Dharmathin Thalaivan (1988)

Billa, a powerful outlaw with a long list of enemies, kills Rajesh, a member of his gang, after he quits the criminal life. But Rajesh's fiancee and his sister pledge to take revenge on Billa.

Raja, an aspiring actor from a village, relocates to a big city to follow his dream. There, he meets his childhood friend who promises him an acting job but later learns about his evil intentions.

The story focuses on five friends at the Madras Institute of Technology, who want to remain friends and hope to join the same company after graduation. During a vacation, one of the friends, Ilango, goes home, where he is forced to get married to his rustic cousin, While their dream to work together becomes true, Ilango alone gets a transfer to Bombay. The friends force Elango to visit his wife before leaving for Bombay and put him on a train. But Elango manages to get off the train and from there loses touch with his friends and family in the village. The friends part and six years later, two of the five come back to join the two girls in Chennai. On the train in the journey back, Prabhu, one of the friends, and Ilango's wife Eashwari meet each other. Prabhu falls in love with Eashwari without realizing who she is.

Rajini is working as a coolie in a factory. He is asked by three brothers to act as a foreign-returned rich man the heir of a property. Rajini acts but always escapes as he doesn't want to face consequences. But then he comes to know that he is the heir to the property, his father was killed by three brothers to take away the property and mother became a mental patient. He avenges the death of his father by killing the villains. At last, he says he doesn't want to be an heir to money and always remains as a coolie.

A rich estate owner is killed by his second wife and her brother Aadimoolam. The estate owner's son Raja returns from USA and learns of this. In order to bring the culprits to book, he makes his friend Sethupati, a rickshaw puller, act as Raja.

Chandru, a singer, is on tour with his troupe in Singapore, where he meets Sona and falls in love with her. However, his life changes when he learns that she is terminally ill.