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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I mentioned very few movies of his but the overall kind of versatile work he has done I think very few can match him.
I also remember long time back watching his movie “Pushpak”, a great experimental movie. It was the first silent feature film in India and considered to be a classic today.
Just imagine a movie where no one speaks. Who else other than a great and versatile actor like Kamal Hasaan can attempt such a thing.
Rajnikanth The Masterpiece
@nipun – I will give you links of many polls on twitter where Akki has defeated HR.In most of the polls Akki remains ahead of HR.You were not much active on Twitter since last 6-7 months and since this poll option has come!
i was wrong about rawdy rathore because vijay had special apearence in chinta ta chita song but holiday was remake of his thupakki.
Great effort team indicine . organise a poll for Telugu stars as well
@Indiicne Team – What abt Ravi Teja, Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, Venkatesh etc ? or is this poll only related to Tamil stars not Telegu stars ?
in my state kerala tamil filims has fanntastic following.vijay and surya are the heartthrob of kerala youth.vikram has a decent fan following here,i personally like ajith.
Indicine plz unblock me on tiwitter….name
Sandeep tiwari..!!
@nipun : 6:41pm
Lol you are back to form!
Pls @Indicine conduct a poll on Telugu actors as Telugu stars like Mahesh Babu, Pawan Kalyan, Prabhas and Rana Daggubati(although he is yet not a bankable star) are much more popular than all these Tamil actors.
All above mentioned actors are 1000 times better than our well known salman ‘mental’ Khan.
Top Actors in Telugu:
1) Pawan Kalyan
2) Mahesh Babu
3) Prabhas
3) Allu Arjun
5) Jr. NTR
Top Actors in Tamil:
1) Rajinikanth
2) Vijay
3) Suriya
4) Ajith
5) Vikram
Top actors in Hindi:
1) Aamir Khan
2) Salman Khan
3) Shahrukh Khan
4) Hrithik Roshan
5) Akshay Kumar
Personal advice to Ajeeth! He needs trim down! He’s the only top hero in India who’s too fat! Surya and Vikam are dashing like Aamir and Hrithik. Vijay is like Sharukh! Not the most handsome, but definitely the massiest!
@ neil- Salman is massiest in bollywood not srk.
@Babaji yes nd even generally akki have bigger fan Base then hrithik…Hrithik fan following is also good but he is mostly 2nd fvrt especially of srk nd akshay fans!
Vijay and Ajith are like SRK and Salman, their fans always fight on twitter, and they are also 2 of the biggest stars in South. I’m a big fan of Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth, they are legendary actors and inspiration to many. I also like Vikram.
Nice move Indicine….now a days nobody can deny the popularity and super stardom of south film industry ….
Coming to the poll results it’s absolutely true….ilaya dalapathi Vijay and ultimate star Ajith…They always had the super stardom and crazy fan following..
But if we conduct a ranking system according to box office performance, just like Indicine’s, I am sorry to say that , the winner is Vijay….He not only outshine Ajith and Kamal , but also will give a tough competition to Rajani too…
His movie Tuppakki being a regional movie collected 183 crore worldwide while same movie remade to Bollywood and our action megastar acted in it, who have a large fan following across the world, still couldn’t match these figures??
I like suriya…hv watched 2-3. Mvz of him…. His mvz treatment is logical and commercial…entertaining . And interesting story.. And he acts well
Ajith… Just watched 1 movie of him.. He played a gangster… Very stylish and evil… Liked it but hvnt seen his other mvz
Trust me Vijay will dominate in the coming years,if you have time i recomend you to watch his film Theri,you won’t be dissapointed at all.
Dhanush is underated he is an amaizing actor.
These south actors are the reason why i don’t watch south films. Kamal hassan is an exception since he has made good films while the others are trash. Especially Rajini. Also they have no starpower. Manipulation of box office figure doesn’t mean star power.
Surya, Vijay, Silambarasan are Superstars
Vijay is popular in tamil cinema. No one can come like him. He have more 100cr movie in tamil after Rajini. He have huge fan following in tamilnadu and kerala. His films like Kaththi, nanban, thuppakki ans therri are the good example to show his name.
@Yuvraj. How van you name Ajay before Aamir? where’s Akshay? fake list
It’s only Kamal Hasan for me .
One of the greatest of all time in India. Not only south.. even in bollywood I think he got a well and successfull career.
Rajni is good for fun only . And he is super or mega star whatever! I think rajni was lucky that people loved him in South so much and he made that market so big for him till he reached or crossed the bollywood popularity level.
For me stars like mithun chacraborty anil kapoor dharmindra should be considered bigger than rajni in India !
Vijay is a hype..
Dhanush hype too
Suriya is good actor.
Thala Ajith is the biggest star of Tamil movies. Loyal fan base and unmatched screen presence.
These remuneration figures are looking completely unrealistic. Even national star Ajay Devgn charges 25 Cr per film, then how can a regional star like Kamal Haasan who hasn’t even given 1 clean hit in the last 10 years charge the same amount.
Kamal Hasan is the greatest Actor of Indian cinema.
@ manat- because ajay is established himself as a great actor from begining but amir works hard and choose good team and scripts. because of his current success you are saying like this but in expression no one can beat Ajay devgan in bollywood today.
why should i give a place akki in my list he is nowhere in acting before dhadkan. still he is lack in expressions.
There is some magnetic pull in Tamil industry and its top actors….. No matter how they make their movies but mass hysteria and love for their superstars are immense. Kerala industry is most intelligent (among Indian states) and comes up with new scripts still cannot match to Tamil superstars craze !!!!!!!!!!