You know Hindi films. Meet Tamil cinema.
Ten films for the Hindi-film viewer crossing into Tamil cinema, in the order to watch them.
Tamil cinema is where Indian film and Indian politics stopped pretending to be different things. Two of the state’s chief ministers were its biggest stars, a third wrote its screenplays, and the audience still walks into a theatre expecting the hero to speak for them. That is the first thing to know: the “mass” film here is not a guilty pleasure, it is a civic institution, complete with the entrance song, the punch dialogue and the fans pouring milk on a fifty-foot cutout. The second thing is that the same industry makes the angriest, most political serious cinema in the country, about caste and land and police stations, and it makes money doing it. Nobody else holds both ends of that rope. If you have never watched an Indian film at all, start with the Hindi pack and come back here second.
What is different from Hindi: the films are more rooted (less English, less Switzerland, more of the actual street), the action is harder, the music is better on average (this is the industry that gave Hindi cinema A.R. Rahman, and before him Ilaiyaraaja), and the writing, at the top end, is braver about whose story gets told. Where Telugu cinema goes for spectacle and family fantasy and Malayalam for the quiet scene, Tamil goes for the fight, the argument and the anthem. Chennai calls it Kollywood after Kodambakkam, the neighbourhood where the studios were; nobody in Chennai says Kollywood.
These ten are in order. We open with the originals Hindi cinema remade, so you can measure the difference yourself, then the new wave that made the 2010s the industry’s best decade, then one star at full wattage, and then backwards to the two films everything else is measured against. By number four you will have stopped waiting for a song. By number ten you will be watching a 1987 gangster film and understanding why it is on the list of the best films ever made.
A police encounter specialist and the gangster he cannot catch, telling each other stories. You have seen the Hrithik and Saif version; this is the original, tighter and funnier, with Vijay Sethupathi doing the thing that made him the most interesting actor in India. The door, because you know the shape and can watch the difference.
Kids: 12+, violent.
On Prime Video · Rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube
02Soorarai Pottru (2020)
A village boy builds an airline for people who have never flown, against a system built to stop him. Loosely the Air Deccan story, remade in Hindi as Sarfira, and the National Award for Best Film. Second because it is the Tamil crowd-pleaser at its most generous, and Suriya at his best.
Kids: fine from about 7.
On Prime Video
0396 (2018)
A school reunion, one night, two people who never got over each other. The softest film in the pack and one of the great Indian romances, made of pauses. Third because after two loud films you need to know this industry can whisper.
Kids: fine.
On Prime Video, Sun NXT · Rent on Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube
04Kaithi (2019)
One night, one truck, one ex-convict trying to reach his daughter while a drug cartel hunts a police convoy. No songs, no heroine, no interval fat. The action grammar the rest of India spent the next five years copying (Hindi remade it as Bholaa), and the start of the Lokesh universe. Fourth because this is the modern Tamil action film, pure.
Kids: 12+, violent.
On Prime Video · Rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube
05Jai Bhim (2021)
A tribal woman’s husband disappears in police custody and a lawyer takes on the state. From a real 1993 case, and the film that made half of India look up what custodial torture means. Fifth because it is the first hard step: the Tamil political film, done as a courtroom thriller you cannot switch off.
Kids: no. It is unflinching about torture.
On Prime Video
A Dalit law student, an upper-caste classmate who likes him, and a dog named Karuppi. The manifesto of the new wave: caste, told without a speech, by a director who lived it. Sixth because by now you can take a film that is angry and tender in the same shot.
Kids: fine from 12, it is about caste violence.
On Prime Video · Rent on Google Play Movies, YouTube
07Asuran (2019)
A farmer who has spent his life avoiding a fight is forced into one to save his son. Land, caste, revenge, and a Dhanush performance that won the National Award. Seventh because this is the Tamil mass film and the Tamil political film in one body, which is the industry’s signature trick.
Kids: 12+, violent.
On Prime Video · Rent on Google Play Movies, YouTube
08Enthiran (2010)
A scientist builds a robot in his own image and the robot falls in love with his girlfriend. You know it dubbed as Robot; you have never seen a Rajinikanth entrance in Tamil with a Tamil crowd in mind. The most expensive Indian film of its day, and the pack’s one pure star vehicle, because no Tamil starter pack without Rajinikanth is honest.
Kids: fine from about 10.
On Sun NXT, Xumo Play
A village girl’s husband is kidnapped in Kashmir and she will not leave until the state gives him back. Mani Ratnam’s love-and-nation film, dubbed across India and remembered mostly for one thing: it is A.R. Rahman’s first score. Ninth because this is where the music you have been hearing all pack came from.
Kids: fine.
On Sun NXT · Rent on Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube
A Tamil boy in a Bombay slum grows into the don who runs it. Kamal Haasan and Mani Ratnam’s answer to The Godfather, on Time magazine’s list of the hundred best films ever made. Watch it last: by now you know the actor, the director, the music and the politics, and this is all four at once.
Kids: 15+.
Rent on Amazon Video
Done with these? Top Rated, Tamil ranks everything we have scored: Peranbu (87), Pasanga (87) and Aruvi (85) are the next three doors, and Thevar Magan (1992) and Mouna Raagam (1986) are the classics after Nayakan.