Guru Dutt's Pyaasa Is on TIME's All-TIME 100 Movies List and at Joint 185th in the BFI's 2022 Critics' Poll, and His Kaagaz Ke Phool Was the First Indian Film Shot in CinemaScope

TIME magazine put Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa (1957) on its All-TIME 100 Movies list, dated 12 February 2005, and the British Film Institute’s 2022 Sight and Sound poll, which drew 1,639 critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics, places it at joint 185th among all films. His next film, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), is called “the first Indian film shot in CinemaScope” in the BFI’s Film Classics series. Both were restored under India’s National Film Heritage Mission.

Dutt was born on 9 July 1925 and died on 10 October 1964, at 39. Eight films carry his name as director, by Moneylife’s count. This article follows the two that carry his name abroad, the people who made them with him, and how the Government of India and the film industry have brought them back to screens.

A telephone operator who joined Prabhat Studio

Vasanth Padukone was born in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), Britannica says, and the family later moved to Calcutta. A childhood accident led to his first name being regarded as unlucky, and it was changed to Guru Dutt. Mark Cousins, writing in Sight and Sound, says the place of his birth is disputed; Britannica gives Bangalore.

Training came at Uday Shankar’s dance academy in Almora, and he then worked as a telephone operator before moving to Pune and Bombay, according to Britannica. At Prabhat Studio he worked first as an actor and then as a choreographer, and there he met the actor Dev Anand. Cousins dates his acting debut to Lakhrani in 1945, when he was 20.

Dev Anand and his brother Chetan founded Navketan Films in 1949 and hired Dutt to direct Baazi (1951). Baazi was a hit. Arun A.K. of the BFI writes that it marks the start of the noir look in Hindi cinema, with its dramatic shadows and smoky nightclubs, and that the future cinematographer V.K. Murthy worked on it as a camera assistant.

Dutt then made Jaal (1952), set up his own production house for Baaz (1953), and followed with the comedies Aar-Paar (1954) and Mr & Mrs ‘55 (1955). His regular team, as Britannica names it, was the writer Abrar Alvi, the composers O.P. Nayyar and S.D. Burman, the singer Mohammed Rafi and Geeta Roy, whom he married in 1953 and who became known as Geeta Dutt. As a producer he backed Raj Khosla’s first film, C.I.D. (1956), which Britannica says launched the career of Waheeda Rehman.

What Pyaasa is about

Pyaasa, in the BFI’s record, is a 1957 film directed and produced by Guru Dutt, written by Abrar Alvi, with Dutt as Vijay, Waheeda Rehman as Gulabo, Mala Sinha and Rehman. Calcutta after Independence is the setting. Pyaasa means thirst.

Vijay is an unpublished poet. His brothers sell his poems as waste paper, Upperstall says. A prostitute befriends him, TIME’s entry says, and his poetry is celebrated after he is believed dead. In Upperstall’s summary, a publisher profits from the poems under Vijay’s name, and Vijay, alive, is denied by those who now praise him.

Upperstall credits S.D. Burman with the music, Sahir Ludhianvi with the songs’ words, and Rafi, Geeta Dutt and Hemant Kumar as the playback singers, with Murthy behind the camera. The same page says Dutt wrote a first draft of the story around 1947 under the title Kashmakash (struggle).

Casting has some film lore, which Britannica records. Dilip Kumar was Dutt’s first choice for the poet, and Kumar reportedly agreed but did not report on the first day of shooting, so Dutt took the part himself. Today the film is considered a masterclass in filmmaking, Britannica says.

The lists it appears on

Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel compiled TIME’s list, which is arranged alphabetically, not ranked. Its Pyaasa entry calls the film “the most soulfully romantic of the lot” and praises S.D. Burman’s songs. In a companion piece, Corliss wrote that he gave up Hollywood films he loved to make room for two Indian musical dramas, Pyaasa and Nayakan. India in the two decades after 1947 produced films whose quality matched Hollywood’s, he argued. Readers later voted both films near the top of a readers’ poll, he added.

