The Most Famous South Indian Cinema Stars in the World
Top 80 of 80 ranked · August 2026 · See today's live standing →
First issue under methodology v5.62. Movement begins with the next issue frozen under the same version.
Vijay leads South Indian cinema as actor and politician, with Sridevi third
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · 1 min read
The August 2026 Tollywood list is topped by a Tamil star who now runs a political party, and the late Sridevi outranks every living actress on it.
C. Joseph Vijay is the most famous name in South Indian cinema for August 2026, with a fame score of 17.5 that puts him five points clear of the field. He has dominated Tamil film for years and, since 2026, has been a force in the state's politics as well, which has only widened the attention he draws.
Nora Fatehi, second at 12.4, is a Canadian singer and dancer of Moroccan descent who moved to Mumbai at 19 and built her career in Indian film; the sector gathers her through her South Indian work. Sridevi, who died in 2018, is third at 11.2 and the only dead name in the top fifteen. She outranks every living actress on the list, and it is not close for most of them.
The living actresses follow in a tight band: Tamannaah Bhatia, who works across Tamil, Telugu and Hindi cinema, at 10.5, Kajal Aggarwal and Disha Patani at 9.9, Rashmika Mandanna at 9.5. The Telugu leading men arrive after them. Mahesh Babu is eighth at 9.1, Ram Charan ninth at 8.6 and Allu Arjun tenth at 8.4. Janhvi Kapoor, Sridevi's daughter, is eleventh.
The two men who have carried Tamil cinema for half a century, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, sit at twelfth and thirteenth on 8.3 and 8.2, behind actors a generation or two younger, and Pooja Hegde and Bobby Deol complete the group. Eighty people were measured across six countries, seventy-four of them living. India supplies sixty-four names and Bangladesh twelve, an unexpected second that reflects where the industry's audience reaches.
| Rank | Name | Score | Live |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  C. Joseph Vijay  celebrityAlive | 17.5 | iFANN → |
| 2 |  Nora Fatehi  celebrityAlive | 12.4 | iFANN → |
| 3 |  Sridevi celebrity | 11.2 | iFANN → |
| 4 |  Tamannaah Bhatia celebrityAlive | 10.5 | iFANN → |
| 5 |  Kajal Aggarwal celebrityAlive | 9.9 | iFANN → |
| 6 |  Disha Patani celebrityAlive | 9.9 | iFANN → |
| 7 |  Rashmika Mandanna celebrityAlive | 9.5 | iFANN → |
| 8 |  Mahesh Babu celebrityAlive | 9.1 | iFANN → |
| 9 |  Ram Charan celebrityAlive | 8.6 | iFANN → |
| 10 |  Allu Arjun celebrityAlive | 8.4 | iFANN → |
| 11 |  Janhvi Kapoor celebrityAlive | 8.3 | iFANN → |
| 12 |  Rajinikanth celebrityAlive | 8.3 | iFANN → |
| 13 |  Kamal Haasan celebrityAlive | 8.2 | iFANN → |
| 14 |  Pooja Hegde celebrityAlive | 7.8 | iFANN → |
| 15 |  Bobby Deol celebrityAlive | 7.5 | iFANN → |
| 16 |  Rakul Preet Singh celebrityAlive | 7.4 | iFANN → |
| 17 |  Nayanthara celebrityAlive | 7.2 | iFANN → |
| 18 |  Prabhas celebrityAlive | 7.2 | iFANN → |
| 19 |  Ajith Kumar celebrityAlive | 7.2 | iFANN → |
| 20 |  Genelia D'Souza celebrityAlive | 7.1 | iFANN → |
| 21 |  Suriya celebrityAlive | 7.1 | iFANN → |
| 22 |  Farah Khan celebrityAlive | 7.0 | iFANN → |
| 23 |  Dhanush celebrityAlive | 6.8 | iFANN → |
| 24 |  Tabu celebrityAlive | 6.8 | iFANN → |
| 25 |  Prakash Raj celebrityAlive | 6.6 | iFANN → |
| 26 |  N. T. Rama Rao Jr. celebrityAlive | 6.6 | iFANN → |
| 27 |  Mrunal Thakur celebrityAlive | 6.6 | iFANN → |
| 28 |  Anushka Shetty celebrityAlive | 6.6 | iFANN → |
| 29 |  S. S. Rajamouli celebrityAlive | 6.6 | iFANN → |
| 30 |  R. Madhavan celebrityAlive | 6.4 | iFANN → |
| 31 |  Taapsee Pannu celebrityAlive | 6.4 | iFANN → |
| 32 |  Shriya Saran celebrityAlive | 6.3 | iFANN → |
| 33 |  Dulquer Salmaan  celebrityAlive | 6.2 | iFANN → |
| 34 |  Ameesha Patel celebrityAlive | 6.1 | iFANN → |
| 35 |  Trisha Krishnan celebrityAlive | 6.1 | iFANN → |
| 36 |  Aditi Rao Hydari celebrityAlive | 6.1 | iFANN → |
| 37 |  Divya Bharti celebrity | 6.0 | iFANN → |
| 38 |  Sonu Sood celebrityAlive | 5.9 | iFANN → |
| 39 |  Vikram celebrityAlive | 5.9 | iFANN → |
| 40 |  Nana Patekar celebrityAlive | 5.7 | iFANN → |
| 41 |  Neha Sharma celebrityAlive | 5.6 | iFANN → |
| 42 |  Mammootty celebrityAlive | 5.6 | iFANN → |
| 43 |  Prabhu Deva celebrityAlive | 5.4 | iFANN → |
| 44 |  Mani Ratnam celebrityAlive | 5.4 | iFANN → |
| 45 |  Ileana D'Cruz celebrityAlive | 5.2 | iFANN → |
| 46 |  Asin celebrityAlive | 5.1 | iFANN → |
