S. Shankar

S. Shankar
Shankar in 2018
Born	Shankar Shanmugam (1963-08-17) 17 August 1963 (age 60) Kumbakonam, Madras State, India
Alma mater	Central Polytechnic College
Occupation(s)	Film director, Film producer, Screenwriter
Years active	1993–present
Notable work	Gentleman (1993) Kadhalan (1994) Indian (1996) Mudhalvan (1999) Anniyan (2005) Enthiran (2010)
Spouse	Easwari Shankar
Children	3; including Aditi[1]

Shankar Shanmugam (born 17 August 1963), credited as S. Shankar or his mononym Shankar, is an Indian film director, film producer and screenwriter who works predominantly in Tamil cinema. He is one of the highest grossing film directors in Indian cinema.^[2] His films typically deal with the contemporary social issues, vigilante themes and the usage of state of the art technology and VFX. He has won one National Film Award, four Filmfare Award South and six Tamil Nadu State Film Awards in his career.

He made his debut as a director in the film Gentleman (1993), for which he won the Filmfare Best Director Award and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Director. He usually collaborates with composer A. R. Rahman, both having done over 11 films together. Two of his films Indian (1996) and Mudhalvan (1999), which deal with social and political issues, was commercially very successful and also submitted by India for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but neither earned a nomination. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by M. G. R. University.

His psychological thriller Anniyan, featuring Vikram in three distinct characters (Ambi, Remo & Anniyan) was released in 2005 with highly critical and commercial success. After Anniyan, Shankar teamed up with Rajinikanth on Sivaji (2007), the most expensive Indian film at that time.^[3] He again collaborated with Rajinikanth for a science-fiction film Enthiran (2010), which again turned out to be highest grossing Tamil film at that time and also its sequel 2.0 (2018), is the seventh highest-grossing film in India and the tenth highest-grossing Indian film worldwide.^[4][5] It is also the highest-grossing Indian film of 2018.