It enjoys large, even disproportionate, representation in Bollywood, and has produced an AcademyAward winner, Satyajit Ray, an acknowledged great of world film who also won India and France's greatest honours, the Bharat Ratna and Legion of Honor respectively (the only other Indian Oscar winner is Bhanu Athaiya, who got hers for costume design in 'Gandhi').

Some of the other most prominent film makers in the Bengali film industry are Bimal Roy, Ritwik Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen. The Bengali film industry has produced classics like 'Pather Panchali', 'Devi', 'Jalsaghar', 'Devdas', 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' etc.