This book is an exploration of the masala film. This popular cinema has dominated mass culture in India ever since its origins and has remarkable popularity with South Asians living outside India as well. To understand the interrelationship between the industrial and the ideological, the political economy of the film industry in India is examined and combined with a cultural analysis of popular cinema. Specifically, the author looks at the industrial organization and structure in which the world's largest film industry turns out nearly 800 features films a year and the public and private forces that shape the structural conditions in which films are consumed and produced. Also discussed are policies related to production, exhibition, and distribution of films in India and abroad; the impact of new technologies; censorship and funding; consumption and popularity; and narrative strategies and cinematic devices.