10 Best Mani Ratnam Movies In Telugu That You Shouldn’t Miss!

Amrutha

Amrutha won National Award for the social message that it delivered from the point of view of an young kid who had to grow up in another country away

from her birth parents for no mistake of hers, as her parents, especially mother is busy fighting a war. Simran, Madhavan, PS Keerthana, Prakash Raj, Pasupathy and Nanditha Das gave brilliant performances. 

Bombay

Bombay is more popular these days for the music album composed by AR Rahman. Yes, the music from the film is really great. 

Aravind Swamy, Manisha Koirala in lead roles played their career best roles. They both belong to these two waring communities and hence, their lives are always in danger of being thrashed away by people who don’t understand life or look at it, as they do.

Anjali

He started making Anjali with Tharun who was 10 years old back then and a popular kid actor with Baby Shamili to tell this story. 

It is about a “special” kid who is not as fast as others and who is easily mocked for being different.

Geetanjali

Akkineni Nagarjuna wanted Mani Ratnam to make a film with him and the director after repeated requests came up with this film for Nag.

The movie created history at box office for the lead actor and his pairing with new artist Girija remained iconic. 

Iddaru

This film is not as popular as other films in the list. While it is highly appreciated by critics and revered by a section of fans of the director, the film deserves even better recognition. 

Iddaru has Mohan Lal and Prakash Raj in lead roles and it doesn’t have action sequences or comedy tracks which were the norms of Filmmaking back then.

Yuva

Yuva is a commercially charged film from Mani Ratnam Pan-India. It takes three stories of youngsters whose lives cross paths with one incident, as main plot.

The climax of the film worked for few and did not work for certain people but it is not as talked about as Nayakudu or Dalapathy. 

Donga Donga

It has been criminally underrated by many due to its box office performance when it released. This film and Iruvar forced Mani Ratnam to go back to his staple romantic tale like Sakhi. 

This comedy of errors and heist film deserved far more appreciation from the crowds as it stayed true to the genre and young as well. Audiences of that generation couldn’t understand the sleek screenplay but several from this generation like the film.

Prema tho

Music album of Dil Se/ Prema Tho is highly popular. But the film in Telugu is not well received.

While it has some of the best tunes of AR Rahman, it does have best performances from lead cast Shah Rukh Khan, Manisha Koirala and Preity Zinta.

Mouna Ragam

This 1980’s classic made Mani Ratnam what he is today. Young generation seems to not bother about checking this film out.

Hence, we are recommending it in this list. As most of the discussions about Mani Ratnam’s films start with Nayakudu and diverge into his other Romantic films, this one seems to have been missed by Telugu youth.

Nawab/ Chekka Chivantha Vaanam

Nawab did not receive much appreciation from common public while critics lauded it. It was a film from Mani Ratnam for his fans.

Film majorly works because of the performances by Simbu, Vijay Sethupathi and Aravind Swamy. Even Arun Vijay, Prakash Raj are very good.