A visitor sits on a throne on the sets of Bahubali in Ramoji Film City, in Hyderabad, India, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

HYDERABAD, India (AP) — A fast-rising parallel film industry in India is competing with Bollywood’s musicals and action-packed films and has taken the world by storm: It’s called Tollywood.

As Mumbai is to Hindi films — or Bollywood — the southern Indian city of Hyderabad is to movies made in Telugu, one of the country’s most widely spoken languages. Tollywood films like “RRR” and “Baahubali” have achieved international acclaim at the box office and on the awards stage.

What is Tollywood?

The Telugu-language film industry, widely known as Tollywood, is one of India’s many regional movie-producing centers. But it’s drawn national and global audi

See Full Page