Magadheera

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Magadheera (meaning “Great Warrior”) is a 2009 Telugu epic romantic fantasy action film directed by S. S. Rajamouli, who co-wrote it from a story by V. Vijayendra Prasad. Allu Aravind produced it under Geetha Arts, with B. V. S. N. Prasad as co-producer. Ram Charan plays the lead in his second film, opposite Kajal Aggarwal, with Dev Gill as the antagonist and Srihari in a key supporting role. Released on 31 July 2009, it became the highest-grossing Telugu film of its time and the first reported to cross the ₹100 crore mark, and Wikipedia credits it with catapulting Rajamouli to stardom, years before Eega and Baahubali.

What the story is about

The film is a reincarnation romance told across two timelines four hundred years apart. In 1609, at the cliffside Bhairavakona temple, the royal warrior Kaala Bhairava is unable to tell Princess Mithravinda that he loves her before both of them die. In 2009, Harsha is a street-bike racer in Hyderabad. When his hand brushes against that of a stranger, Indu, he is struck by visions he cannot explain and sets out to find her. Indu, amused, hides who she is. Meanwhile, her family’s ancestral palace in Rajasthan is the prize in a feud with her ruthless cousin Raghuveer, who becomes obsessed with her and learns that the past is about to repeat itself. How the two timelines connect is the heart of the film, so we stop the summary here.

Cast and characters

• Ram Charan as Kaala Bhairava (1609) and Harsha (2009)
• Kajal Aggarwal as Princess Mithravinda and Indu, a dual role Rajamouli cast after a photo shoot in his office
• Dev Gill as Ranadev Billa and Raghuveer, the villain in both eras
• Srihari as Sher Khan and, in the present, the fisherman Solomon
• Rao Ramesh as Ghora, a tantric who guides Raghuveer
• Saloni Aswani in a cameo as Solomon’s love interest; Mumaith Khan and Kim Sharma in the two dance numbers
• Chiranjeevi in a special appearance after the remixed “Bangaru Kodipetta”, his first film appearance after entering politics

How it was made

The story began as a script Vijayendra Prasad had written years earlier about a bodyguard who is reborn after 400 years; it had been rejected. Rajamouli revived it for his film with Ram Charan, turning the queen-mother character into a princess so that the film would have a love story at its centre. The production was launched on 2 March 2008 in Hyderabad and principal photography began on 19 March 2008 in Rajasthan, with the chariot race shot on the white salt flats of Dholavira in Gujarat and the Bhairavakona temple built as a set at Ramoji Film City. Rajamouli’s regular team worked on it: K. K. Senthil Kumar (cinematography), Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao (editing), R. Ravinder (art direction) and Rama Rajamouli (costumes). Peter Hein and the duo Ram–Lakshman choreographed the action; Hein was badly injured in a fall during the shoot. R. C. Kamalakannan supervised the visual effects, and Wikipedia records that visual effects were used for about 1 hour and 40 minutes of the film.

Music

M. M. Keeravani composed the songs and background score. The soundtrack has six songs, including a remix of his own “Bangaru Kodipetta” from Gharana Mogudu (1992), and was launched at Shilpakala Vedika in Hyderabad on 28 June 2009. Keeravani won the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director for the film.

Release and box office

Geetha Arts released Magadheera on 31 July 2009 with 625 digital prints in 1250 theatres worldwide, which Wikipedia describes as the biggest release for a Telugu film up to that time. The figures below are reported figures from named outlets, not audited numbers:

• Idlebrain.com reported a first-week distributors’ share of about ₹19.87 crore in Andhra Pradesh, ₹7.1 crore of it from the Nizam region.
• A 2023 retrospective in Namasthe Telangana gives a distributors’ share of ₹78 crore and a gross of ₹140 crore, calling it the highest-grossing Telugu film of its time.
• Rediff.com reported that the film completed a 100-day run in 223 centres.
• A Japanese-dubbed version released in 2018 earned about $1 million there, according to the Hindustan Times.

The film also ran for 1000 days at the Vijayalakshmi theatre in Kurnool. It was dubbed into Tamil as Maaveeran and Malayalam as Dheera: The Warrior, both released on 27 May 2011, and it was the first Telugu film released on Blu-ray in India.

What critics said

Reviews in 2009 praised the scale and Rajamouli’s storytelling. Suresh Krishnamoorthy of The Hindu wrote that “Rajamouli excels in story-telling”, singling out the way the flashback works “as a flip switch” across the 400-year journey. B. V. S. Prakash of The Times of India rated it 3 out of 5, writing that “despite a few narrative lapses, the much-hyped semi-periodic epic lives up to expectations”. Radhika Rajamani of Rediff.com called it “technically brilliant” (3 out of 5), and Sify called it a “brilliant entertainer”. Some commentators also noted similarities to scenes in Gladiator, Troy and 300.

Awards and legacy

Magadheera won the National Film Awards for Best Choreography and Best Special Effects at the 57th National Film Awards, along with six Filmfare Awards and nine Nandi Awards; the full list is in the awards table on this page. The film is widely credited with establishing Ram Charan and Kajal Aggarwal as leading stars, and Wikipedia notes that it set off a wave of costly period and fantasy films in Telugu cinema, several of which did not repeat its success. It was remade in Bengali as Yoddha: The Warrior (2014). The Simpsons creator Matt Groening later named it as a favourite, recommending “a movie called Magadheera”.

Where to watch Magadheera

Our OTT record lists Magadheera as streaming on Aha, based on the platform’s own listing (checked 26 September 2026). Availability, audio languages and subscription terms vary by country, so check the platform before subscribing. The OTT box on this page has the current link.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Magadheera and the reviews and trade reports it cites, linked above; Wikidata (Q1134677); our own cast, crew and OTT records.