Kalpana Lajmi’s Rudali was a captivating melodrama of a woman sanichari (Dimple Kapadia), who was looked upon as insensitive and incapable of crying when she was abandoned by her mother, deserted by her husband and left in the lurch by her son Budhwa when she rejected his shrewish prostitute wife. Sanichari became a Rudali a professional mourner whose primal despair was drawn from the depth of her own tragedy. Dimple won the National Award for her mesmerising performance. Folk tunes and songs of Rajasthan blended with Bhupen Hazarika’s music against the backdrop of Rajasthani landscapes to add to grandeur to the film.

Shyam Benegal’s Suraj ka Satwan Ghoda was based on Shama Zaidi’s script and highlighted Manek Mulla’s (Rajit Kapoor) smug but immature attitudes towards women. Mulla was very talkative and had a fertile imagination. He invited boys of his age to his room every evening and narrated stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood. On two evenings, he narrated three stories centering around his relationship with women. These stories conveyed his notions of romance, love and separation. The film was an illustration of male immaturity with regard to women and depicted more about what love was not rather than what it should be.

Hema Malini’s Dil Aashana Hai, loosely based on Hollywood’s Lace involved the audience completely in the tale of three college friends — Barkha (Dimple Kapadia), Raj (Amrita Singh) and Salma (Sonu Walia), who stood by one another through thick and thin.

Raj Kanwar’s Deewana was a sensitive human melodrama about a couple, Rishi Kapoor and Divya Bharti, who fell in love and got married. In order to swindle the huge property belonging to Rishi Kapoor, one of his vily relatives, Amrish Puri, liquidated him. Shattered and shocked at the turn of events, Divya Bharti became a recluse. During her frequent visits to a nearby temple, she met Shah Rukh Khan, who fell in love with her, irrespective of being a widow. Rishi Kapoor’s mother persuaded Divya to marry Khan. Then suddenly, Rishi Kapoor came back alive. A cliched violent climax, however, resulted in the death of Rishi Kapoor.

In Mukul Anand’s Khuda Gawah, Badshah Khan (Amitabh Bachchan) fell in love with Benazir (Sridevi), princess of a rival tribe. He came to India to avenge his beloved’s father’s killing, and fell a victim to the law of the land.