Lately, the economics of Bollywood has become a figment of imagination -- leaving very little space for rational evaluation. Given the prices multiplexes command and the trade’s adherence to the much-discussed 100-crore-club, it’s difficult to draw the line on hits and misses. However, there have been some surprises in 2013, whereby films made on tighter budgets not only broke even but also made considerable profit. And most of them didn’t feature a big name to reckon with. HitList names a few of these exceptionals...

'Aashiqui 2'

Director: Mohit Suri
Budget: Rs 9 crore
Box office: Rs 82 crore
Result: It’s beyond doubt that this early release has to be the greatest surprise of the year. A love story making hay at the box-office fundamentally required a known couple on the big screen with chemistry and chutzpah to boot but this time around, we had much newer faces -- Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor -- as lovestruck protagonists. Regardless, the songs were massive hits and the movie went on to bring in more than R100 crore on a global scale.