Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent film-making after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948) during a visit to London.

Popular characters created by Ray include Feluda the sleuth, Professor Shonku the scientist, Tarini Khuro the storyteller, and Lalmohan Ganguly the novelist.

[18] Satyajit's father and Upendrakishore's son, Sukumar Ray, who was also born in Kishorganj, was an illustrator, critic, and a pioneering Bengali writer of nonsense rhyme (Abol Tabol) and children's literature.

[22] The works of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Ernst Lubitsch and movies such as The Thief of Baghdad (1924) and Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927) made lasting impression on his mind.

[31] Ray designed covers for many books, including Jibanananda Das's Banalata Sen and Rupasi Bangla, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's Chander Pahar, Jim Corbett's Maneaters of Kumaon, and Jawaharlal Nehru's Discovery of India.

After unsuccessful attempts to persuade many producers to finance the project, Ray started shooting in late 1952 with his personal savings and hoped to raise more money once he had some footage shot, but did not succeed on his terms.

[51] Six months later, American director John Huston, on a visit to India for some early location scouting for The Man Who Would Be King, saw excerpts of the unfinished film and recognised "the work of a great film-maker".

[58] In a retrospective review, Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle praised Ray for his ability to capture emotions and blend music with storytelling to create a "flawless" picture.

[64] American critic Roger Ebert summarised the trilogy as, "It is about a time, place and culture far removed from our own, and yet it connects directly and deeply with our human feelings.

[72] The New York Times' Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review; he praised Ray's "soft and relaxed" filmmaking but thought the characters were clichés.

[74] Based on Tagore's short story, Nastanirh (Broken Nest), the film tells of a lonely wife, Charu, in 19th-century Bengal, and her growing feelings for her brother-in-law Amal.

In retrospective reviews, The Guardian called it "extraordinarily vivid and fresh",[75] while The Sydney Morning Herald praised Madhabi Mukherjee's casting, the film's visual style, and its camera movements.

[78] Other films in this period include Mahanagar (The Big City), Teen Kanya (Three Daughters), Abhijan (The Expedition), Kapurush (The Coward) and Mahapurush (Holy Man).

Starring Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore, in the twenty-four hours of the journey, the film explores the inner conflict of the apparently highly successful matinée idol.

It starred a high-profile cast including Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Amjad Khan, Shabana Azmi, Victor Bannerjee, and Richard Attenborough.

[96] Despite the film's limited budget, a The Washington Post critic gave it a positive review, writing, "He [Ray] possesses what many overindulged Hollywood filmmakers often lack: a view of history".

The final scene shows the father finding solace only in the companionship of his fourth son, who is uncorrupted but mentally ill due to a head injury sustained while he was studying in England.

Ray's last film, Agantuk (The Stranger), is lighter in mood but not in theme; when a long-lost uncle arrives to visit his niece in Calcutta, he arouses suspicion as to his motive.

Twenty-four days before his death, Ray was presented with an Honorary Academy Award by Audrey Hepburn via video-link; he was in gravely ill condition, but gave an acceptance speech, calling it the "best achievement of [my] movie-making career".

[110] Ray created two popular fictional characters in Bengali children's literature—Pradosh Chandra Mitter (Mitra), alias Feluda, a sleuth, and Professor Shonku, a scientist.

The book is presented in two sections, first discussing Indian film before turning its attention toward Hollywood, specific filmmakers (e.g., Charlie Chaplin and Akira Kurosawa), and movements such as Italian neorealism.

[119] His calligraphic technique reflects the deep impact of (a) the artistic pattern of European musical staff notation in the graphemic syntagms and (b) alpana, "ritual painting" mainly practised by Bengali women at the time of religious festivals (the term means "to coat with").

The three-tier X-height of Bengali graphemes was presented in a manner of musical map, and the contours, curves in between horizontal and vertical meeting-point, follow the patterns of alpana.

[130] Critics such as Robin Wood have lauded him as the best director of children, recalling memorable performances in the roles of Apu and Durga (Pather Panchali), Ratan (Postmaster), and Mukul (Sonar Kella).

[138] As Stanley Kauffmann wrote, some critics believe that Ray assumes that viewers "can be interested in a film that simply dwells in its characters, rather than one that imposes dramatic patterns on their lives".

[146] Praising his contribution to the world of cinema, American filmmaker Martin Scorsese said, "His work is in the company of that of living contemporaries like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Federico Fellini".

Certain advocates of socialism claim that Ray was not "committed" to the cause of the nation's downtrodden classes, while some critics accused him of glorifying poverty in Pather Panchali and Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder) through lyricism and aesthetics.

That Akash Kusum bore some resemblance to Parash Pathar, a film Sen had admitted to not liking, may have played a role in fracturing their previously cordial relationship.

[156] Beyond India, filmmakers Martin Scorsese,[157][158] Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas,[159] James Ivory,[160] Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, William Wyler,[161] François Truffaut,[162] John Huston,[163] Carlos Saura,[164] Isao Takahata,[165] Oliver Stone,[166] Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson,[167] Danny Boyle,[168] Christopher Nolan,[148] and many others have been influenced by Ray's cinematic style.

[170] According to Michael Sragow of The Atlantic Monthly, the "youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to The Apu Trilogy".