It was a realistic drama of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame.

[21][22] The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977).

[23] In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help.

[26] In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF.

[27] To quote film critic Derek Malcolm: what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom.

[28]Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Benegal has had private backers for many of his films and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation ) and Susman (1987) (Handloom Co-operatives).

[9] This gave him an added advantage, as he managed to survive the collapse of the New Cinema movement in the late 1980s due to paucity of funding, with which were lost many neo-realist filmmakers.

The former was an interracial love story set amidst the turbulent period of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, while the latter was based on the Mahabharata and was not a big hit, although both won Filmfare Best Movie Awards in 1980 and 1982, respectively.

[23][29][30] Benegal's next film Mandi (1983), was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil.

[31] Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationships in Trikal (1985).

[32] Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression.

[36] The 1990s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001).

[40] This turn to biographical material resulted in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, his 2005 English language film.

Shyam Benegal is slated to direct an epic musical, Chamki Chameli,[49] inspired by Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen.

The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper and is written by Shama Zaidi.

[52][53] Benegal made a comeback on the small screen with Samvidhaan, a 10-part mini-series revolving around the making of the Indian Constitution, to be aired on Rajya Sabha TV from 2 March 2014.

[54] Government of Bangladesh has confirmed Benegal would direct the biopic of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman named Mujib: The Making of a Nation.