SS Rajamouli has always been a man of grandeur. This is evident from his big-budget action epics like Bahubali and the Oscar-winning period drama RRR. But instead of just amping up the action and the visuals, the Critics’ Choice Movie Award-winning director also has some out-of-the-box ideas at his disposal. Just take the case of Eega, a revenge drama about a man reborn as a fly!
Here’s a look at Rajamouli’s larger-than-life career.
Early collaborations with Junior NTR and Prabhas
Rajamouli marked his debut with Student No: 1 in 2001 and followed it up with another action drama in 2003, Simhadri. Both movies pale in comparison to Rajamouli’s future projects but they notably starred a younger Junior NTR who was still emerging as a Telugu action star.
A more notable early action credit in Rajamouli’s filmography is the 2005 drama Chatrapathi. Featuring Prabhas in the lead, Chatrapathi is the story of a displaced migrant from Sri Lanka who finds his long-lost family in Tamil Nadu while encountering local goons. The film marked a crucial partnership for Rajamouli who would collaborate with Prabhas for the Bahubali movies and also showcased the director’s affinity for balancing violent action with melodramatic family storylines.
Fantasy experiments with Magadheera and Eega
After a string of action movies, Rajamouli turned towards the fantasy genre with the Ram Charan-led period epic Magadheera. The most expensive Telugu film of its time, Magadheera revolved around themes of reincarnation and eternal love. Ram Charan and Kajal Aggarwal starred as two star-crossed lovers who are killed off in a medieval era only to get reincarnated four centuries later. Flipping between two timelines, Magadheera was a romance of a scale that the Telugu film industry had never witnessed before.
Rajamouli’s obsession with rebirth and revenge returned in Eega, a fantasy comedy-drama that starred a tragic lover’s revenge as a reincarnated fly. The outlandish concept along with Kannada star Sudip’s compelling performance as the antagonist made Eega earn raves among critics, audiences, and even actors like Shah Rukh Khan. The Telugu movie was equally successful in its multilingual dubs, foreshadowing Rajamouli’s greatness as a pan-Indian filmmaker.
Epic storytelling with Bahubali
Rajamouli joined forces with his Chatrapathi star Prabhas for the Bahubali franchise, a series of two films that revolved around the political and militaristic tussles in the fictional kingdom of Mahishmati.
Boasting storylines drawn from epics like the Mahabharata and staging some spectacular battle sequences, Rajamouli succeeded in offering India its very own cinematic universe to be proud of. Bahubali’s legacy can be felt in Indian pop culture with the multimedia franchise that it spawned (novels, comics, an animated series on Prime, and upcoming spinoffs) and the extremely quotable characters like Devasena, Kattappa, and many more.
Why RRR is SS Rajamouli’s best movie
While the enduring legacy of Bahubali made Rajamouli a household name in India, it is his 2022 historical action drama RRR that put him on the map of the world. Increasing the stakes of stunt choreography and visual effects in Telugu cinema, uniting industry titans like Junior NTR and Ram Charan, and making his heroes dance on the Oscar-winning foot-tapping dance number Naatu Naatu, Rajamouli created an over-the-top action saga with RRR that left everyone in awe. The revisionist history set in colonial India isn’t the most accurate representation of the anti-imperialist freedom fighters Alluri Sitaram Raju and Komaram Bheem but it is truly a cinematic spectacle like no other.
Where can you stream SS Rajamouli’s filmography?
Rajamouli’s best movies can be streamed on Netflix, Prime Video, Aha, Hotstar and more.
