In India, two of the most well-known Tamil actors are Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. But not many in the North, West and East of India would know that there are other stars who not only command a insanely big fan-following, but are literally worshipped by their fans.
Two such stars, who belong to the younger generation (compared to the likes of Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan) are Vijay, fondly called ‘thalapathi’ by his fans, and Ajith, who his fans like to call ‘thala’.
We organised a poll on our official Twitter page. The four options, not including Rajni and Kamal, were Suriya, Ajith, Vijay and Vikram.
Like most polls involving two of the most loved stars in Bollywood – Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan – the voting was dominated by Ajith and Vijay.
Top Actors in Tamil Cinema
Ajith was leading in the beginning by nearly 55% votes, but when our tweet began to get more retweets, Vijay got plenty of votes and eventually it got pretty close between the two.
But the real battle for the top actor in Tamil cinema came in the last 6 hours of polling. Nearly 5,000 out of 10,000 votes were registered in the last 6 hours, most of them going to ‘Thalapathi’ and ‘Thala’. With less than 15 minutes remaining, it was Vijay leading with 1%. But by the time the poll ended, the percentage of votes were the same, with Twitter declaring Vijay as the winner.
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The Vijay vs Ajith battle was won by the smallest of margins, indicating that both stars command a huge following and there is very little to choose between the two when it comes to fan-following.
Check out our tweet:
Khans, Hrithik, Akshay are the Top stars in Bollywood. Who rules the Tamil industry? Not including Rajnikant, KamalH
— Indicine.com (@indicine) April 30, 2016
The reach of our tweet was unbelievably huge too. It received more than 100,000 impressions, 22,100 plus engagements, 1605 retweets and 423 replies (a lot of these replies included movie recommendations of films starring Vijay and Ajith)
According to a well-known Tamil film trade analyst who didn’t want to be named, the Top 10 Actors in the Tamil Film Industry are as follows (includes the highest paid actors as of 2016):
- Rajnikanth (25-30 crore per film)
- Kamal Hassan (25 crore per film)
- Vijay (20-22 crore per film)
- Ajith (20-22 crore per film)
- Suriya (12-13 crore per film)
- Vikram (12 crore per film)
- Karthi (8 crore per film)
- Dhanush (7 crore per film)
- Silambarasan a.k.a Simbu (7 crore per film)
- Arya (5 crore per film)
For the Bollywood audience and our readers from the South, who are your favourite Tamil stars? Vote!
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Rajni sir is always No.1
Nice article. Don’t know much about this industry so good info.
Have seen only Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth movies (that too only Hindi ones). My vote for Kamal Haasan at first and as Rajnikanth (have watched very few movies of his so obviously an unfair comparison) as second.
Huge respect for Kamal Haasan and one of the best actors I have ever seen. Again have watched only few Hindi movies of his and following are my favorites:
1. Ek Duje Ke Liye : An epic romantic movie. Loved it.
2. Sadma : Again an incredible movie and super duper performance by Kamal shb. Will never forget the last scene of that movie. Very heartbreaking.
3. Chachi 420 : A total laugh riot. One of the best comedy movies I have ever seen. Again Kamal shb was awesome. They rarely make such clean and situational comedy movies now.
4. Saagar : A very fine love triangle movie.
Also loved him in Hey Raam and Apu Raja (double role).
So for me Kamal Haasan first and then then Rajnikanth.
Not much idea about the rest. Have heard a lot about Vijay and Ajith so they must be great today.
In current lot I like Ajith.. i have watched his Aarambam, Vedalam, Makantha and 4-5 more movies and they are really good… He has got personality and style.. the other one Vijay i dunno who allowed him to become an actor. I watched his Puli thinking it’ll be like Baahubali but that was one of the worst movie I ever watched..
my favourite south actor is kamal hasan.
I have so much respect for Kamal Hassan and Rajnikant!
But my favorite Tamil star is Vikram. He is simply brilliant in his acting and versatility! Whether it’s I or Aparichit, he never fails to shine. I cannot imagine any other Tamil actor of his generation in his place.
Obviously kamala hassan. Versatile actor. Brilliant script sense. Also only actor from south India to get success in Bollywood as hero. Salute the legend. Also has 2 pretty daughters. Loved his directorial ventures like chachi420 Dashavtaram
Rajni and Kamal are phenomenons of Tamil industry. And they are lucky to have the crop of heroes such as Vijay, Ajith, Surya and Vikram who also are top notch stars and tremendous crowd pullers over the last 10-15 years. Especially Vijay and Ajith have 2 of the most hardcore fan bases in the South. And most of the times the spats between the fans of Vijay and Ajith turns ugly. But the one thing which I personally doesn’t like much is the way Vijay and Ajith doing just pukka masala movies 99% of the times just to cater for their hardcore fans. This is where Vikram and to an extend Surya is different. They are always ready to experiment and get to whatever physical shape the character demands…
Rajnikanth, Kamal hassan, Suriya, Vikram, Dhanush and Ajit are my favourite
in young south actors i like dhanush most. wanted and rowdy rathore two great masala movies were remake of vijay’s movies. vijay is a mass hero there. i heared about ajith, arya too. but in style no one is near to rajnikant, mind it.
vikram is one who is fantastic actor very close to Kamal in acting. Salman’s tere naam was remake of his first super hit ‘sethu’.
