Science fiction films in India

The genre of science fiction has been prevalent in the Indian film industry since the second half of the 20th century. Beginning in 1952, the film Kaadu was made, which was a Tamil-American co-production.^[1] The Alien was a science fiction film under production in the late 1960s which was eventually cancelled. The film was being directed by Bengali Indian director Satyajit Ray and produced by Hollywood studio Columbia Pictures. The script was written by Ray in 1967, based on "Bankubabur Bandhu", a Bengali story he had written in 1962 for Sandesh, the Ray family magazine. In 1987, the superhero film Mr. India was a huge success which strengthened the hold of sci-fi films in India, especially Bollywood. Indiatimes Movies ranks the movie amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films.^[2] Mr. India brought the idea of science fiction to the general people in India.^[1] In 2003, the blockbuster film Koi... Mil Gaya marked the beginning of the successful Krrish film series, which is the first sci-fi/superhero film series in Indian cinema.^[3] The 2010 Tamil film Endhiran starring Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai is the most expensive and most successful sci/fi film ever produced in India.

List of films

The following list contains the names of the Indian science fiction films released since 1952. Early 21st century has seen the release of more than 30 such films, compared to the previous 14, it can be said that this genre has gained popularity in the country.

Title	Year	Language	Description
Kaadu (The Jungle)	1952	Tamil English	A Tamil-American co-production, this film was about an expedition to find the cause of strange behaviour of animals in an area. As it turned out, the reason of this abnormal behavior was an invasion of wooly mammoths.[1][4] This film was the first Science fiction film in India and in Tamil Nadu.
Ajantrik	1958	Bengali	A comedy-drama film with science fiction themes, it is one of the earliest Indian films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the story. It achieves this through the use of sounds, recorded during post-production, to emphasize the car's bodily functions and movements.[5]
Kalai Arasi[6][7]	1963	Tamil	Kalai Arasi is a well-blended story of romance, science fiction, action and drama with the main cast of M. G. Ramachandran and Bhanumathi playing double roles. The film was the first in Indian cinema to illustrate a story which describes Aliens.[6]
Mr.X In Bombay	1964	Hindi	Mr. X in Bombay, directed by Shantilal Soni, is a 1964 Bollywood classic film starring Kishore Kumar, Kum Kum, and Madan Puri.
The Alien	1965	Bengali English	A science fiction film under production in the late 1960s which was eventually cancelled. It was based on a short story named Bankubabur Bandhu ("Banku Babu's Friend") by Satyajit Ray and was about an extraterrestrial by the name of "Mr. Ang" who befriends a Bengali boy while visiting a village in the 1960s. It is widely believed that Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) was inspired by the original script for The Alien.
Chand Par Chadayee (Trip to Moon)	1967	Hindi	Film starring Dara Singh, Helen. After landing on the moon, an astronaut and his associate face off against a variety of warriors and monsters from another planet.
Karutha Rathrikal	1967	Malayalam	Film starring Madhu, Gemini Ganesan, S. P. Pillai in lead roles and directed by Mahesh. The music director is MS Baburaj and lyrics are by ONV Kurup. It is a film involving a doctor played by Madhu who takes revenge of his uncle's death by using a medicine he invents. This medicine creates split personality. This move was inspired from The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a novel written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and first published in 1886. It is supposed to be the first Malayalam science fiction film.
Elaan	1971	Hindi	Starring Vinod Mehra, Rekha and Vinod Khanna. Naresh Kumar Saxena lives with his widowed mom and sister, Seema. He works as a freelance photographer and journalist. One day he meets with Mala Mehta and her dad, who is the Editor of a Newspaper. Mr. Mehta hires Naresh and assigns him to go to a remote island to investigate and expose some illegal activities there. Naresh goes there in the company of his friend, Shyam. Unfortunately, Naresh is caught by the island guards and lodged in a cell along with two others, one a scientist and Ram Singh, a hoodlum. The scientist confides in Naresh that he has invented an atomic ring that when inserted in someone's mouth will turn that person invisible, and subsequently passes away. Naresh puts the ring in his mouth, takes off his clothes, turns invisible and escapes. The news of his escape creates waves in the underworld and the Boss and Mr. Verma join forces to find Naresh, kill him, and keep the ring for themselves. Naresh and Shyam must now find ways to stay alive as well as take the ring to the authorities - that is if the Boss and Mr. Verma let them live long enough.
Vikram	1983	Tamil	Starring Kamal Haasan and produced by himself. It is a Science fiction, action and adventure film, which revolves around the ICBM, advanced computers and security systems, which were near future projects of Indian government. It was also the first film in India to feature most advanced weapons of those times.
Shiva Ka Insaaf	1985	Hindi	Superhero film directed by Raj N. Sippy, starring Jackie Shroff, Poonam Dhillon, and Gulshan Grover.
Jaithra Yaathra	1987	Malayalam	Starring Nizhalgal Ravi, Thilakan, Babu Antony in lead roles and directed by Sasi Kumar. The music director is Shyam and lyrics are by Poovachal Khader. It is a film involving a scientist played by Thilakan who invents a locket that makes a man invisible. Using the locket Nizhalgal Ravi the hero takes revenge against Babu Antony the villain.
Mr. India	1987	Hindi	Superhero film directed by Shekhar Kapur, starring Anil Kapoor, Sridevi, and Amrish Puri.
Nalaya Manithan	1989	Tamil	Set in the 21st century a doctor finds a drug that can give back life to dead upon injecting it to a dead body within 2 hours of death. After testing it on a human subject he discovers that the zombie he created is immortal.
