Kamal Haasan & Bharathiraja Movies Together List — 5 Films

The shape of the work

The 1980s account for 60% of everything they made together. The 1970s belonged to Padhinaru Vayadhiniley; the 1980s to Oru Kaidhiyin Diary. Kamal Haasan acted in every film; Bharathiraja directed all of them. Mostly Tamil, with 1 film in Hindi.

Partnership facts

• Bharathiraja was a first-time director with no track record when he cast Kamal Haasan in 'Padhinaru Vayadhiniley' (1977). Kamal was already a star. The director later said he was terrified to even approach Kamal, but the actor agreed after reading just the first few pages of the script.
• On the sets of 'Sigappu Rojakkal' (1978), Kamal would improvise entire monologues in character. Bharathiraja would then rewrite the next day's scenes around those improvisations. They built the film's creepy, obsessive tone together — one setting the mood, the other sharpening it.
• The success of 'Padhinaru Vayadhiniley' directly launched the career of actress Sridevi as a leading lady in Tamil cinema. She was 13 and had done child roles before. Kamal and Bharathiraja insisted on casting her as the female lead — a decision that changed her trajectory.
• During the making of 'Tick! Tick! Tick!' (1981), Kamal and Bharathiraja had a massive creative fight over the climax. They didn't speak for three days. Then Kamal showed up at the director's house at 2 AM with a bottle of whiskey, and they rewrote the ending together that night.
• Bharathiraja once said in an interview: 'Kamal is not an actor who waits for instructions. He comes to the set with ten ideas. My job was to pick the right one and throw away the other nine.'
• 'Oru Kaidhiyin Diary' (1985) was their last film together. It flopped hard. But the film's raw, handheld prison-break style directly inspired a young Bala to become a filmmaker — he later made 'Sethu' and credited this film as his reason to pick up a camera.