Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian actor who works in Hindi cinema. With a cinematic career spanning over five decades, he has played pivotal roles in over 200 films. Widely recognised as one of the greatest actors of all time, he is considered to be amongst the most accomplished and influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. Bachchan is often hailed as the Shahenshah of Bollywood, Sadi Ke Mahanayak, Star of the Millennium, or simply Big B. His dominance in the Indian film industry during the 1970s–80s led the French director François Truffaut to describe it as a "one-man industry".

The Cinema of India, consisting of motion pictures made by the Indian film industry, has had a large effect on world cinema since 2nd half of 20th century. Indian cinema is made up of various film industries, including Hindi cinema, which makes motion pictures in the Hindi language and is one of the biggest film industries in the country. In 2021, Telugu cinema became the largest film industry in India in terms of box-office. Major centers of film production across the country include Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Kochi, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar-Cuttack and Guwahati. For a number of years the Indian film industry has ranked first in the world in terms of annual film output. In 2022, Indian cinema earned ₹15,000 crore at the box-office.