The single best thing that happened to Indian cinema in the last five years is that North Indian audiences discovered South Indian films.
I grew up in Mumbai watching only Hindi films. Then during lockdown a friend in Chennai kept insisting I watch a Malayalam film called Drishyam. I resisted for weeks. I finally watched it on a Tuesday afternoon expecting to give up after 20 minutes.
I watched it twice that same day.
That experience is common now. The Hindi-dubbed versions of Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam films regularly trend on OTT platforms across India. Here are the ones worth your time right now.
Vikram (Tamil — Available on Prime Video)
Vikram is what happens when a filmmaker is given a large budget, a brilliant cast, and complete creative freedom. Kamal Haasan, Vijay Sethupathi, and Fahadh Faasil in the same film — each of them among the best actors in Indian cinema — and the film gives all three of them something real to do.
It is an action film but it is an action film with characters. The villain is not evil for convenience — he has a logic, a history, a reason. The action sequences are choreographed with spatial intelligence — you always know where everyone is and why what is happening matters.
The Hindi dub preserves the performances well. Watch it on the biggest screen available.
Jailer (Tamil — Available on Netflix)
Rajinikanth at 73 making an action film sounds like it should not work. Jailer absolutely works.
The key is that director Nelson Dilipkumar understands what a Rajinikanth film needs to be — not realistic, not gritty, but stylish, funny, and built around moments of pure cinema magic that only this particular actor can deliver. The interval block alone is worth the watch.
If you have never watched a Rajinikanth film before Jailer is a reasonable entry point. If you are already a fan you already know what you are getting and it delivers.
Soorarai Pottru (Tamil — Available on Prime Video)
Based loosely on the life of Captain G R Gopinath who founded Air Deccan — India’s first low-cost airline — Soorarai Pottru is the kind of film that reminds you what Indian cinema is capable of when it has something real to say.
Suriya gives the performance of his career as a man from a poor background who refuses to accept that affordable air travel is only for rich people. The film is funny, emotional, angry, and inspiring in ways that do not feel manufactured.
The National Award it won was deserved. Watch it with your parents if they remember the Air Deccan era — they will have stories.
RRR (Telugu — Available on Netflix)
By now most people in India have watched RRR. If you have not — genuinely, what are you waiting for.
RRR is a fictional story about two real freedom fighters — Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem — reimagined as an action spectacle directed by S S Rajamouli who also made Baahubali. It is three hours long and every scene earns its runtime.
The Naatu Naatu sequence won an Oscar. The film deserved more than one. There is a scene involving a motorcycle, a bridge, and about 400 British soldiers that is the most purely entertaining five minutes in recent Indian cinema history.
Maharaja (Tamil — Available on Netflix)
The most recent addition to this list and possibly the sharpest screenplay of any Indian film in the last two years.
Maharaja appears to be a straightforward revenge thriller for the first hour. Then it does something with its structure that completely recontextualises everything you watched before it. The reveal is not a trick — it is earned, it makes logical sense, and it makes the film genuinely better on a rewatch because you see things differently knowing what you know.
Vijay Sethupathi is one of the most versatile actors in Indian cinema and this is him at his most controlled and effective.
