V. S. Raghavan & M. G. Ramachandran Movies Together List — 5 Films

The shape of the work

The 1970s account for 80% of everything they made together. The 1970s belonged to Urimai Kural; the 1990s to Avasara Police 100. V. S. Raghavan acted in every film; M. G. Ramachandran acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• MGR personally requested V. S. Raghavan to play the villain in Sange Muzhangu (1972). Raghavan was a stage veteran with zero film experience at that point. MGR saw him in a drama and insisted the director cast him.
• In Urimai Kural (1973), Raghavan's slow, theatrical delivery forced MGR to slow down his own rapid-fire dialogue pace. The result was a tense courtroom scene where both actors matched each other's rhythm for the first time — and it became the film's most talked-about sequence.
• After Sange Muzhangu wrapped, MGR gifted Raghavan a gold ring. Raghavan wore it on every single film set for the rest of his career — including Avasara Police 100 (1990), long after MGR had passed away.
• Their pairing in Urimai Kural (1973) directly inspired director K. Balachander to cast stage actors opposite established stars. Balachander later said he watched their scenes together and realized 'a raw theatre actor can hold his own against a superstar if the writing is sharp.'
• In Avasara Police 100 (1990), Raghavan played a comedic sidekick — a complete reversal from their earlier villain-hero dynamic. MGR was already bedridden during production, so Raghavan essentially carried the comic relief alone, improvising most of his lines to keep the film alive.