Kannada film industry, also known as "Sandalwood", is based in बंगळुरू and caters mostly to the population of state of Karnataka.

Dr.Rajkumar is an icon for Kannada film industry. In his career, he performed versatile characters and sung nearly 3000 songs for movies and albums. Some of the noted Kannada directors include Girish Kasaravalli, Puttanna Kanagal, G.V.Iyer, Girish Karnad, T.S. Nagabharana, Yograj Bhat, Suri. The popular actors include Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish, Ravichandran, Ramesh, Ananth Nag, Shankar Nag, Prabhakar, ganesh, Upendra, Sudeep, Darshan, Shivaraj Kumar, Puneet Rajkumar, Kalpana, Bharathi, Jayanthi, Pandari bai, B Sarojadevi, Sudharani, Malashri, Tara, Umashri and Ramya.

G.K. Venkatesh, Vijaya Bhaskar, TG lingappa, Rajan-Nagendra, Hamsalekha and Gurukiran are noted music directors. 

Kannada cinema, along with the Bengali Movies and Malayalam Movies, has contributed to Indian parallel cinema. Some of the influential movies in this genre are "Samskara" (based on a novel by U R Ananthmurthy), "Chomana Dudi" by B. V. Karanth, "Tabarana Kathe". Samskara, Vamshavruksha, Paniyamma, Kadu Kudure, Hamsageethe, Chomana Dudi, Accident, Ghata Shradhdha, Akramana, Mooru Dhaarigalu, Tabarana Kathe, Bannadha Vesha, Mane, Kraurya, Taayi Saaheba, Dweepa are other acclaimed "arthouse" movies.

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