Malayalam cinema's performance at the box office this year indicates that audiences have become more receptive and open-minded—not just to fresh, innovative ideas but to familiar ideas presented in an unfamiliar fashion. The chain of successful runs, beginning with the biggest of them all, Manjummel Boys, and continuing with Marco, reflects viewers' changing tastes and willingness to venture into hitherto unseen territories.
2024 saw both filmmakers and audiences widening their horizons with a broad range of genre-redefining experiences that run the gamut from poignant survival dramas to quirky coming-of-age stories to transportive supernatural thrillers to unconventional mass entertainers to mind-bending investigative thrillers.
While smaller but thematically rich independent films like Anand Ekarshi's Aattam, Don Palathara's Family, and Prasanna Vithanage's Paradise may not have set the cash registers ringing, they hold considerable value for the very niche audience to which they catered. Moreover, the immense critical acclaim and accolades they fetched certainly make them worthy of attention. At the same time, it must be said that a sizeable social media chatter (read: criticism) isn't representative of a larger audience.
Take, for example, films like Varshangalkku Shesham, Vaazha, or Marco, which may not have met with approval from certain corners yet; however, they delivered on the expectations generated by their pre-release marketing. The same philosophy applies to widely discussed—among non-Malayali audiences, too—titles like Kishkindha Kandam and Sookshamadarshini, two films that dominated the crime and mystery space this year.
While on thrillers, we also got surprise hits in the form of the Jis Joy directorial Thalavan, starring Asif Ali and Biju Menon. Jeethu Joseph's crime comedy Nunakkuzhi also did exceptionally well.
Though a film's box office success isn't always a testament to its overall quality in many a critic's eye, the resultant numbers emphasise the fact—and resoundingly so—that a target audience-oriented marketing strategy has given these films a great advantage, a most effective lesson that more filmmakers would be wise to keep in mind going forward if they hope to incur fewer losses because the industry has woken up to the harsh reality that it also has to grapple with heavy losses in 2024. Talk about a bittersweet ending.
Here's a look at the top 10 Indian films of 2024 by return on investment.
