No matter how big the film, there are very few that create characters truly worth remembering.
With one such character returning to screens this Friday, here's a look at him and nine others who have entrenched themselves firmly into public memory:
Chulbul Pandey from Dabangg
Maybe it's the sunglasses, maybe it's the moustache, maybe it's the uniform.
Or maybe it's just that Chulbul Pandey epitomises the brashness and absurd glory of Salman Khan at its looniest, celebrating every aspect of the superstar.
No matter what reason, the public love him -- as declared by the box office numbers.
Geet from Jab We Met
An outspoken, reckless and genuinely gutsy Sikhni, Geet might not know better when seedy hotels charge by the hour but has her own ways of finding catharsis.
A truly independent girl, this, and her spunk made her quite the icon.
Circuit from Munna Bhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai
Authentically tapori and effortlessly hilarious, the sincere (and doggedly loyal) Circuit is the kind of character audiences everywhere love rooting for.
Barfi from Barfi!
And it wasn't all slapstick laughs; his Barfi managed to provide moments of genuine heartbreak and sadness as well.
Babli from Bunty Aur Babli
This lunatic tale of couple of conmen wouldn't have been anything as special without this cinema-bred smalltown heroine, a girl who just believed that anything was possible: and fast.
It's a confidence game, and with the irrepressible Babli, Rani Mukerji created a character who was likely to distract us all while she stole our wallets.
Dr Chaddha in Vicky Donor
The way he reduced the world to sperm ("Confused sperm," "intelligent sperm") remains persistently in our heads.
Coach Kabir Khan from Chak De! India
Nobody quite gave us a cinematic pep talk like this coach.
Shah Rukh Khan got a team of unruly women and turned them into champions, and made all us viewers believe, every step of the way.
His final talk to his team -- a spiel about the most important 70-minutes of life -- gave us goosepimples and remains unforgettable.
No wonder his team finally won.
Bob Biswas from Kahani
Never before had we seen assassins as soft-spoken (or, indeed, as out of shape) as this pudgy life insurance agent who doubled up as a stealthy, lethal hitman.
Saswata Chatterjee's Bob Biswas is one of the greatest characters we've seen this year or any other, and we're hoping those rumours about him getting his own film/TV series are true.
Bhuvan from Lagaan
If we applaud SRK for getting together an unlikely group to make them champions, well we must first look to Aamir Khan who did it on an even bigger scale -- and with an even more insane band of misfits.
Aamir's Bhuvan defiantly took on the British and played the game for the greatest odds, coming up on top in the end. It's almost Dhoni-like.
Sameer from Dil Chahta Hai
Aamir was the big draw in Farhan Akhtar's debut film, but when we walked out of the smash hit, all we could talk about was Saif Ali Khan and his fantastic, flippant, flirty fool of a character, Sameer.
Sameer who was henpecked, then hoodwinked, and then amused by a man who bought his girl red balloons.
He laughed hard, and we laughed with him.
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