India, Dec. 30 -- With 2025 coming to an end, we decided to pick 25 of the best Malayalam movies released during the first quarter of this century. The period (2001-2025) witnessed a multitude of outstanding movies and predictably a few great ones had to miss out. Here we go:

Director Blessy's masterpiece. Marked by a superlative performance by Mammootty, the movie had an unusual plot. Blessy, who was an assistant director for nearly two decades before making Kaazcha, poured his soul into the film. The story centred around a boy named Pavan who ended up in Kerala after the Gujarat earthquake. Mammootty's character (Madhavan) meets him on a street. Pavan becomes a part of Madhavan's family and they forge a close bond. Eventually, the boy ...