Tanikella Bharani & Jagapathi Babu Movies Together List — 11 Films

The shape of the work

The 1990s belonged to Money Money; the 2020s to Ghani. Tanikella Bharani acted in every film; Jagapathi Babu acted in all of them. Strictly Telugu cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Tanikella Bharani actually wrote the dialogues for Jagapathi Babu's early hit 'Maga Rayudu' (1995). That writing gig is what made Jagapathi trust Bharani enough to later say yes to 'Kabaddi Kabaddi' (2003) — their first film together as co-stars.
• In 'Kshetram' (2011), Bharani played a mute character. Jagapathi Babu had to carry the entire emotional weight of their scenes through his reactions alone. Jagapathi later said in an interview that acting opposite a silent Bharani was harder than any dialogue-heavy scene he'd ever done.
• Their 2016 film 'Ism' (7.5/10) was the first Telugu film to get a direct Tamil remake — 'Raja Ranguski' (2018). That remake exists only because Jagapathi and Bharani's tense face-off scenes in the original created a template that Tamil producers wanted to copy.
• On the sets of 'Current Theega' (2014), Jagapathi Babu would call Tanikella Bharani 'Anna' (elder brother) even though they were just co-stars. Bharani once revealed that Jagapathi personally drove him home after every night shoot because he knew Bharani didn't like driving late.
• Jagapathi Babu said about Bharani: 'He can make you laugh with one eyebrow and break your heart with the other. I learned more about timing from watching him than from any acting class.' — from a 2017 interview with The Hindu.