Production notes

Baahubali: The Beginning was produced in the Telugu film industry and filmed in both Telugu and Tamil languages simultaneously. Distant shots, however, were only shot in Telugu and dubbed in Tamil. As of July 2015, the film series was considered the most expensive in India.

Director S. S. Rajamouli revealed that Baahubali is inspired by the epic Mahabharata. V. Vijayendra Prasad, the screenwriter and Rajamouli's father who wrote stories for most of Rajamouli's films, once again penned the story for Baahubali. Vijayendra Prasad revealed that Sivagami has shades of both Kunti and Kaikeyi while Devasena is a warrior like Sita. He further added that he sees Baahubali as the story of Sivagami and Devasena. He was also inspired by tales of Chandamama and Amar Chitra Katha comics. In February 2011, S. S. Rajamouli announced that Prabhas would star in his upcoming movie. In January 2013, he announced that the working title was Baahubali. Actual film production started at Rock Gardens in Kurnool on 6 July 2013. The waterfall scenes were shot at Athirappilly Falls in Kerala, huge sets for the Mahishmati kingdom were constructed at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, and the snow episodes in the film were shot in Bulgaria. The film boasts of one year pre-production work wherein 15,000 storyboard sketches for the film were created—the highest for any Indian Film as of this date. More than 90 percent of the film had visually enhanced shots and, according to the producer, more than 600 VFX artists worked for the film from 18 facilities around the world led by Makuta VFX and Firefly in Hyderabad, Prasad Studios in Hyderabad and Chennai, Annapurna Studios in Hyderabad, Tau Films, and Dancing Digital Animation and Macrograph in South Korea. Makuta VFX which had prior experience of working with S. S. Rajamouli was chosen as principal visual effects studio. The cinematography of the movie was done by KK Senthil Kumar for 380 days using Arri Alexa XT camera with Master Prime lens. This marked Rajamouli's first film using digital imagery. Most of the film was shot in ArriRaw format in 4:3 aspect ratio while ArriRaw 16.9 was used for slow motion shots at 120 fps. Open Gate format, which can use the full 3.4K sensor in the camera to produce frames larger than the standard ArriRaw format, was tapped in to get the maximum image quality in VFX shots. Production designer Sabu Cyril created 10,000 different kinds of weaponry including swords, helmets and armour required for the soldiers. To make the swords lightweight, carbon-fibre was used instead of steel. 3D printing technology was used to create the head of the 100-foot Bhallaladeva statue in the movie. Flexi foam was used to make lightweight armour with the look of leather. V. Srinivas Mohan was chosen as visual effects supervisor, and Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao was the editor. P. M. Satheesh was the sound designer and Peter Hein was responsible for the action sequences. The costume designers were Rama Rajamouli and Prasanthi Tipirneni. The line producer was M. M. Srivalli.

National Award winner V. Srinivas Mohan was roped in as Visual effects supervisor for Baahubali. Makuta VFX which is based out of Hyderabad was chosen as principal visual effects studio and was responsible for more than 50% of the computer-generated imagery in the film. The majority of work done by Makuta involved bringing the 1500 foot waterfall to life, creating mountains and landscapes including the kingdom of Mahishmati, with its massive temples and courtyards. Creating the waterfall took nearly two years as Makuta dealt with complexity in fluid dynamics and simulations. Manuka claimed each frame of the waterfall sequence was treated as creating a new set and employed a different set of methodology. Firefly Creative Studio of Hyderabad worked primarily on the avalanche and the war sequences, which account for nearly 25 minutes of the film. Firefly Creative was also involved in creating underwater VFX shots and in establishing backstories for Kalakeya characters. Tau Films was responsible for creating the CGI bison, while Prasad EFX from Hyderabad was responsible for some shots in pre and post battle episodes involving digital multiplication. Prasad also created a 3D image of Kattappa and mapped his head onto a duplicate actor in one of the scenes. Srushti VFX from Hyderabad was involved in digitally creating some of the shots in the war sequence along with Firefly Studios. Annapurna Studios from Hyderabad was chosen as digital intermediate partner for the film which is responsible for generating the digital feed with the best colour and audio for editing. For the first time in Indian movies, Academy Color Encoding System workflows were implemented along with Infinitely Scalable Information Storage keeping in mind the scale of digitally enhanced shots in the film. Arka Media Works, production company of Baahubali, teamed up with AMD to use the state of the art FirePro GPUs W9100 and W8100 during post production. In an interview with Quartz, the co-founder of Makuta VFX stated, "Most of Baahubali was developed in Hyderabad, home to Tollywood, and used local talent. It was principally a homegrown feature produced by homegrown talent."

