Rajinikanth

Born Shivaji Rao Gaikwad in Bengaluru on 12 December 1950, Rajinikanth first appeared on screen in 1975 in Apoorva Raagangal, directed by K. Balachander, and his earliest parts were mostly negative characters. He is above all a Tamil film star, though he has also acted in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and Malayalam cinema, and over more than fifty years his body of work has grown to about 170 films. He has also worked as a producer, screenwriter and singer. Critics took notice when he played sympathetic roles in Bhuvana Oru Kelvi Kuri (1977), and in Mullum Malarum and Aval Appadithan, both from 1978. Billa (1980), an action film with a dual role, fixed his image as an action lead, and Andhaa Kaanoon took him into Hindi cinema in 1983. The milestones since run from Mani Ratnam's Thalapathi (1991) and the Suresh Krissna films Annaamalai and Baashha to Muthu, Padayappa, Chandramukhi (2005), Sivaji (2007) and the science-fiction pair Enthiran (2010) and 2.0 (2018). He received the Padma Bhushan in 2000, the Padma Vibhushan in 2016 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2019, along with Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and a Filmfare Award South. Lately he has been the retired jailer "Tiger" Muthuvel Pandian in Nelson Dilipkumar's Jailer (2023), a character he took up again in Jailer 2 (2026). Coolie (2025) came out in between.