Shatranj Ke Khilari

Satyajit Ray, the great Bengali filmmaker, made exactly one Hindi film — and it was a masterpiece. Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) is set in 1856, just before the British annexation of Awadh (and a year before the 1857 Rebellion). Two noblemen, Mirza (Sanjeev Kumar) and Mir (Saeed Jaffrey), are so obsessed with their never-ending chess game that they fail to notice the British East India Company devouring their kingdom.

The chess game is, of course, a metaphor for the political game — the nobles are playing among themselves while the real threat advances — but Ray is too sophisticated to make the metaphor heavy-handed. The film is a comedy of manners, with Amjad Khan (Gabbar Singh himself!) delivering a brilliant comic turn as the deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, and Richard Attenborough playing the British General Outram with a mix of imperial arrogance and genuine bafflement at the "native" character.

The film was Ray's most expensive production, shot in lavish period detail. It received mixed reviews on release — Hindi audiences found it too "intellectual" — but has since been recognized as one of the finest historical films ever made.