The first talkie, Balan (1938), was steeped in social reform. But it was the 1950s, with films like Neelakuyil (The Blue Cuckoo), that established the template of socially conscious realism, winning the President's Gold Medal for its daring story of an unwed mother from a lower caste.

In the last five years, the most dominant cultural figure in Malayalam cinema is the Directors like Lijo Jose Pellissery ( Jallikattu , Ee.Ma.Yau ) have created a genre of "chaos realism," where society collapses because of a stray buffalo or a delayed funeral.