The Five Best Telugu Film Performances of 2025

Telugu cinema experienced a natural ebb and flow this year. A few star-led films made a dent at the box office — Venkatesh Daggubati’s Sankranthiki Vasthunam — while some surprised not too much with density, but with style (Pawan Kalyan’s They Call Me OG), and tenor (Gowtam Tinnanuri’s Kingdom). But the real mavericks this year have been the smaller films… titles that sneaked in terrific registers of performances all through 2025.

Here’s a list of Telugu cinema’s best performances this year in no particular order:

Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Court: State vs A Nobody

Priyadarshi Pulikonda brings his characteristic lightness to the Telugu drama. But where he really surprises in Court is with his range. Through the romance of two young adults, the 19-year-old Chandu, and the 17-year-old Jabili, we see a falsely implicated case under the POCSO Act play out. Pulikonda’s Teja, an assistant who is dying to come out of his mentor’s shadow, is forced to take up this complicated case — not for selfish hunger of recognition — but out of empathy for Chandu’s helplessness; a glimpse of which he sees in himself. Pulikonda is fantastic in the court scenes as the wordsmith, a side of him we’ve come to adore, but also as an immersive performer who rightfully gets his due. 

Rashmika Mandanna, The Girlfriend

Rahul Ravindran’s The Girlfriend has some of the most piercing depictions of women in it. We have the beautiful and self-assured Durga (Anu Emmanuel), who doesn’t shy away from being the first to profess her love. And then there’s Rohini, who plays Vikram’s mother, a mute, terrified shadow of a woman, conditioned by the men in her life. But Rashmika Mandanna’s Bhooma is perhaps one of the more intricately written women to come out of Telugu cinema this year. She might look demure, but Mandanna gingerly ensures that she isn’t reduced to a simplistic type. An apt reflection of any modern woman in a knotty relationship, Mandanna’s ability to effuse strength, naïveté and feverish rage moulds Bhooma and the film.

Dhanush, Kuberaa

Dhanush’s knack for playing vulnerable men is well-documented. But there’s something about his character in Kuberaa—marked by a transformation as emotional as it is physical—that supersedes our understanding of the impeccable on-screen soft boy. His turn as Deva, a charming beggar who has been cheating death ever since his birth, is sensational. He can be dressed up in tailored linen or silk, but Dhanush wants you to know that he is a beggar with no shame. You see it in the way he assertively crouches on the floor when told to sit in a room, shares his biscuits with strays, and never forgets the hand that feeds. The lines between Dhanush and Deva blur so brilliantly in the Sekhar Kammula film, leaving us brimming with grief and relief at the end of it all. 

Mouli, Little Hearts

A romance about a young man and a woman, who, as a sidenote, is three years older than the guy, isn’t too far from your average love story. But what makes Little Hearts refreshingly inventive is the performances. Mouli, who plays Akhil, a young but harmless loafer, lends unending amounts of wit and humour to the role. The film could’ve easily taken on an off-colour tone, considering it deals with complicated gender dynamics of a romance where the man relentlessly pursues the woman. But Mouli and the dynamic team of actors (including Shivani Nagaram as Khathyayani and Jai Krishna as Akhil’s friend) think on their feet and keep the mood enjoyably frothy. “It’s good that you’re older than me; you’ll take care of me,” remains Akhil’s simple yet darling philosophy. 

Sudhakar Reddy, Muthayya 

Who doesn’t love an underdog story? Muthayya goes further and brings us the story of the relentless old man who wants to become an actor at 70. Sudhakar Reddy brings deep levels of complexity to Muthayya’s struggling actor. He is always seen with a smile, and greets everyone he meets with the “Did you eat?” civility (and he actually wants to know if they lunched). But he also can’t hide the feeling of profound sadness that often comes with being a failed actor. His story about going to Madras as a young man with ₹72 in his pocket moves his bestfriend Malli in equal measure. Malli describes Muthayya in a lovely line in the film, even if he means it as a taunt. He scoffs at him for being “obsessed with beauty.” All that incessant twirling of the handlebar moustache makes us agree with Malli. But which actor isn’t? Reddy pulls us in with his dreamer act, and by the end, we’re cheering him from the aisles. It doesn’t really matter whether he succeeds or not.