One of the greatest protagonist of the Kannada cinematography is SR Puttanna Kanagal. He achieved success in his native Karnataka in the 1960s and 1970s. Puttanna Kanagal has also directed Malayalam and Hindi films. He is one of the first to endear himself to a massive public coming from the middle classes by bringing great technical mastery to consistent and contemporary subjects and too form a psychological expressionism close to romantic fiction.

Bellimoda (1968) with Kalpana and the actor TN Balkrishna, who played in the troupe of G Veeranna, was a phenomenal success from the 1950s until today in Karnataka. The sensitive Indira is the only daughter of a rich landlord, to whom Mohan, a young educated neighbour comes to ask for help to study abroad. A marriage proposal is made in the direction of Indira, the boy`s parents having their eyes on the inheritance. When he is abroad, the wife of the landowner gives birth to a boy, a probable heir, which drives Mohan and his parents to cancel the agreement for marriage. Outraged Indira refuses to reconcile with Mohan, who later comes to ask her for marriage.

In 1970 Puttanna Kanagal shot his best known film in India, Gejje Pooje. It is a tragic story helped by a galaxy of stars, such as, Kalpana, Leelavathi and Arathi in her first film, and the first great Kannada actress, old Pandhari Bai. Aparna, an orphan, brought up by the madam of a brothel, has an affair and gives birth to a daughter, Chandra, whom the madam hopes to make a prostitute. To spare her this fate her mother brings her up in another town in the home of her respectable sister and brother and the brother falls in love with Chandra. When his father, former lover of Chandra`s mother arrives, she is unable to explain the presence of the young man with her: she then breaks down and becomes a prostitute.

In 1971 Puttanna Kanagal made Sharapanjara, a film with psychoanalytical connotation unusual in Indian cinema of that time, giving a superb role to Kalpana, a woman who is happy with her husband and her child. But, traumatized by a vague recollection, which returns to her in her dreams, she is locked up in a mental hospital; by her husband. On her release everyone around her refuses to consider her as normal and she returns to the mental hospital foe the rest of her days.

Nagara Haavu (1972), shot in a wild mountainous area, is the strange story of Ramachari, an adolescent in revolt against society, a cobra or in other words, feared because he is unpredictable, brutal and egocentric. He falls in love with a girl of his age but his teacher advises him to give up and the belle marries another man, who forces her into prostitution. When he falls in love with Margaret, a Christian, it is his own parents who oppose his marriage to a non-Hindu, but he persists in his affections. Once again his teacher intervenes but he pushes him from the edge of a cliff and commits suicide with his girlfriend.

Much lighter and more entertaining is Bili Hendhi (1975). The underlying moral in the film is that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. Gopi returns after his studies in USA, awaited by his fiancée Sharada. But over there he has married Elisa, a charming American student and he dare not admit it to his parents on his arrival. Elisa decides to come and to India but Gopi`s father comes to know about the marriage and travels to Dekhi to offer her money and ask her to leave. However, highly impressed by her demeanour he brings her to Bangaluru. Sharada seems to accept the situation, more so, as the two women become friends. When Elisa learns of the betrayal of her husband she is disgusted and decides to go back to America but Sharada reconciles her with Gopi.

With the great actress Arathi, Puttanna Kanagal directed a very powerful epic in the film in cinemascope, Ranganayaki (1981). The film is about the intense passion for her profession of a professional stage actress, Ranganayaki, who married into high society, is compelled to give up acting. When her former troupe performs in her town, she accepts to act as a substitute and her obsession for acting leads to divorce. He husband even keeps their children. She then becomes a film star, has an affair with a handsome young man who turns out to be her son. She commits suicide.

The films of Puttanna Kanagal saw women in new light and the subjects of his films were often bold. Due to their innovative ideas Puttanna Kanagal`s movies are considered some of the finest Kannada films even today. till date, therefore, he remains one of the best Kannada directors.