I also think 2018 also gave us some of the greatest acting performances Telugu cinema has seen in recent years. Two, especially, stayed with me, Keerthy Suresh in “Mahanati”, and NTR Jr. in “Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava”.
Mahanati was the first film I ever rewatched in the theatre multiple times. I remember bawling my eyes out every single time I watched it. Even today, Mahanati remains an evergreen classic in Telugu cinema.
The NTR I grew up watching felt like a performer who almost demanded your rudeness. It was as if he was constantly telling the audience who he was, this is who I am. I fight angrily, I shout, I erupt, I deliver big, booming dialogues. That aggression wasn’t just part of his acting; it was his screen identity. You didn’t ease into his performances, you were confronted by them.
Which is why seeing NTR in Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava felt so startling. He played a man weighed down by the pain and responsibility of losing his father, holding his anger back rather than unleashing it. The calmness, the restraint, the almost stoic stillness, it completely changed how I understood his range as an actor.
We also had two actors who truly announced themselves that year with “Geetha Govindam” and “Goodachari”, two films that quietly but decisively changed the dynamics of Telugu cinema. They gave us actors who, today, sit firmly at the top of their game.
2018 also gave us our first space film in the form of “Antariksham”, which I would call actual experimental cinema, ambitious in idea, if not always perfect in execution. I was pleasantly surprised by “RX100”, a film almost no one saw coming, yet one that created unexpected noise. And then there were films like “Sammohanam” and “Chi La Sow”, which made me fall in love with the age-old rom-com genre all over again.
But the film that truly put the nail in the coffin was “C/o Kancharapalem”, a movie that went on to become the face of Telugu indie cinema. This was independent cinema at its greatest glory. Made on a shoestring budget, with actors who had never performed before, and a director who had never made a film, it was a risk even before it began. All it needed was destiny, and destiny arrived in the form of Rana.
2018 was truly a year in Telugu cinema that cannot be recreated. The audience, finally ready to accept cinema of all kinds, made sure they went to theatres and actively encouraged it. There was a clear loop emerging, where a certain kind of mainstream cinema was being celebrated alongside small, new-age films.
it was the year of versatility, new voices, and risk taking. something i cannot forget. Looking back, this was truly a special time to be a Telugu kid, falling in love with cinema, almost feeling like a part of the film ecosystem.