Toofan	1989	Hindi	Superhero film directed by Ketan Desai, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Meenakshi Seshadri. It stars Amitabh Bachchan in a double role as twin brothers. One is the title character Toofan, a superhero who uses his crossbrow as a weapon and the other is a magician named Shyam.
Adhisaya Manithan	1990	Tamil	It is a sequel to blockbuster Nalaya Manithan in which the zombie killed in the end, still lives and hunts human trespassers in an abandoned mansion.
Aditya 369	1991	Telugu	First Telugu science fiction film. The film revolves around a Time Machine and a diamond robbery
Laal Paree	1991	Hindi	Film starring Aditya Pancholi, Sohani, Javed Jaffrey and Gulshan Grover. Story is about Shankar, who falls in love with a girl, unaware of that she is a mermaid. Dr Jacob discovers this and tries every possible way to expose her, not knowing that she will encounter danger. It was inspired from 1984 American movie 'Splash'.
Hollywood	2002	Kannada	Hollywood is a 2002 sci-fi Kannada movie directed by Dinesh Babu. It starred Upendra in a triple role as "Surendra," "Upendra" and "US 47" (an android robot) along with the Australian actress Felicity Mason as "Manisha." The movie was dubbed into Telugu the following year retaining the same title.
Patalghar	2003	Bengali	An alien visitation film directed by Abhijit Chaudhuri.
Funn2shh..	2003	Hindi	comedy film depicting time travel to the 10th century
Koi... Mil Gaya	2003	Hindi	A Bollywood alien visitation film starring Hrithik Roshan, Rekha and Preity Zinta. The story revolves around a mentally handicapped young boy Rohit Mehra, who comes to meet with an alien into the earth. He gets a supernatural powers from the alien, by which he gradually becomes physically and mentally smart and strong. Even after the alien returns to his world, Rohit gets a power permanently from the alien.
New	2004	Tamil	New is a story about an 8-year-old boy who is turned into a 28-year-old man by a scientist as a part of testing his new discovery on humans.
Rudraksh	2004	Hindi	An action-adventure Hindi-language film based on the Ramayana.
Taarzan: The Wonder Car	2004	Hindi	Car having artificial intelligence. Directed by Abbas-Mastan.
Alag	2006	Hindi	Film starring Akshay Kapoor, Dia Mirza & Arjun Rampal. Tejas has spent his entire life in the basement and as a result of this is extremely sensitive to sunlight. His only experience of other people up until this point has been with his father and the books he provided for him. Tejas starts showing signs of Telekenesis, and is shunned by the other boys in the institute, resulting in the near fatal accident of a security guard and the death of a fellow student. Tejas is also able to wake a lady from a coma-like condition. When he is subsequently harassed by doctors and scientists wishing to perform experiments on him. Tejas is abducted and held in a glass chamber by Dr. Richard Dyer, who wants to control his mind for his own benefit.
Jaane Hoga Kya	2006	Hindi	Film starring Aftab Shivdasani, Bipasha Basu & Paresh Rawal. It is about an ambitious scientist who creates a human clone in his laboratory.
Krrish	2006	Hindi	A superhero sci-fi mash-up, sequel to Koi... Mil Gaya starring Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Rekha and Naseeruddin Shah.
Bharathan Effect	2007	Malayalam	Science fiction thriller about a genius inventor who makes a small gadget fly without fuel using the concept of anti-gravity.
Jabardast	2007	Marathi	Science fiction thriller about a genius inventor (Makarand Anaspure) who invented a supernatural coat with the help of nanotechnology and lightening power, the coat has all the powers to make a normal human a superman. It was the first Marathi science fiction film and was directed by Mahesh Kothare. The role of superhero was done by Pushkar Jog.
Athisayan	2007	Malayalam	Super hero film directed by Vinayan.
Love Story 2050	2008	Hindi	Film by Pammi Baweja.
Dasavathaaram	2008	Tamil	Dasavathaaram is a Tamil science fiction film starring Kamal Haasan in multi-roles. On 20 December 2004, a bio-technology lab in the USA designs a virus (combination of Marburg and Ebola) intended as a bio-weapon. After understanding its potential, the protagonist, one of the scientists involved, refuses to give the vial containing virus away due to fear of misuse. This story deals with Chaos theory and Butterfly effect of the events that took place in 12th century Tamil Nadu leading to 26th Dec 2004 Tsunami.
Drona (2008 film)	2008	Hindi	A Fantasy Adventure superhero film directed by Goldie Behl, starring Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Kay Kay Menon.
Friend	2009	Bengali	A science fiction film about the friendship between a child and a robot.[8][9]
Aa Dekhen Zara	2009	Hindi	A romantic sci-fi action thriller film starring Neil Nitin Mukesh, who plays a photo journalist, and Bipasha Basu, as a disc jockey. Ray Acharya (Mukesh), a struggling photographer has nothing going for him... until he inherits a very 'special' camera from his grandfather who was a scientist, as the photographs produced by the camera predict the future.
Enthiran	2010	Tamil	Enthiran is a 2010 Indian Tamil science fiction action film co-written and directed by Shankar. The film features Rajinikanth in dual roles, as a scientist and an andro-humanoid robot alongside Aishwarya Rai. It was India's most expensive film at the time of its release.
Prince (2010 film)	2010	Hindi	It is a science-fiction film action film directed by Kookie V Gulati, produced by Kumar S Taurani and Ramesh S Taurani and Starring Vivek Oberoi and Aruna Shields in the lead roles.
Action Replayy	2010	Hindi	A film inspired from Back to the Future, a 1985 time travel film
7aum Arivu	2011	Tamil	A science-fiction thriller film starring Suriya, Shruti Hassan, Johnny Tri Nguyen, produced by Udhayanidhi Stalin and directed by A.R. Murugadoss. The film begins with the fictional life of Bodhidharma (5th century), a master of martial arts and medical remedies, who is depicted in the film as the son of a great Tamil king of the Pallava Dynasty. In the present, Subha Srinivasan (Shruti Haasan), a Genetic Engineering student researches that Bodhidharma can be brought back to present life if his sample of DNA is matched with another sample of DNA which she finds in Aravind (Suriya) a descendant of Bodhidharma. Dong Lee (Johnny Tri Nguyen) is given the task of starting a government planned biological war against India, known as Operation Red to spread disease in India.