The fictional language Kiliki (also referred to as Kilikili) spoken by the Kalakeyas, a ferocious warrior tribe, was created by Madhan Karky for the film. It is said to be the first fictional language to be created for Indian film. While Karky was pursuing a PhD in Australia, he took up a part-time job of teaching and baby-sitting children. During one such interaction, he thought it would be fun to create a new language that could be easily grasped. Basic words were first made up and opposites were represented by word reversals – me was min and you was nim. The language, with 100 words, was called "Click" to highlight its simplicity. This formed the foundation for Kiliki.

Kilikili consists of at least 750 words and more than 40 concrete grammar rules. It was designed to be an intuitive language: Karky said he used hard consonants and soft consonants depending on the nature of the words' meanings. The language was created keeping in mind that the Kalakeya warriors had to be portrayed as terrifying brutes. On 21 February 2020, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, Rajamouli launched the official website of Kiliki language. He called the language as "world's youngest and easiest language."

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 22 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10.

Deepanjana Pal of Firstpost called it "Rajamouli's tour de force", terming it as "elaborate, well-choreographed and [having] some breathtaking moments." Prabhas and Daggubati are both in their elements as the warriors who approach warfare in two distinctive styles. The outcome of the battle is no surprise, but there are enough clever tactics and twists to keep the audience hooked. The biggest surprise, however, lies in the film's final shot, which gives you a glimpse into the sequel that will come out next year." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV India rated the film with three stars out of five and stated, "The spectacular universe that the film conjures up is filled with magic, but the larger-than-life characters that populate its extraordinary expanse do not belong to any known mythic landscape. To that extent, Baahubali, driven by the titular superhero who pulls off mind-boggling feats both in love and in war, throws up many a surprise that isn't altogether meaningless." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express praised the film: "Right from its opening frames, Baahubali holds out many promises: of adventure and romance, love and betrayal, valour and weakness. And it delivers magnificently on each of them. This is full-tilt, fully-assured filmmaking of a very high order. Baahubali is simply spectacular." In her review for The Hindu, Sangeetha Devi Dundoo wrote, "The war formations that form a chunk of the latter portions of the film are the best we've seen in Indian cinema so far. These portions are spectacular and show the technical finesse of the cinematographer (K.K. Senthil Kumar) and the visual effects teams. The waterfall, the mystical forests and water bodies above the cliffs and the lead pair escaping an avalanche all add to the spectacle. Give into its magic, without drawing comparisons to Hollywood flicks." Sukanya Varma of Rediff gave the film four out of five stars, calling it "mega, ingenious and envelope pushing!" Rachit Gupta of Filmfare gave the film four stars (out of 5) and summarised, "Baahubali is truly an epic experience. Had the story not been so jaded, this would've gone into the history books as an all-time classic. But that's not the case. It has its set of storytelling flaws, but even those are overshadowed by Rajamouli's ideas and execution. This is definitely worthy of being India's most expensive film. It's a definite movie watching experience." Suparna Sharma of Deccan Chronicle praised the second half of the film, writing, "Rajamouli has reserved all the grander and grandstanding for later, after interval. That's when the film stands up and begins to strut like an epic." Suhani Singh of India Today pointed out that the film is best enjoyed keeping logic at bay. She added, "SS Rajamouli and his team put up a fascinating wild, wild east adventure. It takes pluck to conceive a world like the one seen in Baahubali and to pull it off on a level which is on par with the international standards. The almost 45-minute-long battle sequence at the end is not just one of the biggest climaxes, but also the action spectacle rarely seen in Indian cinema. And if Rajamouli can present another one like that in part 2, then he is on course to register his name in cinema's history books. We can't wait to revisit Mahishmati kingdom." Critical reception penned by Shubha Shetty Saha for Mid-Day rates the film with four stars out of five, exclaiming, "While watching Baahubali, you might have to periodically pick up your jaw off the floor. Because this is not merely a movie, it is an unbelievably thrilling fantasy ride." The review extends praising the aspects, "It is to the director's credit that every aspect of the film – action, mind-boggling set design and choreography – lives up to this epic film of gigantic scale. The choreography in the song that has Shiva disrobing Avantika to get her in touch with her feminine side, is an absolute gem."