| 47 |  Bhumika Chawla celebrityAlive | 4.9 | iFANN → |
| 48 |  Nidhhi Agerwal celebrityAlive | 4.4 | iFANN → |
| 49 |  Jyothika celebrityAlive | 4.4 | iFANN → |
| 50 |  Rana Daggubati celebrityAlive | 4.3 | iFANN → |
| 51 |  Shakib Khan  celebrityAlive | 4.2 | iFANN → |
| 52 |  Yash celebrityAlive | 4.0 | iFANN → |
| 53 |  Shobana celebrityAlive | 4.0 | iFANN → |
| 54 |  Amala Paul celebrityAlive | 4.0 | iFANN → |
| 55 |  Priyamani celebrityAlive | 3.9 | iFANN → |
| 56 |  Nithya Menen celebrityAlive | 3.9 | iFANN → |
| 57 |  Sameera Reddy celebrityAlive | 3.7 | iFANN → |
| 58 |  Pori Moni celebrityAlive | 3.6 | iFANN → |
| 59 |  Riya Sen celebrityAlive | 3.5 | iFANN → |
| 60 |  Naga Chaitanya celebrityAlive | 3.4 | iFANN → |
| 61 |  Rimi Sen celebrityAlive | 3.3 | iFANN → |
| 62 |  Yukta Mookhey celebrityAlive | 3.3 | iFANN → |
| 63 |  Priya Prakash Varrier celebrityAlive | 3.0 | iFANN → |
| 64 |  K. Bhagyaraj celebrity | 2.7 | iFANN → |
| 65 |  Bharathiraja celebrity | 2.6 | iFANN → |
| 66 |  Apu Biswas celebrityAlive | 2.3 | iFANN → |
| 67 |  Jaya Ahsan celebrityAlive | 2.2 | iFANN → |
| 68 |  Avantika Vandanapu  celebrityAlive | 2.0 | iFANN → |
| 69 |  Sandeep Vanga celebrityAlive | 1.8 | iFANN → |
| 70 |  Bobita celebrityAlive | 1.7 | iFANN → |
| 71 |  Mahiya Mahi celebrityAlive | 1.6 | iFANN → |
| 72 |  Nusraat Faria celebrityAlive | 1.6 | iFANN → |
| 73 |  Shila Ahmed celebrityAlive | 1.1 | iFANN → |
| 74 |  Shabnur celebrityAlive | 1.1 | iFANN → |
| 75 |  Manna celebrity | 1.0 | iFANN → |
| 76 |  Madhu Mantena celebrityAlive | 0.8 | iFANN → |
| 77 |  Reenu Mathews  celebrityAlive | 0.4 | iFANN → |
| 78 |  Bobby Haque celebrityAlive | 0.3 | iFANN → |
| 79 | Yasha Shree Rao celebrityAlive | 0.3 | iFANN → |
| 80 |  A. T. M. Shamsuzzaman celebrity | 0.1 | iFANN → |
About this list
This list ranks the most famous south indian cinema stars in the world as of August 2026, by overall global fame rather than one month's attention. It is the top 80 of 80 names the rankings measured in this sector, frozen as the permanent record of that edition. This is the standard reading: everyone, living or dead, on one scale. 74 of the 80 listed are living; the Alive reading restricts the same ranking to living people.
C. Joseph Vijay is No. 1 on this list for August 2026. Behind C. Joseph Vijay come Nora Fatehi and Sridevi.
What famous means here
Fame, in iFAMOUS, is how widely the world knows a name: how recognisable a person's name, face or work is, and how well people know who they are. It is assessed from extensive historical and current public data, some of it reaching back more than twenty years, and it is not merit, talent, importance or popularity on iFANN. The rankings model real-world global fame, not internet fame; the data is the instrument, not the subject. Activity on iFANN itself is excluded.
The month in the title is the date of this edition, not the period measured. The list is a snapshot of overall fame as it stood when the issue was frozen: a name does not lose its place because one month was quiet, and a trending moment alone does not put a name here. Trending attention is published separately on ifann.net.
How the list was ranked
The iFANN Global Fame Rankings combine worldwide Wikipedia readership across languages, worldwide news coverage and search interest anchored against stable reference names, with search history reaching back to 2004. A twelve-month baseline sits behind the current reading and short-lived surges are capped, so the list reflects durable recognition rather than one week of headlines. Rankings are computed daily on ifann.net and frozen on the second day of the following month as that month's issue; a published issue never changes.
About Tollywood / South Indian Cinema
Tollywood / South Indian Cinema is one of the sectors the journal ranks every month, alongside every country, origin and region list in this issue. Sector lists use the same rankings and the same scale as The 100, so a name can be compared across sectors and against the world. Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam film industries.
Powered by iFANN
iFAMOUS is published by iFANN and powered by the iFANN Global Fame Rankings v5.62. Today's live standing for this list is on ifann.net; the journal freezes it once a month so it can be cited permanently.
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"C. Joseph Vijay, No. 1 on The Most Famous South Indian Cinema Stars in the World", iFAMOUS No. 1 (August 2026), ifamous.org