Indian films fill three slots in Time Magazine's All Time 100 Movies List. The list, compiled by Time critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel, includes Guru Dutt's Pyaasa, Mani Ratnam's Nayakan and Satyajit Ray's [Images] Apu trilogy.

While there is no shortage of American films on the list, the compilation is noteworthy in that includes many films from different nations. Additionally, highbrow fare such as Ingmar Bergman's [Images] Persona are included with popular films like Star Wars [Images], Finding Nemo and Jackie Chan's [Images] Drunken Master 2.

In his examination of Pyaasa, released in 1957 and starring Dutt and Waheeda Rehman [Images], Corliss � a champion of Indian popular cinema and music � notes that the film came during a golden age of Indian film, similar to that in Japan [Images].

"While Satyajit Ray was pioneering the nation's art cinema, commercial filmmakers such as Raj Kapoor [Images] (Awaara), Mehboob Khan (Mother India) and Bimal Roy (Do Bigha Zamin) were grafting influences from Hollywood melodramas and Italian neo-realism onto the Indian tradition of musical narrative. Pyaasa, which means thirst, is the most soulfully romantic of the lot."

Of the Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar), Corliss writes, "Ray's filmmaking is direct in manner, simple in its means and profound in its impact. It is, as another great master, Akira Kurosawa, said, 'the kind of cinema that flows with the serenity and nobility of a big river'�the river of life as it is ordinarily lived."

Corliss also tries to clear up the confusion about Bollywood, noting that Bombay is but one of several film centers in India. Often, Western journalists note, incorrectly, that Bollywood produces 'a thousand films a year.'

Calling Mani Ratnam "arguably India's top pop-film auteur," Corliss writes that the director's movies, "often dramatizing social unrest and political terrorism, churn with narrative tension and camera energy that would be the envy of Hollywood directors, if they were ever to see them."

"Ratnam has no such difficulty blending melodrama and music, violence and comedy, realism and delirium, into a two-and-a-half-hour demonstration that, when a gangster's miseries are mounting, the most natural solution is to go singin' in the rain."

Time Magazine's All Time 100 Movies List:

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html