Do something like this for Telugu industry
If you conduct such a poll for Bollywood actors on twitter…
Result will be:
1: SRK/Salman
2:Salman/Srk
3:Akki
4:Hrithik
I think Indicine purposefully tied Vijay and Ajith to avoid outrage from either actor’s fans :D
@Wankhede, do you think we can modify / change results of Twitter polls?
@babaji; Hrithik normally receives more votes compared to Akki on social sites!
@babaji : the top 3 is correct but aamir will be ahead of hrithik
@nipun: only on indicine,hr > akshay
My friend arjun Kapoor fan had conducted a poll about best film critic of India and mentioned me there too.
Indicine, please give info about Telugu Cinema.
Where is Mahesh Babu?
@aban: that is not a logical reply! “<" koi bhi likh sakta hai!
After a long time, my comments are getting highly rated. Normally they receive so much dislikes!
HRITHIK ROSHAN above All except HRITHIK ROSHAN himself
I think the reason for Vijay’s success is his charisma and sheer screen presence! He definitely does have his own swag, which is why he’s loved by many down south. All top stars like SRK, Rajini, Vijay, Salman all have that specific quality only that they could do best to take them where they are now. The reason i like Vijay and Rajini, is because i’ve watched a good number of their movies on youtube which were dubbed in hindi. I also watched Robot in theatres and also Vijay’s Theri recently. I don’t understand tamil that well, but only wanted to watch with some crazy tamil movie fans and the experience was phenomenal. It was just amazing, was like going to a Salman or SRK movie! So yeah, tamil movie actors do have their own swag like our Bolly heroes!!
Indicine , plzz post the filmographi of telgu and tamil director , like ss rajamauli , ar murugadoss and s shanker. I think no one flop movie of ss rajamauli in his 15 year career. I saw all his movie in hindi/ remake. 1. Student no 1( aaj ka mujrim, blockbuster) 2. Chhatrarpati ( hukumat ki jung, blockbuster) 3. Sye ( aar paar the judgment day, hit) 4. Simhadri ( yamraaj ek faulad, blockbuster) 5. Yamadogna( lok parlok, superhit) 6. Vikrmakuddu( rowdy rathor, both blockbuster) 7. Maryada ramnna ( sun of sardaar, superhit/hit) 8.magadheera ( all time blockbuster) 9. Makkhi ( blockbuster) 10. Baahibali ( all time blockbuster) inti consistentancy to apne bollywood ka no 1 dierctor bhi nhi de sakta r yahi record ar murugadoss ka he r shankar ki bhi sahayd 1,2 flop hogi bus.
According to me
Top 5 Tamil actors –
1. Rajanikanth
2. Kamalhasan
3. Ajith
4. Vijay
5. Surya
Top 5 Telugu actors –
1. Chiranjeevi
2. Maheshbabu
3. Pawankalyan
4. Allu Arjun
5. JR NTR
Top 5 Malayalam Actors –
1. Mammuetty
2. Mohanlal
3. Prthwiraj
4. Dileep
5. Dulquar salman
Top 5 Kannada Actors –
1. Puneeth
2. Darshan
3. Sudeep
4. Shivarajkumar
5. Upendra
Top 5 Bollywood Actors –
1. King khan SRK
2. Ranbeer kapoor
3. Ranveer sing
4. Ajay Devgan
5. Hrithik Roshan
#Fasal kerala
Kamal Hassan!!!
Seeing some unrelated comments??? kids will remain kids.
@indicine one more for telugu industry
So Vijay is the next SuperStar in Tamil! Surya and Vikram are good actors. Ajith is stylish, but looks older than even Rajni. Am an avid follower of tamil movies! Way to go Tamil superstars!
@ nipun- agree with you vikram is something special in acting.
current top 5 actors of India acording to me-
1. Kamal hassan
2. Vikram
3. Ajay devgan
4. Amir khan
5. Amitabh
note- i am talking about their last ten years performence otherwise overall amitabh should be no. 1 or 2 in active actors.
@Fasal Kerala…congrats on the award…and by the way you put the top 5 Hindi stars list upside down…plz correct :P
In Telugu allu arjun, ramcharan teja and mahesh babu are best. @indicine please update the list of telugu actors also.