Deva
* B. Gopal
* Gunasekhar
* Jandhyala
* Puri Jagannadh
* A. Karunakaran
* Devadas Kanakala
* Sekhar Kammula
* Raghava Lawrence
* A. R. Murugadoss
* Neelakanta
* L.V. Prasad
* Raviraja Pinisetti
* C. Pullaiah
* P. Pullaiah
* Vedantam, Raghavaiah
* S.S. Rajamouli
* Kodi Ramakrishna
* B. S. Ranga
* B.A. Subba Rao
* Dasari Narayana Rao
* K. Raghavendra Rao
* K.S. Prakasa Rao
* Singitam Srinivasa Rao
* Katta Subba Rao
* Bhimaneni Srinivas Rao
* A. Kodandarami Reddy
* T. Prakasa Rao
* E.V.V. Satyanarayana
* Trivikram Srinivas
* Sukumar
* Chanakya Tapi
* Krishna Vamsi
* Ram Gopal Varma
* Srinu Vytla
* V.V. Vinayak
*G.C.Sekhar
* Vamsy
* Dr. K. Vishwanath
* Chandra Sekhar Yeleti
* D. Yoganand
* Boyapaati sreenu
* Allani Sridhar

ee also

* Cinema of India
* Bollywood
* Marathi cinema
* Bengali cinema
* Malayalam cinema
* Tamil cinema
* Telugu cinema
* Kannada Cinema