Most people in America are plenty familiar with Hollywood and the various sexy actresses that appear in the movies it produces. Unfortunately, most Americans are not familiar with Bollywood, India’s version of Hollywood and a source of many of the world’s beauties. Let’s try to rectify that a bit by meeting some of the hottest women Bollywood has to offer.

If you’re not familiar, Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry in India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema. There is a substantial amount of India’s cinema that is not included in the term Bollywood. That means that a number of great looking women were not eligible for this list. For one example, look to your left at Brinda Parekh. However, Bollywood is the largest part of the Indian film industry and one of the largest in the world.

The women of Bollywood are generally from India, although there are exceptions. Remember this is a country of over a billion people, so there’s plenty of women to choose from. For reference, India is almost quadruple the population of the United States. Many of the women on this list got their start in models and beauty pageants. There’s a few Miss Indias and at least one Miss World and one Miss Universe in these rankings. In fact, India has had an amazing run of success in international pageants, reflecting the great beauty of their women.

If you’re looking for future faces of Bollywood, one might start with current Miss India Parvathy Omanakuttan. You can check out pictures of her in our Miss World 2008 post. Or maybe you’ll simply enjoy a picture of the Miss India runner-up, Simran Kaur Mundi. I’ve posted one to the right for your viewing pleasure. The future prospects look good.

Of note is that there has been a growing presence of Indian English in Bollywood films. It is not uncommon to see films that feature dialogue with English words and phrases, even whole sentences. There are also a growing number of films made entirely in English. Maybe we will soon see a blending of the two hemispheres with more of these women in films that can easily be seen in the United States.

Until that time, however, you can enjoy these rankings and get to know some women you might not yet know of (click on image or name for a full gallery and background on each girl) :