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Mahesh Babu (born Mahesh Ghattamaneni) is an Indian film actor known for his work in Telugu cinema. Born to actor Krishna in the Ghattamaneni family, Mahesh Babu faced the camera at the age of four as a child artist in 1979's Needa directed by Dasari Narayana Rao. His first leading role was in the film Rajakumarudu, which was released in August 1999. In 2001 he starred in Murari a Telugu supernatural thriller film. In 2002 he starred in Takkari Donga. In 2003 he starred in the movie Nijam. He played a young Kabaddi player in the 2003 film Okkadu, one of the biggest Telugu grossers of the time. He received international recognition with the 2005 film Athadu. The film was dubbed into Polish for a release in Poland as Poszukiwany, becoming the first Telugu film released in Poland, and became a boxoffice hit. His film Okkadu collected a share of 23 crores at the Boxoffice.
In 2006 he starred in Pokiri, premiered at the 7th IIFA Awards held in Dubai. The film was subsequently remade into Tamil, Hindi and Kannada. The film was also one of the fourteen southern Indian films to be screened at the International Indian Film Academy Awards Film festival in 2006. Pokiri collected a share of 48 crores at the Boxoffice. His film Pokiri was declared as an Industry Hit at the boxoffice. This film was also dubbed into polish along with Athadu which helped him to gain significant following in that region. In 2010, he starred in the film khaleja. His performance in Khaleja was critically praised as one of his best performances. In 2011, he starred in Dookudu, which had the largest worldwide opening for a Telugu film. It became the first Telugu film to reach a gross of more than ₹ 1 billion at the time, excluding the dubbed versions. Subsequently, the Los Angeles Times quoted it as "the biggest hit you've never heard of". The film collected a share of 56 crores at the boxoffice.
In 2012, he starred in the film Businessman. Businessman collected a share of 40 crores at the boxoffice. In 2013, he starred in the multistarrer film Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu . The film collected 51 crores at the boxoffice. In 2014, he starred in the psychological thriller, 1: Nenokkadine . The film was the highest rated thrillers for an Indian film in Internet Movie Database. It won three awards out of eight nominations at the 4th South Indian International Movie Awards and two awards at the 11th CineMAA Awards ceremony. He was then starred in Aagadu. In 2015 his film Srimanthudu collected a gross of 175 crores in 50 days. The film was declared as the second highest-grossing film in terms of both share and gross at the Tollywood box-office. This film was the first Indian movie to have premiere in Chile.
He is the Only South Indian hero who has six Telugu films which collected more than one million dollars at the United States Boxoffice.
This is the filmography of him. As of May 2016 he has 22 releases as a male lead. As an actor, he has received 7 Nandi Awards (3 Best Actor, 3 Special Jury, 1 Best Debut), 5 Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Telugu. To date, he has won seven Nandi Awards, five Filmfare Awards, three CineMAA Awards, three South Indian International Movie Awards and one International Indian Film Academy awards