Malayalam actor Prithviraj Sukumaran is one of Kerala’s most versatile actors, balancing unconventional projects with mainstream productions. If you are a fan of the Driving License and Jana Gana Mana actor, have a look at his best movies in our streaming guide.
How to get started with Prithviraj Sukumaran’s movies
Prithviraj Sukumaran’s career began in the early 2000s, mostly taking on romantic projects like his 2002 debut Nandanam and the 2006 coming-of-age rom-com Classmates (the highest-grossing Malayalam film at its time). Born to veteran actors Sukumaran and Mallika Sukumaran, he established himself further in the 2007 Tamil romantic musical Mozhi for his performance as a musician whose life changes after falling for a deaf girl.
His other memorable non-Malayalam ventures include his Tamil debut Kana Kanaden (a thriller that featured him as a villain for a change) and Mani Ratnam’s revisionist Ramayana adaptation Raavanan.
Even though his Bollywood debut Aiyyaa polarised audiences, he has had memorable roles in other Hindi films like an authoritarian cop in the neo-noir Aurangzeb and a rogue agent in Neeraj Pandey’s spy-thriller Naam Shabana.
Coming back to his Malayalam filmography, the 2010s witnessed more experimentation in his career with multiple award-winning performances like playing real-life Malayalam film visionary J.C. Daniel in the biopic Celluloid. Urumi was another interesting example to showcase his lead actor charm with Sukumaran playing a 19th century warrior in Santosh Sivan’s ambitious period epic.
Apart from Urumi, Sukumaran’s 2011 also found him starring in low-budget sleeper hits as well like the satirical comedy Indian Rupee. A prominent career highlight, the film found Sukumaran playing an unemployed youth who wishes to make quick money through dodgy real estate deals.
From 2019 onwards, he also started his own production house with its debut project being the supernatural horror 9 (also starring him in lead).
The same year, Sukumaran also turned to directing with the Mohanlal-led crime thriller Lucifer. A commercially successful mass-entertainer, Lucifer gave way to another directorial project with Mohanlal with the comedy-drama Bro Daddy.
Sukumaran’s recent track record finds him easily balancing between light-hearted and more emotionally nuanced performances. So, while the 2019 satire Driving License found him playing a pastiche of himself (a Malayalam superstar), he explored a darker psyche as a disgruntled military veteran in the 2020 thriller Ayyappanum Koshiyum.
A few more must-watch Prithviraj Sukumaran movies from recent times include the legal drama Jana Gana Mana which starred him as a lawyer examining the brutal murder of a cultural professor. Drawing unanimous praise from critics and audiences alike, Jana Gana Mana boasts Sukumaran’s eye for not only acting in socially conscious projects but also producing them.
This doesn’t mean that Sukumaran doesn’t have time for any big-budget action, as is evident from his dual role in the Telugu dystopian action drama Salaar Part 1 Ceasefire. Considering its multilingual wide release, Salaar also boasted Sukumaran as a star with pan-Indian significance.
Why is Aadujeevitham Prithviraj Sukumaran’s best movie to watch?
Produced by and starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, Aadujeevitham (also released as The Goat Life) has been a passion project for the actor for quite some time. Based on the haunting true accounts of Kerala labourers forced into slavery in Saudi Arabia, the survival drama solely relies on Sukumaran’s subtle acting and emotional range as his hero Najeeb Muhammad struggles to make it out alive from the goat-herding desert hell he’s trapped in. This is Prithviraj Sukumaran like you’ve never seen him before.
Where can you stream Prithviraj Sukumaran’s movies?
Many of Sukumaran’s recent movies are available to watch on mainstream OTT platforms like Netflix and Prime Video while his older ones can also be found on Manorama MAX and Sun NXT.
