'Thudarum' to Lokah' and 'Empuraan': Why Malayalam Cinema Has Been 2025's Big Winner So Far

Do you call it the rise of Malayalam cinema or the fall of the other, more commercial movie industries when you learn that three of the top 10 highest grossing films of 2025 have all emerged from one of its smallest mainstream industries?

Malayalam movies L2: Empuraan, Lokah Chapter One: Chandra and Thudarum, take up the sixth, seventh and tenth spots respectively, signalling a change in the power dynamics of a homegrown industry that was always considered “too niche” or “too content-oriented”.

Three’s Company

L2: Empuraan, Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra and Thudarum have broken almost all previously held box-office records for any Malayalam film and in the process, consistently ensured it brought audiences back to theatres through the year. What makes the success of all three films even more fascinating is how each of them catered to a different audience demographic. So, if L2: Empuraan was tailor-made for the hardcore Mohanlal fan with lots of action, his second film of the year, Thudarum, brought families back to the theatre in a manner in which only his previous hits Drishyam and Pulimurugan had. And with the superhit success of Lokah Chapter One: Chandra, it was Gen Z and Gen Alpha that came out in hordes to celebrate the story of a modern-day superhero story with its roots in Kerala’s folk history.

Of the three, only L2: Empuraan was marketed in the mould of a “pan-Indian film.” Promotions saw its lead star Mohanlal and director Prithviraj travel the world to talk about the film. The bigness and the scale of the film was no secret either, with the crew repeating how it was the most expensive Malayalam film yet made. In all fairness, it was also a film that could afford the marketing blitzkrieg because it was the sequel to an already successful film named Lucifer and a reunion that brought back a tall star cast, which included Prithviraj, Tovino Thomas, Manju Warrier, Pranav Mohanlal and even Fast & Furious actor Rick Yune in a cameo. The film got an international-wide release helped by the actor’s huge fan base outside the country. And on release day, the film achieved the previously unimaginable feat of collecting ₹66.5 crores, ₹46 crores more than the next highest grossing day one (Marakkar).

But the magic of the next two blockbusters has been more in line with what Malayalam cinema is known for. Thudarum, for instance, ended its run as the only film to have collected over ₹100 crores from the Kerala market alone. Its release involved little-to-no marketing and even the genre of the film was kept a closely guarded secret. It took a muted opening, only to go on to collect a sum of ₹234 crores in total, more than 10 times its entire budget! It’s also worth mentioning that this sum was earned almost entirely in one language alone without the film requiring dubs into other versions and regions.

Going Lokah

Yet what remains the most striking superhit of the year remains Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra. Call it poetic justice but it seems strangely appropriate that the highest grossing female-led film from all of South India came from Malayalam. And ironically, when it completed its final run, this Malayalam superhero film would be the only one to come close to the collection of The Kerala Story, currently the highest grossing female-led film in the country. Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra, despite it being a part of an extensive five-movie series, released in just one language.

During one of the post-release press briefings in Chennai, Dulquer Salmaan, the film’s producer, was asked why he did not choose to market the film like a traditional pan-Indian film. In response, he said, “We weren’t sure about how to promote such a film. All our focus was to simply try to complete all the work on the film so that it releases smoothly for the festive Onam season in Kerala. We wanted to release it in Malayalam first and we hoped that it would grow organically although we had already completed dubbing it in both Tamil and Telugu. We felt if the movie clicked in Kerala with good word of mouth, we could think of marketing the other versions right after and that’s what we’ve done.”

But when he was asked if Lokah would have done even better had it been marketed like a pan-Indian film he said, “Not at all. I’m very happy with how it’s been performing, and it is all organic. Now when we bring the film to Tamil, we do not need to convince you to watch out film…the word of mouth has already spread and there’s a lot of excitement to watch it. It’s all about spreading the word now.”

Like the success of Saiyaara, this muted approach has worked very well for Lokah with its initial set of viewers becoming its ambassadors and with four more films in its universe ‒ with one each starring Tovino Thomas and Salmaan himself ‒ the later parts of the series is likely to take one of highest openings across the country.

In comparison, the route taken by Lokah was in line with last year’s Manjummel Boys, which went on to become a huge hit in the neighbouring region of Tamil Nadu. Likely, along with the collections from its Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil version, Lokah might just become the highest grossing Malayalam film of all-time, edging past L2: Empuraan.

Now even these figures may be one-tenth the highest grossers from Telugu, Kannada, and Hindi and one-third of a film such as Rajinikanth’s Coolie. But for those within the movie business in Kerala, there has not been a year as steady as this for their trade and with films achieving its success organically, the next year is only expected to get better.