Shakti Samanta was born on January 13, 1926 in Burdwan. He graduated in 1944 from Calcutta University. He joined the film industry in 1948 as an assistant director and worked with Gyan Mukherjee, Satish Nigam and Phani Majumdar. Shakti Samanta directed his first feature film in 1954 and started his own production company, Shakti Films in 1957. He has directed 43 feature films in total; including 37 films in Hindi and 6 Bengali films. His best known films include China Town, Howrah Bridge, Kashmir Ki Kali and An Evening in Paris. Shakti Samanta is credited for emerging the trend of making double version films in Hindi and Bengali with Amanush in 1974. He also made the first co-produced film between India and Bangladesh in 1984.

Shakti Samanta was one of the directors who worked with Shammi Kapoor in the late 50`s and up to mid 60`s. He also worked with Rajesh Khanna, creating a number of classics such as "Aradhana", "Kati Patang" and "Amar Prem". However, his movies with Amitabh Bachchan achieved medium success. In some of his films, his brother and wife assisted him as producers. He also produced some of the films that were directed by his son.

Shakti Samanta was honored with the Filmfare awards for "Best film" for films like Aradhana, Anuraag and Amanush. He has also received several Lifetime Achievement awards and many other awards from Zee and other Indian organizations. Some of his films have been showcased at international festivals in Berlin, Moscow, Cairo, Tashkent and Beirut. Shakti Samanta was the Chairman of the Central Board Of Film Certification for 7 years, the President of the Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association for 5 years and the Chairman of the Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, Kolkata for 2 years.