Vijay debuted as a lead role actor in the 1992 film Naalaya Theerpu, produced by his father. After a few other films, he co-stared with Vijayakanth in the film Sendhoorapandi. This film helped Vijay to become popular in the interior areas of Tamil Nadu. Films like Rasigan, Vishnu, and Deva were low-budget movies established him to audiences. Vijay is also one of the few lead actors of his generation to co-star with veteran actor Sivaji Ganesan. This opportunity came in the film Once More, directed by his father S. A. Chandrasekhar in 1996.
The year 1996 he found his first success in the Vikraman-directed film Poove Unakkaga which helped Vijay to establish as a emerging star in Tamil films. He found some flops and success with films that followed, which had an unorthodox climax like Love Today. In 1997 he acted in the Vasanth film Nerrukku Ner along with Surya Sivakumar. This film was produced by Mani Ratnam. Then he acted in Kadhalukku Mariyadhai directed by Fazil. Kadhalukku Mariyadhai deemed was a blockbuster and made Vijay receive that year's Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor.
In 1998, Vijay worked in Priyamudan and Thulladha Manamum Thullum which were well received at box offices. Then the following films Endrendrum Kadhal, Nenjinile, Minsara Kanna failed miscerably at box-office. Then he did Kannukkul Nilavu with Fazil but the movie failed at boxoffice even his acting was praised. He decided not to commit in films that took a year to release, which changed his trend. His next venture was Kushi which was a super hit of 2000. The following films like Priyamanavale, Friends were once again successful for Vijay and Badrianother super hit movie.
Later on, he starred in Shahjahan, Thamizhan which all failed at box office and got average success again in Youth, However, the films that followed Bagavathi ,Vaseegara, Pudhiya Geethai, and his delayed film Udhaya became low grossers and flopped. This highly affected Vijay's success rate and he was looked down upon by film critics and producers.
His string of failure films was broken by Thirumalai in 2003 which had Vijay in a new facial appearance. Ghilli, which was released in 2004, is considered to be one of Vijay's biggest hits today. Directed by Dharani and produced by A. M. Rathnam, it was a remake of the Telugu film Okkadu, and ran for 200 days in theatres in Tamil Nadu. Then came Madhurey which was a average grosser at box office . It was in this year which Vijay began to portray his current mass-hero, stereotypical acting style, giving him a major turning point in his career. The following year had other major successes such as mega hit Thirupaachi, and a typical romantic jolly movie Sachin and a super hit Sivakasi.
Vijay's unsuccessful film since the release of Thirumalai was Aathi , which released in 2006. This film failed miserably at box-office. Later that year he announced Pokkiri, directed byPrabhu Deva, which released in 2007. Pokkiri had met almost the same success as Ghilli did,in which Vijay was given a different style to act as. This made Vijay receive an honorary doctorate title from the M. G. R. University. Later that year, Vijay appeared in Azhagiya Thamizh Magan, and for the first time, he appeared in dual roles, as the antagonist and protagonist. In 2008, he starred in Kuruvi, again under Dharani's direction.
The year 2009 started off with the action mass film Villu, which was directed by Prabhu Deva who was keen on working with him again after Pokkiri. The film, which had Vijay in dual roles for the second time in his career. Vijay's next film Vettaikkaaran, directed by Babu Sivan, produced by AVM Productions and distributed by Sun Pictures, which began filming in February 2009 and was released on December 18, 2009 to positive reviews.
Vijay is currently acting in Sura, in which he will co-star Tamanna Bhatia, directed by S. P. Rajakumar and produced by Sangili Murugan. Directors M. Raja and N. Lingusamy have also confirmed that they will be casting Vijay in their next respective films.
