This is a list of famous and notable people from West Bengal, India. This would include persons who are known to a large number of people and is not based on the extent of their popularity. Neither is the list viewed from the context of the present. Their fame could be brief, what matters is that they were well-known during the peak of their popularity.
Arts
Literature
- Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913)
- Kazi Nazrul Islam
- Michael Madhusudan Dutt
- Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
- Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
- Saradindu Bandopadhayay
- Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay
- Tarashankar Bandopadhyay
- Manik Bandopadhyay
- Jibanananda Das
- Sunil Gangopadhyay
- Samaresh Majumdar
- Amitav Ghosh
- Upamanyu Chatterjee
- Jhumpa Lahiri
Movies
Directors
- Aparna Sen
- Asit Sen
- Anil Biswas
- Bimal Roy
- Budhdhadeb Dasgupta
- Gautam Ghose
- Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Dadasaheb Phalke Award, 2000
- Satyajit Ray, (OSCAR for Lifetime Achievement in 1992)
- Mrinal Sen
- Rituparno Ghosh
- Ritwik Ghatak
- Tapan Sinha
Actors
- Ashok Kumar
- Anup Kumar
- Hemant Kumar
- Kishore Kumar
- Mithun Chakraborty
- Pramathesh Barua
- Rahul Bose
- Rahul Roy
- Soumitra Chatterjee
- Utpal Dutt
- Uttam Kumar
- Victor Banerjee
Actresses
Also see List_of_Bengali_actresses
- Aparna Sen
- Bipasha Basu
- Devika Rani, first winner of Dadasaheb Phalke Award, 1970
- Jaya Bachchan (Jaya Bhaduri)
- Kajol
- Kananbala
- Kanan Devi, Dadasaheb Phalke Award, 1977
- Moon Moon Sen
- Moushmi Chatterji
- Nutan
- Raakhee Gulzar
- Reena Roy
- Rani Mukherji
- Riya Sen
- Sharmila Tagore
- Suchitra Sen
- Supriya Devi
- Sushmita Sen
- Tanuja
Music
- Abhijit
- Bappi Lahiri
- Hemant Kumar
- Kishore Kumar
- Kumar Sanu
- Manna Dey
- Ravi Shankar
- Salil Chowdhury
- Shaan
- Rahul Dev Burman
- Sachin Dev Burman
Dance
Theatre
Politics
Freedom Fighters
Post Independence
Science
- Jagadish Chandra Bose
- Satyendra Nath Bose
- Meghnad Saha
- P.C. Mahalanobis
- Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy
Religion
- Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
- A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
- Maharishi Debendranath Tagore
- Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
- Swami Vivekananda
Sports
- Arun Lal, cricketer
- Dibyendu Barua, chess grandmaster
- Saurav Ganguly, captain, Indian cricket team
- Pankaj Roy
Others
- Amartya Sen, economist, Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 1998
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (A social and cultural reformist who can be called the father of Bengali language)
- P.C. Sorcar, magician
- Raja Ram Mohan Roy, (A great social reformist who has a great contribution towards the upliftment of women. He worked towards widow remarriage and girl education.)
See also: List of people by India state