Ra.One	2011	Hindi	Superhero film starring Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and many others. The film is about an antagonistic game character, Ra.One (played by Tom Wu and Arjun Rampal) which escapes the confines of the game into reality killing everyone (including the game designer played by Shahrukh Khan). He aims to kill the game designer's son (played by Armaan Verma) for beating him inside the game during the game launch. In order to stop him, the game's protagonist G.One (also played by Shahrukh Khan) must be brought out who must save the kidnapped kid and his mother before facing off with Ra.One.
Ambuli	2012	Tamil	Ambuli is a 2012 Tamil mystery science-fiction thriller film set in the 1970s. It is about a beastly creature created as a part of a program by a British doctor which hunts humans passing the fields around facility.
Joker	2012	Hindi	A man goes to a forgotten village while is working on a top secret project for creating a device to communicate with aliens.
Virus Diwan	2013	Hindi	This film is about the youngest and the most Intelligent hacker in the world starring Arjun Kapoor.
Kho-Kho	2013	Marathi
Zapatlela 2	2013	Marathi	This is a sci-fi film and a sequel to Zapatlela, revolving around a doll possessing the soul of Tatya Vinchu.
Khasi Katha– A Goat Saga	2013	Bengali	The film begins with a scene where a butcher is going to slaughter a goat. The goat becomes talkative and pleads with the butcher for life and promises to tell a story in return. The butcher is surprised but agrees. The goat now tells the butcher the story of a female boxer Salma who belongs to a lower-middle-class family and dreams to become a boxer. Naseeruddin Shah plays the character of butcher and Anindita Bose plays the character of woman boxer.
Krrish 3	2013	Hindi	A superhero sci-fi movie, sequel to Krrish. The story follows the life of Rohit Mehra, a scientist, and Krishna "Krrish" Mehra, his superhero son, who have to face an elaborate conspiracy orchestrated by the evil genius Kaal and his female henchman Kaya. In the process, Krishna's pregnant wife Priya is kidnapped by Kaal and the form-changing Kaya takes her place at the Mehra home and eventually falls in love with Krishna. Krrish 3 released worldwide on 1 November 2013. It has since received positive to mixed reviews from film critics with praise directed to Roshan and Ranaut's performances, the visual effects, and the cinematography; criticism has been directed to the music, story and screenplay.
Irandaam Ulagam	2013	Tamil	Irandaam Ulagam is a Sci-fi fantasy film about two stories unfolding in two different planets, our Earth and an exoplanet involving alien life forms.
Creature 3D	2014	Hindi	India's First 3D Monster sci fi Movie starring Bipasha Basu and Pakistani actor Imran Abbas Naqvi in lead role
Chaand 2013	2014	Hindi	A science fiction action thriller story will be about The city of Mumbai comes under alien attack. Directed by Anthony D'Souza.
Appuchi Gramam	2014	Tamil	A science fiction drama directed by Vi Anand an associate of AR Murgadoss,set in a rustic village. The film deals with immense depth of the relationships among humans,when they are made to understand that an asteroid is hitting their village.[10]
PK	2014	Hindi	A satirical comedy drama film.[11][12][13] The film was directed by Rajkumar Hirani, produced by Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and written by Hirani and Abhijat Joshi.[14] The film deals with a humanoid alien (Aamir Khan) looking for a remote of his space-ship on earth.
I	2015	Tamil	I (also known as Shankar's I ) is a 2015 Indian Tamil romantic thriller film written and directed by Shankar and co-written by Subha. Produced and distributed by V. Ravichandran under his production company, Aascar Films, the film features Vikram and Amy Jackson in lead roles while Suresh Gopi, Upen Patel, Santhanam and Ramkumar Ganesan portray pivotal roles. The soundtrack and film score were composed by A. R. Rahman. Production design was handled by T. Muthuraj. P. C. Sreeram was the film's cinematographer and editing was done by Anthony.
Mr. X	2015	Hindi	A science fiction action-thriller film, tells the story of a man became invisible through an experiment.
Indru Netru Naalai	2015	Tamil	Starring Vishnu Vishal, Miya, Karunakaran in lead roles and directed by new comer Ravi Kumar.R. The music director is Hiphop Tamizha and lyrics are by Vivek,Muthamil and Hiphop Tamizha. It is a film involving a scientist played by Arya who invents a Time Machine and sends it back to the past that enables one to time travel.
Doga	TBA	Hindi	A superhero sci-fi action film based on Raj comics character Doga is a project produced by Phantom Films and Raj Comics. Story about Suraj, an orphan who is brought up by a ruthless dacoit Daku Halkan Singh who later grows up and take the identity of Doga and fight the evil. Production is expected to begin in the middle of the year 2014 and the film will release in 2015.
Paani	TBA	Hindi English	Paani is an upcoming dark science fiction drama film Production is expected to begin in the middle of the year 2015 and the film will release in 2016. It is set in 2040 A.D and deals with water scarcity. Music of this film is composed by Oscar winner A.R. Rahman.
Unmatta	TBA	Marathi Hindi	Unmatta is scifi, horror, action film. It is in production and release will be somewhere in mid of 2016.
24	2016	Tamil Telugu	24 is an upcoming Indian Tamil-language science fiction action film, written and directed by Vikram Kumar . The film stars Suriya, Samantha and Nithya Menen. It's story is based on a watch named '24' which is actually a time travel equipment. Actor Suriya has played triple roles in the film. One as a scientist and the others as twin brothers in which one of them will be an antagonist. Five to six looks were designed for him.

