Bolly Volley: Top 10 of 2012

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and unsolicited views

If 2011 was the year Bollywood discovered the 100-crore club, 2012 was the year it discovered something better: the audience. The biggest stories of the year were not the star vehicles that printed money. They were the films that proved Hindi cinema could be ambitious, strange, and grown-up, and still fill seats.

Here, in no particular order, are the ten films that defined 2012.

Barfi! Anurag Basu's silent-film romance with Ranbir Kapoor as a deaf-mute charmer was Bollywood's Oscar entry and its most decorated crowd-pleaser. Kapoor gave the performance of his career without speaking a word.

Gangs of Wasseypur. Anurag Kashyap's five-hour coal-mafia epic, split in two parts, was the year's great sprawling achievement. Manoj Bajpayee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui turned a revenge saga into a generational chronicle of Dhanbad.

Kahaani. Sujoy Ghosh's Kolkata thriller made Vidya Balan the year's most bankable star and gave Indian cinema one of its great twists. A pregnant woman searching for her missing husband should not have worked this well. It did.

Vicky Donor. Shoojit Sircar's sperm-donation comedy launched Ayushmann Khurrana and proved that a taboo subject, handled with warmth, could be a mainstream hit.

Paan Singh Tomar. Tigmanshu Dhulia's biopic of the athlete-turned-dacoit gave Irrfan Khan the role of a lifetime and later the National Film Award for Best Actor. A quiet masterpiece.

English Vinglish. Gauri Shinde's gentle drama marked Sridevi's triumphant return after 15 years. A housewife learning English in New York became the year's most relatable hero.

Talaash. Reema Kagti's Mumbai noir paired Aamir Khan with Rani Mukerji and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a grief-soaked police procedural with a supernatural sting in its tail.

OMG: Oh My God! Paresh Rawal's atheist-shopkeeper-sues-God satire, adapted from a Gujarati play, was the year's sharpest comedy and its bravest commercial bet.

Shanghai. Dibakar Banerjee's political thriller, inspired by the novel Z, brought arthouse rigor to the mainstream and gave Emraan Hashmi his best role.

Agneepath. Karan Malhotra's remake of the Amitabh Bachchan classic should not have worked. Hrithik Roshan and Sanjay Dutt made it a roaring, operatic hit that proved remakes can honor their source.

Honorable mentions: Ek Tha Tiger, Dabangg 2, and Rowdy Rathore kept the star system humming; Cocktail and Ishaqzaade launched new faces; Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana charmed the festival crowd.

The takeaway

2012 will be remembered as the year the middle broke through: not art films, not star vehicles, but real movies with real budgets and real audiences. Bollywood grew up a little. Let us hope it stays grown.