Pather Panchali in the context of "The Apu Trilogy"

Aparajito (Bengali: অপরাজিত Ôporajito; The Unvanquished) is a 1956 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, and is the second part of The Apu Trilogy. It is an adaptation of the last part of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Pather Panchali and the first part of his followup novel Aparajito. The film starts off where the previous film Pather Panchali (1955) ended, with Apu's family moving to Varanasi, and chronicles Apu's life from childhood to adolescence in college.

When Ray started making Pather Panchali, he had no plans of following it up with a sequel, but the critical and commercial success of that film prompted him to start making Aparajito. Unlike his previous venture, where he stayed faithful to the novel, Ray took some bold artistic decisions here, such as portraying the relationship between Apu and his mother in a very different manner from the book. As a result, in contrast to its predecessor, the film was not received well locally; Ray recalled that "as for the suburban audience, it was shocked by the portrayal of the mother and son relationship, so sharply at variance with the conventional notion of mutual sweetness and devotion".

The World of Apu, initially released as Apur Sansar (Bengali: অপুর সংসার), is a 1959 Indian Bengali-language drama film written, produced, and directed by Satyajit Ray. It is adapted from the second half of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s novel Aparajito. Preceded by Pather Panchali (1955) and Aparajito (1956), it is the concluding instalment of Ray’s acclaimed Apu Trilogy, chronicling the life of Apu, a young Bengali man, through his formative years in early twentieth-century India.

The film stars Soumitra Chatterjee in his debut role as Apu, alongside Sharmila Tagore as Apu’s wife, Aparna—both of whom would become frequent collaborators in Ray’s later works.