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The Best Malayalam Film Performances Of 2025
Superhero movies with a callback to folk tales, a horror movie that begins with a hero “ghosting” his girlfriend and a flashback to the Mohanlal-Sathyan Anthikad comedies of the 80’s…Malayalam cinema had it all this year. In a year of such variety, performances couldn’t have been ordinary
Malayalam cinema in 2025 will come to be defined by its range — of genres, tones, and, most strikingly, performances. From folk-inspired superhero epics and intimate family dramas to unsettling horror and bruising thrillers, the year demanded actors who could stretch beyond familiarity. What emerged was a slate of performances that were anything but ordinary: comic turns pitched to controlled absurdity, villains who radiated moral chaos, heroes weighed down by centuries of grief, and everyday people quietly reclaiming agency.
In no particular order, these 11 performances stood out not just for their craft, but for how deeply they shaped the films around them.
Joemon Jothir (Vyasanasametham Bandhumithradhikal)
Vyasanasametham Bandhumithradhikal is already a dark comedy that’s pitched several notches higher than the average Malayalam movie, but Joemon Jothir finds a unique meter for his performance that’s beyond outlandish. The movie that he has imagined he is a part of appears to be much wilder than the one we are watching, so when the scenes shift from drama towards his sub-plot in a movie filled with crazy characters, we’re already primed to laugh big. That one sequence in which he valiantly hits on a woman twice his age is comedic gold, the sort that keeps you laughing, even when the film moves on to the next scene.
Jaya Kurup (Diés Iraé)
In an ensemble filled with great performances, the emotion of it all gets tied together by Jaya Kurup’s shocking performance as Elsamma in this year’s horror blockbuster Diés Iraé. If you look from afar, she gets a role reversal of the mother-son dynamic in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In this, she gets to take up the duties left behind by Norman Bates in the classic as she looks after a son who has already left her side several months ago. Despite this revelation, she continues to humanise Elsamma. We feel for her and her struggles to keep a part of the only person she has left in this world. And when Rohan (Pranav Mohanlal) offers her his hand towards the end, we hope she finds peace and the strength to move on… all thanks to how Jaya was able to find a broken person within layers of evil.
Dileesh Pothan (Ronth)
As Yohannan, Dileesh delivers the strongest performance of his career, as a person so jaded by his profession that he has become unrecognisable to himself. It’s a strange and complex character that requires a balance between the naive innocent cub officer he once was, and the corrupt and practical realist he has turned into today. And yet, through his micro-expressions, we see him flicker through both personalities as he finds traces of humanity in him to protect and preserve the goodness within Dinnath (Roshan Mathew) as he is forced to break bad.
Prakash Varma (Thudarum)
The villain of the year is an easy guess because of how Prakash Varma chose to play George sir, a man so evil that one has no clue about what he is plotting next. He makes a remarkable debut, one that stands out even amidst Mohanlal’s commanding lead, contributing to the thriller’s enjoyable mix of massy action and grounded emotion. His intensity and screen presence help make his character unforgettable, elevating his scenes to a degree rarely seen in similar films of the genre. George appears to not have a moral compass, and is so broken that there’s no limits to the evil he has already committed.
Lal (Odum Kuthira Chadum Kuthira)
Maybe the audience was just not ready for a film like Altaf Salim’s Odum Kuthira Chadum Kuthira. It’s a slapstick comedy about a group of manic depressives and their leader seems to be Lal who plays Mathew Thalachirayil, a man still grieving after losing his wife several years ago. When we meet him first, it appears to be a very happy occasion as his son gets ready to get married. And still, the only thing on Mathew’s mind is to use that chance to take his own life, just so he can be with his one true love. It’s a mad film and the pitch of Lal’s performance is so perfect that almost every single scene of his (including the T-shirts he wears in the film) have gone viral, assuming a separate identity that’s as big as the film.
Joju George (Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal)
Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal is not a film that will leave you easily. Even months after you first watch it, you find yourself thinking and then re-thinking the hidden meanings behind certain pauses and the choice to use certain words in what appear to be extremely personal and difficult conversations. Of these, Sethu, the character played by Joju George, becomes the most difficult to not remember. He’s the youngest of three brothers and you see all the residual dread from having been treated poorly all through his life. And in that scene where he opens up about life to his niece and nephew over a joint, we realise the depths of this man’s understanding and his sensitive perspective towards life. A man with a heart so pure is bound to be torn apart in a world so heartless.
Kalyani Priyadarshan (Lokah Chapter One: Chandra)
It’s not easy to understand the craft that’s gone into Kalyani’s performance as Chandra in Lokah. One assumes that everything about playing a superhero has to do with pulling off mean action sequences in cool-looking costumes but Chandra needed more layers to make her convincing. The film became the highest-grossing Malayalam film of all time, but Kalyani Priyadarshini needed to pitch her role in a manner in which there’s absolutely nothing heroic about the life she’s leading. She may be all-powerful and immortal, yet you see centuries worth of pain hidden beneath this. But can a superhero ever truly be a character straight of a Greek tragedy? Kalyani seems to have figured it out.
Mohanlal (Hridayapoorvam)
In a year that belonged almost entirely to Mohanlal, it’s not easy to single out one performance as his best. Benz from Thudarum may be the most obvious pick for anyone who has grown up watching his films. But I’d make the case for his performance as Sandeep in Hridayapoorvam. Firstly, it’s not a film that comes with dramatic moments that require a heavy-lifting performance. And yet he carries the film on his shoulders like its made of feathers. He pours in so much earnestness into the film’s final speech that you forget there’s anything else other than the man on screen holding fort for close to 10 minutes. Even to compose shots like the film’s many lunch/dinner sequences, the ones in which Mohanlal is planted to the far-left corner of the frame, makes sense only because every inch of his being is built to act.
Basil Joseph (Ponman)
In Ponman, Basil Joseph delivered a powerful, scene-stealing performance that anchors the film’s unpredictable narrative, transforming what could have been a quirky village drama into a stressful, high-stakes character study. His portrayal of the mysterious PP Ajesh (based on a real person who is still missing) is central to the film’s emotional texture, making the audience constantly reassess their allegiance to him as the story unfolds. Initially appearing comical with traits like alcoholism and slapstick behaviour, Ajesh gradually reveals deeper layers of vulnerability, resilience, and moral ambiguity that Joseph conveys with remarkable subtlety.
Mammootty (Kalamkaval)
The man is in more than 400 films in his four decades as a mega star and yet he finds traces to his personality that we’ve not yet discovered. His performance in the riveting serial killer thriller deserves all the praise for making his character the most hateful character of the year. It’s arguably the most unsettling performance of his distinguished career, embracing a role that subverts his traditional star persona with chilling precision and layered menace. Mammootty anchors the narrative, embodying both the seductive ease of a debonair and the cold ruthlessness of a murderer in a single, fluid performance. Rather than relying on overt backstory or theatrical gestures, the actor lets subtle expressions and an eerie calmness articulate the terrifying duality of his character. This restraint is central to why Mammootty steals the film— making the audience as fascinated by him as they are horrified.
Shamla Hamsa (Feminichi Fathima)
The State award-winning performance of the year deserves all the praise coming her way. It’s a film built on such simple everyday emotions that it’s easy to miss the slow, gradual transformation Fathima has to undergo. It’s almost like she’s being forced to take control of her life after what appears to be something as unusual as her son’s bed wetting habit. It all seems so simple and easy yet so much happens in the backdrop that it’s incredible that Shamla was able to capture the essence of it all even when she has just started out in her career.