Female Multi-Starrers That Proved It’s Not A Man’s World
Posted On: 19 Oct 2023 | Last Updated : 27 Sep 2024 | Views : 984
It’s often termed that Bollywood is a male-dominated industry where most of the films released are male-oriented while females are just decorative objects. But there have been many strong and powerful women-centric stories that struck gold at the box office thanks to the makers who decided to put forth female characters with hard-hitting roles. The last few decades have not just seen a good number of female-oriented movies in Bollywood but also seen some worthwhile female multi-starrers where males didn’t have much to do. These women-oriented films in Bollywood portrayed women who stood for their rights to raise their voices against injustice and fight for their dignity and self-respect. These women-centric multi-starrer movies effectively presented the changing times and cultures that our society is witnessing. We present to you Bollywood's best women-led multi-starrers that showed women as heroes.
(Note: We have listed only those female-centric movies that had four or more than four female leads.)
1. Mandi (1983)
One of the very first and best female starrers was director Shyam Benegal’s satirical comedy, Mandi. The film had an all-female cast such as Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Soni Razdan, Anita Kanwar, Ratna Pathak Shah, Neena Gupta, and others who run a brothel situated in the heart of a city for the politicians. The film's supporting cast had a good number of male actors including Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Saeed Jaffrey, Annu Kapoor, Satish Kaushik, Pankaj Kapur, Amrish Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and others.
2. Mirch Masala (1987)
Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala features among some of the strong female lead movies of Bollywood. The story was set in colonial India and revolves around a set of women villagers played by Smita Patil, Deepti Naval, Dina Pathak, Ratna Pathak Shah, Supriya Pathak, Neena Kulkarni, and others who seek revenge against the atrocities of a Subedar (Naseeruddin Shah) and his soldiers who demand taxes.
3. 7 Bijliyaan (1988)
7 Bijliyaan directed by Raju Saigal was one of the lesser-known female-oriented movies in Hindi. This action revenge drama included a multi-star cast of Tina Munim, Shoma Anand, Kaajal Kiran, Neelam Mehra, Surinder Kaur, Guddi Maruti, and Prema Narayan who form a team and go against the law to settle scores from the system and men who betrayed them.
4. Saat Ladkiyan (1989)
Another lesser-known woman-oriented film in Bollywood was Kishan Shetty’s Saat Ladkiyan which consists of a whole lot of unknown actresses led by Sona Mastan Mirza (famously known as the lookalike of Madhubala) along with Rajan Sippy and Tariq. This film was an action drama that involved a group of seven women who play vigilantes to save the downtrodden and underprivileged people of society.
5. Lajja (2001)
Rajkumar Santoshi’s Lajja is one of the well-known female-oriented films in Bollywood released in 2001. Listed among some of Bollywood’s best women multi-starrers, Lajja was a hard-hitting story portraying the plight of Indian women who still are considered a curse and liability by our male-dominated society. Though the film had male stars like Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, and Ajay Devgn but it was the female star cast of Manisha Koirala, Madhuri Dixit, Rekha and Mahima Chaudhry that received top billing.
6. Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamaana (2006)
Director Amar Butala's forgettable romantic comedy Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamaana also features among women-oriented Bollywood drama movies. Comprising of an all-woman star cast of Mahima Chaudhry, Rekha, Vasundhara Das and Kim Sharma, the film narrated the story of four female friends and their problems with their boyfriends and husbands. The film was later compared to Sex and the City.
7. Aisha (2010)
An adaptation of Jane Austen's 1815 novel 'Emma', Rajshree Ojha’s Aisha was a romantic comedy-drama that revolved around an ensembled female star cast of Sonam Kapoor, Amrita Puri, Ira Dubey and Lisa Haydon. Set in the upper-class society of Delhi, Aisha portrays the relationships that the four girls go through in their lives before settling down in marriage. The male star cast included Abhay Deol, Cyrus Sahukar, Anand Tiwari, and Arunoday Singh. The film is mostly remembered for its soundtrack composed by Amit Trivedi with lyrics penned by Javed Akhtar.
8. United Six (2011)
Out of the handful of female-oriented drama movies in Bollywood, one may not remember director Vishal Aryan Singh’s United Six which was released in 2011 and starred six lead actresses including Parvathy Omanakuttan, Daisy Bopanna, Luna Lahkar, Mahi, Isha Batwe, and Pooja Sharma. The premise of the story was that of six female friends who get convicted of a bank robbery that they had planned but failed to execute. Thus, begins a cat-and-mouse game between them and the police.
9. Extraordinaari (2015)
Sunanda Shyamal Mitra’s female multi-starrer Extraordinaari was about an Ex-Beauty Diva turn Businesswoman Tanya (Rituparna Sengupta) who trains 10 low-on confidence and underprivileged girls to make them win a pageant contest.
