When India’s Filmfare Awards celebrated their 50th anniversary, they awarded one movie the title “Best Film of 50 Years.” That film was SHOLAY, a movie whose references are woven into the fabric of popular culture.

Credited for having given birth to the “Curry Western” genre, SHOLAY centers on two small-time crooks, Veeru and Jai, who are asked to help catch a fugitive. As we follow the two friends on their adventures, the criminals become heroes and the authority figures villains.

Action-packed, riveting, romantic, peppered with musical numbers, and sprinkled with allusions that are likely familiar to Western audiences (with nods to Charlie Chaplin, the works of Sam Peckinpah, and Spaghetti Westerns), SHOLAY is masala film at its best: part-musical, part-drama, part-comedy, part-Western. A true classic.