Film studios make it available for a new generation.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: With over 300 minutes of video uploaded every minute, YouTube is the most widely used service of Google, next to its search engine.
Started in 2005 by three former PayPal employees and later acquired by Google, YouTube has the world’s biggest library of videos which include mobile videos, TV clips, music videos, and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, educational videos and above all, pirated and legally uploaded movies.
In 2011, YouTube announced its movie service that lists legally uploaded films from channels across countries where it has presence. In a country like India, where culture and film industry is so diverse, YouTube plays an important role in making accessible some of the must watch movies from different language industries.
Early Indian movies described as the ‘Golden Days of Indian Cinema’, between 1944s to the 1960s, was the time when some of the most critically acclaimed films were produced. But, due to the low market value of these movies, Indian TV channels, except Doordarshan, does not show these films, which speak of hope, resistance, suffering and freedom through black and white reels.
A few of these classic movies are now available for free streaming as production houses with legal rights to these movies came forward and uploaded them on their respective YouTube Channels. This has enabled future generations to get glimpse of the history and growth of Indian cinema, which is today a multi-billion dollar industry.
Here is the list of 10 must watch classic Hindi movies uploaded on YouTube (in chronological order):
Dard – 1947
Shaheed – 1948
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOycD0UxN1E
Mahal – 1949
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2E1S1cET-o
Barsaat – 1949
Awaara – 1951
Do Bigha Zameen – 1953
Shree 420 – 1955
Madhumathi – 1958
Bombai Ka Babu -1960
Hum Dono-1961