The New Indian Cinema is more of a movement, which is the mainspring of a renewal of aesthetics and vitality of themes in Indian cinema. It is also the reason that presently the Indian cinema is known to the outside world. However there are exceptions like Satyajit Ray, who was probably the only symbol of the Indian cinema to the outside India till the arrival of the New Cinema.

Some of the leading directors from this movement include Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji, john Abraham from Kerala; Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Goutam Ghose, U. Chakraborty from Bengal; Balu Mahendru and K. Hariharan from Tamil Nadu; B. Bapu, Bongu Narsinga Rao from Andhra Pradesh; MS Sathyu, Girish Karnad, BV Karnath, Girish Kasaravalli from Karnataka and others. The New Cinema sprang from the fact that there was an aesthetic vacuum in the films of 1960s and 70s. The influence of the new cinema was widely felt on the regional films as well. Hence the directors and actors of `new cinema` can be easily sorted out on the basis of regions.

The aspiration of this new wave of filmmakers was to refuse to follow the rules of mainstream cinema and to work outside the commercial structures of Mumbai and other regional cinemas. Their beginnings are situated around 1970s. Their attempts to go beyond the mainstream movies were not completely new. From time to time such attempts have been made by the likes of Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak. For a long time these three Bengali directors were ignored by the Hindi film industry. But they were probably the main inspiration for the New Indian Cinema directors. A link, for example, has been traced between the works of Ghatak to that of Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani.

Filmmaking in Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada as well as Oriya, Assamese and Manipuri were also affected by this new movement. All these led to the emergence of a new breed of directors known as the "auteur" directors all over the country. One might easily say that the New Cinema is a reflection of various objectives. These include the desire to adopt a linear narrative and a perspective, which is largely humanist and realistic in its manner of presentation.

Other factors include a careful psychological portrayal of the characters and basically an anti-establishment view of the social and political systems of the society. Sometimes these films came as a shock with the majority of the Indian audience because of their explicit sexuality, the avoidance of songs and dance unless absolutely necessary and several other exceptions made them unpalatable to the then audience. Such movies were often clubbed under the label of `art films.` the likes of Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Deepti Naval, Mammooty, Mohanlal and others were associated with art films.

However with time the concept of parallel or art cinema has undergone a major change. In the 21st century there is no demarcation between the arts of commercial films. Even mainstream films avoid songs and dances if the script does not require it. But the primary reason behind the cessation of such a demarcation is the audience`s readiness to accept good films without any discrimination.