Mani Ratnam's Nayakan is among Time's '100 Best Movies Ever'; and his Roja launched A.R. Rahman. For the first time ever, Mani Ratnam opens up here, to Baradwaj Rangan, in a series of freewheeling conversations--candid, witty, pensive, and sometimes combative--and looks back at these and nineteen other masterly films. With Rangan's personal and impassioned introduction setting the Tamil and national context of the films, and with posters, script pages and numerous stills, Conversations is a treat for serious lovers of cinema as well as the casual moviegoer looking for a peek behind the process. Baradwaj Rangan is a National Award-winning film critic, currently Deputy Editor at the Hindu. His writings on cinema, music, art, books, travel and humour have been published in various national magazines like Open, Tehelka, Biblio, Outlook and the Caravan. He has co-written the screenplay for the Tamil rom-com, Kadhal 2 Kalyanam. He teaches a course on cinema at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai.