You know Hindi films. Meet Telugu cinema.
Ten films for the Hindi-film viewer crossing into Telugu cinema, in the order to watch them.
Every “pan-India” film you have queued for in the last ten years was a Telugu film. Baahubali, RRR, Pushpa, Kalki, Salaar: Hyderabad made them and Bombay dubbed them. That is the first thing to know about the Telugu industry. It sells more tickets than any other in the country, it has the biggest budgets, the best dancers (nobody argues about this) and a director, S.S. Rajamouli, who made the rest of the world learn a Telugu song for the Oscars. If you have never watched an Indian film at all, start with the Hindi pack; if you have, this is the industry that feels most like Hindi cinema with the volume knob turned to eleven. It just does everything bigger.
What is different: scale is the house style, not a phase. The hero’s “elevation” scene, the interval bang, the dance number staged like a military parade, the villain who needs a full introduction of his own: Telugu cinema invented the grammar Hindi films now borrow. Under it sits something older and softer, the family drama, which Telugu audiences treat as a genre with its own stars, and older still, the mythological, because the industry began by filming the Mahabharata and never quite stopped. The star families go back three generations (a Nandamuri was chief minister of the state), and next to all that there is a small, sharp indie strand that wins the National Awards. Where Tamil cinema goes for politics and Malayalam for the quiet scene, Telugu goes for the spectacle and the family, and it has the audience to pay for both.
These ten are in order. We open with the two films you have already seen dubbed, so you can hear what you missed, then the originals Hindi cinema remade, then the family film at full strength, then the indie strand, and then we walk back to 1980 and 1957, to the film Indians voted the greatest ever made. By number five you will understand why Telugu audiences whistle. By number ten you will see where the whistling started.
01RRR (2022)
Two revolutionaries, one bridge, one tiger, and the Oscar for Best Original Song. You have seen it dubbed; watch it in Telugu, with the crowd it was built for in mind, and the film gets ten percent bigger. The door, because it is the loudest possible statement of what this industry is.
Kids: 12+.
On Netflix
02Bāhubali: The Beginning (2015)
A boy raised under a waterfall climbs it and finds a kingdom. Then watch The Conclusion, obviously; we count them as one evening, or two. Second because this is the film that made India realise Hyderabad had been building a Hollywood while nobody looked.
Kids: 12+.
On Netflix, Hulu, Xumo Play · Rent on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube
03Jersey (2019)
A failed cricketer in his thirties tries to make it back for his son. You know the Shahid Kapoor remake; the original is better, sadder and less concerned with being liked. Third because after two epics you need to know this industry can do a small film about one man’s pride.
Kids: yes, 2+.
On Sun NXT
04Arjun Reddy (2017)
A surgeon self-destructs after a breakup. The film that became Kabir Singh, and every argument you had about that film starts here, a rawer and more honest version with Vijay Deverakonda in the role that made him. Fourth because it is the Telugu new generation kicking the door in.
Kids: no.
On Prime Video, Hulu · Rent on Google Play Movies, YouTube
05Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020)
Two babies swapped at birth, one raised rich, one poor, and a hero who dances his way through both houses. This is the Telugu family entertainer at full strength, the genre this industry owns, with Allu Arjun at the top of his game (Hindi remade it as Shehzada and got it wrong). Fifth because now you can enjoy the formula on its own terms.
Kids: fine.
On Sun NXT
06Mahanati (2018)
The life of Savitri, the greatest star of the Telugu golden age, told by a journalist finding her story in 1980. A National Award for Keerthy Suresh and a door into the industry’s past that opens from the present. Sixth because it teaches you the history while you watch.
Kids: fine from about 13.
On Prime Video · Rent on Google Play Movies, YouTube
07C/o Kancharapalem (2018)
Four love stories in one small town, played by people from the town, most of whom had never acted. The best-reviewed Telugu film we have, and proof that under all the spectacle sits an indie cinema that can go anywhere. Seventh because by now you can take a film with no stars at all.
Kids: 12+.
Rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube
08Sita Ramam (2022)
A soldier in 1964 Kashmir writes to a woman he has never met. A period romance made with a care most Hindi films of its kind lost years ago, and the Telugu hit that crossed over quietly. Eighth because it is the bridge backwards: modern craft, old-fashioned feeling.
Kids: fine.
On Prime Video
A classical singer whose art has gone out of fashion, and the dancer’s daughter who keeps his house. K. Viswanath’s film made a whole country hum Carnatic music, and it won the National Award for the film that best entertained a nation. Ninth because the Telugu family film was born here, and it was a musical.
Kids: fine.
On Sun NXT, Eros Now
Ghatotkacha, Krishna, a wedding and the best special effects of the 1950s, played straight and funny at once. The mythological the industry was built on, and the film Indians voted the greatest ever made in a 2013 national poll. Watch it last: everything above it on this list, the scale, the family, the mischief, starts here.
Kids: fine from about 10.
On Sun NXT, Eros Now · Rent on Amazon Video
Done with these? Top Rated, Telugu ranks everything we have scored: Bhale Bhale Magadivoy (80), Uma Maheswara Ugra Roopasya (78) and Hi Nanna (78) are the next three doors, and Eega (2012) and Pelli Choopulu (2016) are on the classics list for a reason.