10. Angry Indian Goddesses (2015)
Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses remains one of the much-talked-about female-oriented Bollywood drama movies that got itself into censor controversies for the number of cuts it received. The all-female star cast included Sandhya Mridul, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Amrit Maghera, Pavleen Gujral and Rajshri Deshpande that revolved around female bonding and their survival for existence.
11. Six X (2016)
Chandrakant Singh’s Six X was one of the unforgettable women-oriented drama movies in Bollywood that tried to prove a point. Featuring actresses such as Shweta Tiwari, Rituparna Sengupta, Seema Azmi, Hrishitaa Bhatt, Rashami Desai, Shweta Bhardwaj, Bidita Bag, Andria D'Souza, and Sofia Hayat in the lead, the film was about women’s sexual desires and needs that are often ignored in Indian society.
12. Parched (2016)
Director Leena Yadav’s Parched comprised an all-women star cast that narrated the story of four rural women belonging to a desert village in Gujarat, India who run away to seek their freedom from the clutches of several social evils, age-old traditions and practices. The film starred Tannishtha Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, Surveen Chawla, Lehar Khan, and Sayani Gupta in the lead.
13. Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017)
Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha was pivotal in bringing across the Indian women’s transformation the country has been through over the years. Lipstick Under My Burkha was another Hindi movie consisting of an all-woman star cast of Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra and Plabita Borthakur. The movie dwells upon the secret lives of four women who are in search of their freedom but not before facing all odds and overcoming societal obstacles.
14. Begum Jaan (2017)
Srijit Mukherji’s Begum Jaan was a remake of his own critically acclaimed Bengali film Rajkahini (2015) which was based on a true story set during India’s partition when the Radcliffe Line came into prominence and a brothel lying on the line becomes a point of contention. Vidya Balan in the titular role of the brothel head was excellent while the remaining cast included Ila Arun, Gauahar Khan, Pallavi Sharda, Priyanka Setia, Ridheema Tiwari, Flora Saini, Raviza Chauhan, Poonam Rajput, Mishti and Gracy Goswami.
15. Veere Di Wedding (2018)
One of the recent female multi-starrers to hit the marquee was Shashanka Ghosh’s Veere Di Wedding starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania in lead roles. The story revolves around these four friends who attend a wedding and are facing issues with relationships, both familial and sexual.
16. Mission Mangal (2019)
Mention women-centric Bollywood multi-starrers and how can one forget Jagan Shakti’s, Mission Mangal. Though it had Akshay Kumar as the male lead but no one can deny the fact that the film had a multiple female star cast of Vidya Balan, Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu, Nithya Menen, Kirti Kulhari who execute and bring alive the Mars Orbiter Mission of reaching Mars with its tight budget.
17. Jahaan Chaar Yaar (2022)
Jahaan Chaar Yaar is another female multi-starrer that revolves around four female friends played by Swara Bhaskar, Meher Vij, Shikha Talsania, and Pooja Chopra who are housewives from middle-class families and decide to take a break from their mundane life to undertake a trip together to Goa to rediscover themselves.
18. Chaar Lugaai (2023)
Chaar Lugaai is a female-oriented rural social drama based on four female friends who carry out every responsibility and duty of their household and married life but have been deprived of intimacy and affection.
19. NRI Wives: Grey Stories of Love Vs Desires... (2023)
NRI Wives: Grey Stories of Love Vs Desires may be one of the lesser-known female-led Bollywood movies in recent times that starred Raima Sen, Bhagyashree, Sadiya Siddiqui, Gunjan Kuthiala, Sameksha Singh, Aditi Govitrikar, and Olivia Malhotra. The film dwelled upon the subject of NRI couples who have gray shades to their relationships, emotions, and desires that make them lead a life far from reality.
20. Dhak Dhak (2023)
Dhak Dhak featuring Fatima Sana Shaikh, Ratna Pathak Shah, Dia Mirza, and Sanjana Sanghi is the latest entrant into Bollywood’s female multi-starrers. The movie is a coming-of-age story of four women who come from different backgrounds and undertake an extraordinary trip from Delhi to Khardungla Pass on their respective bikes to complete their first-ever life-changing journey.
21. Tipppsy (2024)
Deepak Tijori’s suspense thriller Tipppsy is about a group of female friends who go to Goa for a bachelorette party and find themselves involved in a murder that they haven’t committed. The film has an ensemble female cast of Alankrita Sahai, Kainaat Arora, Nazia Hussain, Natasha Suri, Sonia Birje, and Esha Gupta in a cameo.
22. Calendar Girls (2015)
Madhur Bhandarkar's Calendar Girls was also a female-oriented multi-starrer that marked the Bollywood debut of Akanksha Puri, Avani Modi, Kyra Dutt, Ruhi Singh, and Satarupa Pyne. The film was based on five aspiring girl models chosen from different parts of the country to become the cover girls of a prestigious annual calendar. What happens behind the scenes during the shoot and how they face a series of challenges while pursuing their goals form the remaining plot of the film.
