2025 reaffirmed Malayalam cinema’s faith in restraint. The year’s most compelling performances didn’t announce themselves; they unfolded slowly, revealing characters shaped by grief, power, endurance, and resistance.

Mammootty (Kalamkaval): In the opening passage, we watch a soft-spoken middle-aged man driving through the night, casting flirtatious, almost boyish glances at the woman beside him. Later, in a hotel room, as she curls up against him, he speaks casually about the pleasure of taking a life. But then, as she hesitates, while processing what she’s hearing, he strangles her in the blink of an eye. And as unruffled, he leans back and calmly forms perfect rings with his cigar. That is also the moment when the theatre erupts in applause. But here they are not celebrating the macabre violence but acknowledging a 74-year-old megastar who has claimed, with unnerving assurance, the most audacious and courageous role of his life. It is also a hat tip to a lifetime of performances, to the shock of reinvention, and to the sheer pleasure of watching mastery at work. Mammootty’s Stanley Das, who seduces, impregnates, and eventually murders his victims, carries a persistent aura of mystery. Observe the way he woos each woman: gentle, calculated, always giving the impression that he is the one being led on. At no point does his psychopathic mask slip. Instead, Mammootty infuses the character with a chilling, almost methodical greed to kill, so controlled and unshowy that, at times, you are convinced he will never be caught.

Basil Joseph (Ponman): At the outset, jewellery broker Ajesh comes across as cocky and dispassionate. From smirking at a bride gazing longingly at gold, typically confusing survival with greed, to relentlessly trailing her to reclaim borrowed jewellery, it is easier to dismiss him as........

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