Rajinikanth Highest Grossing Movies, Ranked Before Jailer 2

Jailer 2 opens worldwide on 15 October, which makes this a good week to ask what a Rajinikanth success looks like in actual numbers. Only three of his films have crossed ₹500 crore, and the next best sits near ₹300 crore. This list of the Rajinikanth highest grossing movies runs from 2.0 down to Vettaiyan, and the gaps between the rungs are the interesting part.

How the list is ranked

Every figure is worldwide gross in rupees, taken from Koimoi’s table of Rajinikanth’s ten biggest films (published December 2025), so that all six films are measured by one tracker. Other trackers differ, by a few crore on some films and nearly thirty on the widest, so the table shows that spread as well. These are trade estimates, not audited accounts, and nothing is adjusted for inflation or ticket prices.

Coolie is on the list because, at ₹500 crore plus, it is his third-biggest film.

1. 2.0 (2018): ₹668 crore

Shankar’s sequel to Enthiran is still the biggest film Rajinikanth has made, and it got there as a three-language release. Lyca Productions put it out on 29 November 2018 in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu, in 2D and 3D. Akshay Kumar, making his Tamil film debut, played the villain: an ornithologist who declares war on mobile phones.

What matters for the ranking is where the money came from. In the opening weekend, Mint, citing Box Office India, reported that the Hindi version was leading the collections while the Tamil version was ‘just about sustaining’. So ₹668 crore is a national number, not a Tamil Nadu one.

Round numbers run higher still: Gulf News quotes ₹700 crore to ₹800 crore. The closing figures from Pinkvilla (₹663.5 crore), Koimoi (₹668 crore) and Sacnilk (₹691 crore) sit in a band of about thirty crore. Against its predecessor the jump is plain: Enthiran closed under ₹300 crore, so the sequel more than doubled it.

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2. Jailer (2023): ₹604.83 crore

The sharpest turnaround on the list. Annaatthe (2021) finished at ₹173.68 crore on Koimoi’s table, and Jailer took almost three and a half times that. It was Nelson Dilipkumar’s first film with Rajinikanth, made for Sun Pictures, with Mohanlal and Shiva Rajkumar in guest roles and Vinayakan as the villain. It opened on 10 August 2023.

It also leaves the clearest paper trail of any film here. Sun Pictures posted a first-week worldwide total of ₹375.40 crore on 17 August 2023, and Ayngaran International, which handled overseas, said day-one overseas business crossed ₹33 crore, the highest of his career. Against a closing figure near ₹605 crore, that first week is about 62 per cent of the lifetime total.

Some reports, Gulf News among them, quote a range that stretches to ₹650 crore. The trackers settle between ₹604.5 crore and ₹607 crore.

3. Coolie (2025): ₹516.81 crore

Lokesh Kanagaraj’s film, produced by Sun Pictures, arrived on 14 August 2025 over the Independence Day weekend, with Nagarjuna, Soubin Shahir and an Aamir Khan cameo. Sacnilk reported a worldwide day one above ₹150 crore and a first weekend near ₹385 crore, both records for Tamil cinema.

Then the run stopped. Against Sacnilk’s closing figure of ₹518.5 crore, that weekend alone was about 74 per cent of the lifetime gross, in four days. Closing totals vary by outlet: ₹501 crore at Pinkvilla, ₹516.81 crore at Koimoi, ₹518.5 crore at Sacnilk. They agree on the line that counts. Pinkvilla counted it as the fourth Tamil film past ₹500 crore, and the third of those to star Rajinikanth.

Whether that makes it a hit depends on whose books you read. Koimoi gives it a losing verdict against a ₹350 crore budget. Pinkvilla’s reading was that the producers made some profit while distributors took losses, with top-end talent fees inflating the budget. On Pinkvilla’s breakdown, Tamil Nadu supplied ₹144.25 crore, about 45 per cent of the India gross.

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4. Enthiran (2010): ₹295.75 crore

Enthiran arrived on 1 October 2010 as a Sun Pictures production directed by Shankar, with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan opposite Rajinikanth. Its gross has stayed remarkably steady across trackers: Pinkvilla has put it at ₹289.75 crore, Sacnilk at ₹291 crore, Koimoi at ₹295.75 crore.

It is also the film Kabali was measured against. Koimoi’s report on Kabali‘s fifth day expected it to overtake Enthiran‘s ₹290 crore. On Koimoi’s table today, it did not.

5. Kabali (2016): ₹292.3 crore

Pa. Ranjith’s gangster drama released on 22 July 2016, a day after its Malaysia premiere, on nearly 5,000 screens worldwide. IANS reported more than ₹150 crore worldwide over the opening weekend and a North America take of $3.5 million in two days, premieres included, from distributor CineGalaxy, while noting that reviews were mixed. Koimoi reported ₹250 crore in five days. The closing figure on the same site is ₹292.3 crore.

Where it sits against Enthiran is the one genuinely open question in this ranking. Koimoi and Pinkvilla put Enthiran ahead, by about ₹3.45 crore on Koimoi’s numbers. Gulf News lists Kabali at ₹305 crore, above Enthiran. Treat positions four and five as a near tie.

6. Vettaiyan (2024): ₹255.33 crore

T.J. Gnanavel, best known for Jai Bhim, directed this Lyca Productions film, released on 10 October 2024, in the run-up to Dussehra. Amitabh Bachchan made his Tamil debut in it, alongside Fahadh Faasil, Rana Daggubati and Manju Warrier.

The first six days were strong. Sacnilk had it at about ₹203 crore worldwide, ₹134 crore of that from India. Then came a Monday drop of around 75 per cent. It closed at ₹253.69 crore on Sacnilk and ₹255.33 crore on Koimoi, which means about 80 per cent of its money was in the bank within those first six days. Darbar (2020) trails it by only about ₹5 crore on Koimoi’s table, so sixth place is thin.

What separates the top three

Look at the last three releases together and a pattern shows. Sacnilk’s tallies put Coolie at roughly 74 per cent of its final gross after the first weekend and Vettaiyan at roughly 80 per cent after six days. Jailer, by Sun Pictures’ own first-week figure, had about 62 per cent after a full seven. The windows differ, and this is a reading of trade numbers rather than a proven cause. It does fit the table: all three opened enormously, and the one that kept selling tickets after the first week is the one at ₹605 crore.

What Jailer 2 has to beat

Sun Pictures announced the date on 2 September: Thursday 15 October, in the Dussehra window, with Nelson directing, Anirudh Ravichander on music and Rajinikanth back as Tiger Muthuvel Pandian. Earlier reports of reshoots had raised talk of a delay; the studio’s announcement and a fresh poster put that to rest.

The bars are specific. Matching the first film means about ₹605 crore. Topping 2.0 means about ₹668 crore. The first-week figure will arrive within days of release. The number that decides where Jailer 2 lands is the one that comes after it.

Until then, this is where the Rajinikanth highest grossing movies list stands, and it is a shorter list at the top than most people assume.