In the BFI’s 2022 ranked poll, Pyaasa stands at joint 185th. On the same list Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955), covered in tuput’s piece on Ray, the Oscar and the Bharat Ratna, is at 35. For the centenary of his birth, the BFI’s guide to Dutt, published on 7 July 2025, calls Pyaasa “the essential Dutt film.”

Some profiles say Kaagaz Ke Phool is on the TIME list too. TIME’s list has no entry for it.

Kaagaz Ke Phool and the wide screen

Kaagaz Ke Phool means paper flowers. Dutt directed and starred as Suresh Sinha, a successful film director who loses his family and leaves the industry, according to the BFI book description. Waheeda Rehman plays Shanti, the newcomer he casts in a film of Devdas. Britannica says some regard the film as semi-autobiographical.

Shooting was in black and white, in CinemaScope, a widescreen format. Upperstall gives the picture’s shape as 2.35 to 1, against the earlier 1.33 to 1, and says the art director M.R. Acharekar’s crew had to reshoot a whole schedule because their sets had not allowed for the wider frame. Lalitha Gopalan’s BFI Film Classics volume, published in November 2025, describes the film as the first Indian film shot in CinemaScope and credits Murthy with an essential part in its look. Dutt had begun a Bengali film, Gouri, in the format in 1957 and shelved it, according to Upperstall, which also says Murthy made the film’s famous shaft of studio light by opening the studio roof, bouncing sunlight in with mirrors and adding smoke and dust.

Murthy won the Filmfare award for Best Cinematographer for it, according to Upperstall and the Imagine India Festival, which also lists his second Filmfare win for Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). That profile gives his dates as 26 November 1923 to 7 April 2014 and says he received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2008, in January 2010.

The box office, and the reputation since

Audiences did not take to the film. Britannica, Cousins and the BFI book description all say it failed on release, and Upperstall says it “flopped miserably.” No collection figure appears in any of them. Britannica says Dutt was disillusioned and did not direct again. Upperstall quotes his own later verdict to Filmfare as “It was good in patches.”

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962) carries his style, but Upperstall says Abrar Alvi is credited as its director, and Britannica lists Dutt there as actor and producer. He was found dead, Britannica adds, at his home in Bombay on 10 October 1964, leaving Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi unfinished. Dharmendra took the lead role when it was completed in 1966.

Its reputation has since reversed. The BFI book description says it is now admired for its technical achievement and as a film about the making of films. Iowa’s Indian Cinema site calls it Dutt’s melancholic masterpiece and compares it with Fellini’s 8½ among the great films about filmmaking. Upperstall says it sells out whenever it is re-released. India Post issued a Guru Dutt commemorative stamp on 10 October 2004, according to the Indian Philatelics listing.

Restored by the National Film Archive

On 14 July 2023 the Press Information Bureau announced that the National Film Development Corporation would open a new Saturday series at the National Museum of Indian Cinema in Mumbai, “NMIC Chronicles of Timeless Treasures”, with Pyaasa. It started on 15 July 2023, with free entry for museum visitors.

On 17 October 2023 the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting announced a Waheeda Rehman retrospective in Delhi from 18 to 21 October, to mark her Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2021, which the Ministry had announced on 26 September 2023. Pyaasa was shown on 20 October and Kaagaz Ke Phool on 21 October. According to the release, both were restored in 2K by the NFDC and National Film Archive of India under the National Film Heritage Mission. It adds that Guide and Bees Saal Baad were restored in 4K.

In the centenary year, Moneylife reported on 10 July 2025 that Ultra Media and Entertainment, which holds the films’ rights, would release a retrospective on 8 to 10 August 2025. It listed Pyaasa, Aar-Paar, Mr & Mrs ‘55, Chaudhvin Ka Chand and Baaz in 4K restorations by the NFDC and NFAI. Prakash Magdum, the NFDC’s managing director, is quoted there as saying restoring Dutt’s films “goes far beyond reviving old reels.”