See also

• Cinema of India
• Bengali science fiction

References

1. "Science Fiction in India".
2. "Entertainment News, Latest Entertainment News, Hollywood Bollywood News | Entertainment – Times of India" (in Portuguese). Movies.indiatimes.com. Archived from the original on August 22, 2008. Retrieved 2012-04-12.
3. "Across Time and Space".
4. "India's Hollywood Takeaway".
5. Carrigy, Megan (October 2003). "Ritwik Ghatak". Senses of Cinema. Archived from the original on 30 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-03.
6. "Was MGR starrer Kalai Arasi the first Indian film to feature an alien? by Milliblog!". itwofs.com.
7. "Kalai Arasi - Tamil Movie Reviews, Trailers, Wallpapers, Photos, Cast & Crew, Story & Synopsis". FilmiBeat.
8. "The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) - Entertainment - An actor’s director". telegraphindia.com. C1 control character in |title= at position 62 (help)
9. Friend (2009 film)
10. "Appuchi Gramam - A Sci-fi Tamil film". Sify.
11. "Aamir Khan's son Junaid to feature in his father's upcoming movie 'Peekay'". India Today. 18 July 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2013.
12. "PK". rottentomatoes.com. 19 December 2014.
13. "Movie Review: PK". filmfare.com.
14. "Rajkumar Hirani turns producer for Aamir Khan's 'Peekay'". Hindustan Times. 11 July 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2013.