Jagame Thandhiram

Jagame Thandhiram (transl. The Universe is a Ruse) is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film directed by Karthik Subbaraj and produced by YNOT Studios together with Reliance Entertainment. The film stars Dhanush, James Cosmo, Joju George, Aishwarya Lekshmi and Kalaiyarasan. It follows Suruli, a gangster from Madurai, who is recruited to help Peter Sprott, a British crime lord, to take down a rival, but later gets caught off guard by the moral dilemmas that follow.

The project was initially announced in April 2016 with Thenandal Studio Limited attached to the project, but got shelved due to the financial problems surrounding the production house. It was revived in February 2018, with YNOT Studios acquiring the production rights. After an official launch in July 2019, the film began production in September 2019, with shooting taking place across London, Madurai, Rameshwaram, and Jaipur and concluded by December 2019. The songs and background score were composed by Santhosh Narayanan, with cinematography handled by Shreyas Krishna and editing done by Vivek Harshan.

Jagame Thandhiram was scheduled for a theatrical release on 1 May 2020, but was delayed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the makers initially planned on releasing the film only in theatres, this decision was dropped in February 2021 in favour of a worldwide direct-to-streaming release through Netflix on 18 June 2021. It was dubbed and released in 17 languages, across 190 countries. The film received mixed reviews from critics who praised its cast performances (particularly Dhanush, Cosmo and George), cinematography, technical aspects, soundtrack and musical score, but criticised its pace and screenwriting.