Like bollywood gets its name from Bombay and Hollywood, the Tamil industry gets its name from Kodambakkam where the industry is based and Hollywood. This is the second biggest industry in India and is based at Chennai.

Tamil movie makers unlike their Hindi counterparts are far more original in their scripts. Very often you will find that a lot of Hindi movies are remakes of hit Tamil movies. Big stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor are known to have acted in Tamil remakes. Some Tamil movies have been such big hits that they have been dubbed and released in Hindi too and they have been very big hits like Roja, Bombay etc.

The current Big B of the Tamil industry is Rajnikant. This is an actor who has been acting in the Tamil film industry from the black and white era and is still going very strong. His last movie was Chandramukhi where he plays a psychologist. Born in 1950, there is nothing that can stop this star. He has acted in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, English, Kannada, Bengali and Malayalam. Rajnikant is not only a hit in India, his movies sell like hot cakes both in Singapore and Japan.

Now the industry is crowded with a lot of young stars. Each male star has a different nick name by which his fans know hi like-Super star- Rajnikant, Ultimate star- Ajith, Captain- Vijaykant, Ilaya Talapathi Leader of the youth)- Vijay etc.

The year 2010 has been a very different year for Kollywood as many movies came out this year but only the movies which were different stood out. This year another big thing was that the industry hits were all given by Malayalam actresses. Normally Kollywood is ruled by the Hindi actresses. This year Jyothika married Actor Surya and now there aren’t any more Hindi actresses.

Top Rated Tamil Movies 2009

• 1977 starring Sarath Kumar, Namitha, Farzana.
• Achchamundu! Achchamundu! starring Vaidyanathan Prasanna, Sneha, John Shea.
• Adada Enna Azhagu starring Jai Akash, Nicole.
• Arumugam starring Bharath, Priyamani, Ramya Krishnan.
• Ayan starring Surya Sivakumar, Tamanna Bhatia, Prabhu Ganesan
• Azhagar Malai starring RK, Bhanu, Napolean, Sona Heiden.
• Gaja starring V. N. R., Akshaya.
• Enga Raasi Nalla Rasi starring Murali, Preethi Mohan.
• Indira Vizha starring Srikanth, Namitha, Sruthi Prakash, Rahasya.
• Kadhal Kadhai starring Sherlidas, Preethi Rangayani, Steffi.
• Kanchivaram starring Prakash Raj, Shriya Reddy, Shammu.
• Kanthaswamy starring Vikram, Shriya Saran, Prabhu Ganesan, Krishna.
• Maasilamani starring Prabha, Ashwathy, Anand Babu, Pragathy.
• Madurai Sambavam starring Harikumar, Anuya Bhagwat, Karthika.
• Malai Malai starring Arun Vijay, Vedhika, Prabhu Ganesan, Kasthuri.
• Thoranai starring Vishal Krishna, Shriya Saran.
• Unnaipol Oruvan starring Kamal Haasan, Mohanlal, Ganesh Venkatraman, Anuja Iyer.
• Vedigundu Murugesan starring Pasupathy, Jyothirmayi.
• Villu starring Vijay, Nayantara, Prakash Raj.

The top two movies were extremely different movies for the Tamil folks. 23am Pulikesi was a period film with comedian playing the hero. He has done a double role and has proved to the world that his talent alone is enough to carry the movie through. Irony of life but here looks just didn't matter the story and the performance just carried the movie through. Vettaiyaadu Valaiyaadu was another different movie. A movie about two serial killers and a cop who tracks them down. It was like watching Discovery's Medical Detectives with a lot of mirch masala. People loved the music and debutant Kamalinee Mukherjee has become a star over night.