Sivaji Ganesan & Vijayakumar Movies Together List — 15 Films

The shape of the work

The 1980s account for 60% of everything they made together. The 1970s belonged to Pattum Bharathamum; the 1990s to Mudhal Kural. Sivaji Ganesan acted in every film; Vijayakumar acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Their first film together, Pattum Bharathamum (1975), was a gamble. Director K. Vijayan cast Sivaji Ganesan as the lead, but paired him with Vijayakumar — then a rising star — to create a fresh father-son dynamic. The gamble paid off: the film ran for over 100 days.
• In Dheepam (1977), Sivaji played a blind man and Vijayakumar played his eyes. The entire emotional weight of the film rested on Vijayakumar narrating visual details to Sivaji — and Sivaji reacting with only his voice and face. Vijayakumar later said he learned more about timing from that one film than from any acting class.
• Their 1982 film Theerpu was the first Tamil film to get a direct Telugu remake — as 'Khaidi' (1983), which launched Chiranjeevi as a mass star. Without Sivaji and Vijayakumar's original, Telugu commercial cinema might have looked very different.
• Vijayakumar was so in awe of Sivaji that he refused to call him by name on set. He addressed him only as 'Sir' or 'Nadigar Thilagam' for all 10 films. Sivaji eventually told him, 'Just call me anna,' but Vijayakumar never could.
• Vijayakumar once said in an interview: 'Sivaji sir would finish his shot, then stand behind the camera and watch mine. If I did well, he'd nod once. That nod meant more than any award.'
• Their last film together, En Aasai Rasave (1998), was a disaster — 5.1/10 on the page, but the real story is that Vijayakumar personally requested Sivaji to do the film as a favour to a struggling director. Sivaji agreed without reading the script. It was their only film that flopped.