Kollywood is a name often applied to Tamil Cinema, based in Chennai (formerly Madras) in the state of Tamil Nadu in south India. The name is a conflation of Kodambakkam and Hollywood. Kodambakkam is an area in Chennai, in and around which there is a high concentration of film studios, and where many people involved with Tamil cinema live.

Kollywood is one of the three major film-making industries in India along with Bollywood and Tollywood. Though Tamil cinema lacks the wide distribution of Hindi cinema, it has enjoyed consistent popularity among Tamil speakers in India and Sri Lanka, as well as further afield in Singapore, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Tamil language films have recently become popular in Japan, and many are being dubbed or remade in Hindi. After Bollywood, Kollywood is the most popular film-making industry. Anniyan, a recent Tamil film is the first Indian film to be dubbed into French.

There has been a growing presence of English in dialogues and songs as well. It is not uncommon to see movies which feature dialogues studded with English words and phrases, even whole sentences. Some movies are also made in two or even three languages (either using subtitles, or several soundtracks). Quite often, Kollywood movies feature Madras Bashai which is the version of Tamil spoken in Madras. Telugu is not uncommon in Kollyood movies.

Tamil films have often been remade in other Indian languages, and thus have indirectly reached a much wider audience. Many Tamil films are dubbed into Hindi, including such hits as Minsaara Kanavu, Roja and Bombay.

After being dubbed, Tamil film Music almost invariably makes it into Bollywood and has a very wide appeal.

Kollywood and politicians

The Tamil film industry has a long intertwining link with creating future politicians. The first non congress Chief minister C. N. Annadurai and the current opposition leader M. Karunanidhi wrote cine scripts. Long time Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) was a well known actor in Kollywood. The current chief minister J. Jayalalithaa was also a popular actress. Moreover many in the field are currently in houses of parliament or assembly, while future aspirants are ready to take wing.

Actors

• Actresses

• Manorama
• Savithri
• Padmini
• Saroja Devi
• Vyjayanthimala
• Sri Vidya
• Sujatha
• Sridevi
• Saritha
• Radhika
• Revathi
• Ambika
• Radha
• Kushboo
• Jyothika, nicknamed Jo.
• Trisha or Trish
• Simran

  Comedians

• Chandra Babu
• Nagesh
• Goundamani
• Senthil
• Vivek
• Vadivelu

  Directors

• K. Balachandar
• Mani Rathnam
• Shankar
• Kamal Haasan
• Balu Mahendra
• Bharathiraja
• Bhagiyaraj
• Bala
• Ameer
• Mahendran
• Manivannan
• Selvaraghavan
• Santosh Sivan

  Music directors

• 'Tirai Isai Tilagam' K. V. Mahadevan
• 'Mellisai Mannar' Viswanathan & Ramamurty
• 'Isaignani' Ilayaraja
• A. R. Rahman