Movies to Know Kerala

We love cinema here the way some places love football or prayer. It is not just entertainment. It is discussion material for tea shops. It is argument inside buses. It is background noise in living rooms and foreground obsession in college hostels. We grow up quoting dialogues before we understand taxation. We understand heartbreak through background score. One evening in between conversations we began speaking about how cinema helps us travel without tickets. You can understand a place you have never visited. You can feel the weight of a language you do not speak. Slowly the ear adjusts. Words that once felt foreign begin to taste familiar. Cinema teaches geography through emotion. It teaches slang before grammar. It teaches food before history. Of course cinema can also teach the wrong things. It can compress complexity into slogans. It can manufacture villains and polish heroes. It can be propaganda wearing poetry. Influence is its secret power. If tomorrow someone makes The Kerala Story 2 perhaps the coconut trees will finally confess their conspiracy and the backwaters will reveal their master plan. Still, despite distortion, cinema remains one of the most honest windows into Kerala. Not the brochure version. Not the curated tourism clip. But the breathing, contradictory, argumentative, affectionate Kerala. Though a list of the best is never possible, we have tried putting together a set of films that offer glimpses into its many worlds.

Manichitrathazhu (1993) An iconic psychological drama set inside a traditional Kerala tharavadu. Classical music, ancestral architecture, folklore and modern psychiatry meet in one unforgettable story. This film reveals how tradition and rationality coexist in Kerala’s cultural imagination. Remade in Hindi as Bhool Bhulaiyaa, in Tamil as Chandramukhi, and in Kannada as Apthamitra.

Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016)

Set in Idukki’s mist covered hills, this film captures small town pride, photography studio dreams, and the quiet dignity of everyday people.

Ustad Hotel (2012)

Set partly in Kozhikode, this film celebrates Malabar cuisine, migration dreams, and intergenerational love. Food becomes philosophy.

Amen (2013)

Church bands, eccentric villagers, faith and magic realism. A vibrant slice of central Kerala life.

Manjummel Boys (2024)

A survival story driven by friendship and loyalty. Young men from Kerala carrying brotherhood like oxygen.

Salt N’ Pepper (2011)

Food, late blooming romance, and middle aged vulnerability. A charming reflection of Kerala’s deep culinary culture and everyday humor.

Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (2017)

A small theft on a bus unfolds into a study of class, suspicion, and police systems in Kerala. Minimal, realistic storytelling.

Bhoothakkannadi (1997)

A psychological portrait of isolation and paranoia in rural Kerala. Long before thrillers became mainstream, this film explored fragile minds with unsettling honesty.

Angamaly Diaries (2017)

Raw, energetic, deeply rooted. Church feasts, pork dishes, restless youth, and one of Malayalam cinema’s most famous long takes. Central Kerala without filters.

Classmates (2006)

Campus politics, student movements, nostalgia, unresolved love. A window into Kerala’s politically aware youth culture.

Drishyam (2013)

An ordinary Kerala cable TV loving family caught in extraordinary circumstances. A portrait of middle class intelligence, fear, and survival instinct. Remade in Hindi as Drishyam, in Tamil as Papanasam, in Telugu as Drushyam, in Kannada as Drishya and Drishyam in Sri Lanka, Sheep Without a Shepherd in China.

Kumbalangi Nights (2019)

Set against Kerala’s backwaters, this film explores broken masculinity, fragile families, and healing. One of the most important contemporary Malayalam films.

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam (2022)

Identity dissolving across borders. Language blending. A meditative reflection on belonging and memory.

Manjadikuru (2008)

Childhood summers inside ancestral homes. The fading of joint family systems. A gentle memory of old Kerala.

Sudani from Nigeria (2018)

Football culture in Malappuram, Gulf migration echoes, and unmatched hospitality. A tender portrayal of Kerala’s openness.

Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 (2019)

A robot inside a rural home. Technology meets aging loneliness. Migration and generational change in modern Kerala.

Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam (2021)

An engagement ceremony in a small town exposes colorism, ego, and social gossip. Deeply rooted Kerala realism.

Spadikam (1995)

A father and son locked in a battle shaped by academic pressure and social expectation. A raw look at middle class Kerala ambition and masculinity.

Ponman (2024)

Rural Kerala through layered characters and moral grey zones. A reflection of everyday survival beneath social structure.