Bollywood Pictionary

Just a pen, some paper, and one phone to generate the movies and track the timer. A whiteboard works great too, or an iPad connected to the TV.

No. You have to draw clues for the actual words in the movie title, not the people who starred in it.

We recommend 90 seconds for most groups. If everyone is a Bollywood expert, drop it to 60 seconds to increase the panic.

Keep a simple tally on your piece of paper. The team with the most guessed movies at the end wins.

Everyone else looks away, then one person takes the phone and presses Start my turn. The film appears straight away. That person draws the film on paper while the room shouts guesses, with no talking, no gestures, and no letters or numbers on the page. Press Solved when somebody gets it, Skip if the room is stuck, or let the timer run out, then pass the phone to the next person.

No. This is the rule most rooms get wrong. No letters, no numbers, no arrows pointing at a written word. You can draw a symbol that happens to contain a shape, but the moment you spell anything out the turn is over. Agree on this before the first turn rather than during someone's.

Go around the room in order. It is the simplest system and it stops the same confident person drawing every round. If you are playing in teams, alternate teams each turn so nobody sits out for long.

Split into two teams and seat them apart so guesses do not carry across the room. Above sixteen players, run three teams and rotate, which keeps the wait between turns short. Give a big room a shorter timer, because thirty people shouting at once gets to the answer faster than five do.

The ones whose titles contain an object rather than an emotion. A title with a moon, a train, a number or an animal gives the drawer somewhere to start. Titles built from abstract nouns are the ones that stall a room, and the film pool here filters for exactly that.