Selvaraghavan is an Indian film director, screenwriter and actor based primarily in Tamil cinema. Known for idiosyncratic genre films that subvert conventional character tropes and deal with dark themes, he is considered an important and influential figure in modern Tamil cinema. The elder brother of actor Dhanush, the two are frequent collaborators as he is credited with helping the actor to break into the industry in the early 2000s with the films Thulluvadho Ilamai (2002) and Kadhal Konden (2003). Selvaraghavan's early works largely dealt with themes of romance, sexuality, religion and youth culture; Pudhupettai (2006) was a stylistic departure into the gangster epic genre, and he later experimented with historical fiction and fantasy with the films Aayirathil Oruvan (2010) and Irandam Ulagam (2013), as well as horror with Nenjam Marappathillai (2021). Selvaraghavan's filmmaking style has been called "audacious" and "operatic", with an emphasis on breadth of detail, moral ambiguity, and recurring usage of dark humor.