Parallel cinema sought to be different from the mainstream, possibly as a means of re-inventing what cinema might be. The audience from the developing middle class welcomed these films as a reflection of their life, finding that the films closely mimicked their reality. So, here is a retrospective of 50 path-breaking Hindi films made between the late 60s and mid-90s, when parallel cinema reigned in India. There is no single reason for selecting these 50 films – the primary criterion was that they were all made without the trappings of mainstream cinema and were driven more by passion than the power of money. I hope this retrospective induces readers to rediscover these pearls of an unparalleled phase of Indian cinema. About the Author O.P. Srivastava is a banker-turned-filmmaker. He is known for pioneering the use of technology in Indian banking. His journey in films began with the production of a fiction film, Missed Call, in 2005. The film went on to win four national and international awards, including the Best International Film Award at the Israel Film Festival, 2008. It was the opening film at IFFI, Goa in 2006 and was also selected as India’s official entry under ‘Cinema Du Monde’ at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. His first feature documentary, Life in Metaphors: A Portrait of Girish Kasaravalli, won the National Film Award for the Best Biopic for 2015. In 2019, he published his first book, Life in Metaphors: Portraits of Girish Kasaravalli. His second book, Banking on Technology: The Changing Face of Indian Banking, was released in March 2020. His third book, Krishna Calling: Travelogue of a Teenager, was released in November 2021. He has also made award-winning documentaries on subjects like brain cancer, Alzheimer’s, yakshagana and indie cinema.