Tamil films have the widest overseas distribution after Hindi films. They have enjoyed consistent popularity among Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. Tamil films have recently become popular in Japan (Rajinikanth's Muthu, for example, screened for a record period), South Africa, Canada, and the UK. Many movies such as Chandramukhi and Anniyan were also simultaneously released in the USA.

Tamil films enjoy significant patronage in the neighbouring southern States like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh too. In Kerala the films are directly released in Tamil but in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka they are preferred by dubbing into regional languages.
There is a fair amount of dispersion amongst the Indian film industries. Many successful Tamil films have been remade by the Hindi and Telugu film industries, for example. Kollywood has also remade a fair number of Hindi-, Telugu-, Malayalam-, and other-language films.

It is estimated by the Manorama Yearbook 2000 (a popular almanac) that over 5,000 Tamil films were produced in the 20th century. For a complete list of Tamil films, see the List of Tamil-Language Films. Tamil films have also been dubbed into other languages, thus reaching a much wider audience. Examples of those dubbed into Hindi include such hits as Minsaara Kanavu, Roja and Bombay. Anniyan, a recent Tamil film became the first Indian film to be dubbed into French. See popular Tamil films.

There has been a growing presence of English in dialogue and songs as well. It is not uncommon to see movies that feature dialogue studded with English words and phrases, or even whole sentences. Some movies are also simultaneously made in two or three languages (either using subtitles or several soundtracks). Quite often, Tamil movies feature Madras Bashai, a colloquial version of Tamil spoken in Madras.