Critics praised the film for its direction, technical values, and the actors' performances. Lisa Tsering based on The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The story has been told many times before – a child is born destined for greatness and as a man vanquishes the forces of evil – but in the confident hands of accomplished South Indian director S.S. Rajamouli the tale gets potent new life in Baahubali: The Beginning." Allan Hunter, writing for Screen Daily noted that "The broad brushstrokes storytelling and the director's over-fondness for slow-motion sequences are among the film's failings but this is still a rousing film, easily accessible epic. There's rarely a dull moment in Baahubali: The Beginning, part one of a gung-ho, crowd-pleasing Telugu-language epic that has been shattering box-office records throughout India." Mike McCahill of The Guardian rated the film four stars out of five, praising the film, "Rajamouli defers on the latter for now, but his skilful choreography of these elements shucks off any cynicism one might carry into Screen 1: wide-eyed and wondrous, his film could be a blockbuster reboot, or the first blockbuster ever made, a reinvigoration of archetypes that is always entertaining, and often thrilling, to behold." Suprateek Chatterjee of The Huffington Post wrote, "However, all said and done, Baahubali: The Beginning is a remarkable achievement. What Rajamouli has pulled off here, despite its flaws, is nothing short of a miracle, especially when you take into account India's notoriously risk-averse filmmaking environment and when the film ends on a tantalizing cliffhanger (paving the way for Baahubali: The Conclusion, due to release next year), one can't help but applaud his singularly brave vision. As the cliché goes, a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step, but it doesn't really matter if that first step is shaky as long as it lands firmly and confidently." In 2026, The Guardian ranked Baahubali as the second best mythological film of all time, tied with its sequel Baahubali 2.

Baahubali: The Beginning collected ₹15 crore (US$2.34 million) from the United States on its first day. First weekend collections stood around ₹165.1 crore (US$25.74 million) worldwide from all its versions, the biggest ever for an Indian film in India & the fourth biggest ever for an Indian film worldwide. The film grossed around ₹263 crore (US$41 million) worldwide in the first week of its release. It became the first South Indian film to gross ₹300 crore (US$46.76 million) worldwide, reaching there in 9 days, and subsequently grossed ₹391.2 crore (US$60.98 million) worldwide in 15 days. Baahubali: The Beginning netted ₹420.05 crore in India. Firstpost later reported that the total collections stood at ₹650 crore as of August 2017. Baahubali: The Beginning grossed ₹511.35 crore (US$79.71 million) in all languages in India alone, and became the highest-grossing film in India, surpassing PK's gross of ₹440 crore (US$68.59 million) from India. By the end of its 87-day run, Bahubali collected 586.45 crore (US$79 million) worldwide in its initial theatrical run. The Beginning opened to 100 percent occupancy in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and close to 70 percent occupancy in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. It grossed around ₹50 crore (US$7.79 million) on its first day of release in India from all four versions (Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi). The Hindi version earned around ₹5.15 crore (US$802,782.15) nett which was the highest opening for any film dubbed into Hindi. Baahubali grossed ₹50 crore (US$7.79 million) on the first day in India. The Hindi version grossed around ₹24 crore (US$3.74 million) nett in the first weekend. The Telugu version alone earned around ₹66.5 crore (US$10.37 million) nett in first weekend in India. The film, from all its versions, earned almost ₹105.7 crore (US$16.48 million) nett in its first weekend. It had the biggest opening weekend ever in India. The Hindi version collected around ₹48 crore (US$7.48 million) nett in its first week. Baahubali: The Beginning grossed more than ₹185.3 crore (US$28.88 million) nett from all its versions in India in the first week. It added a further ₹47.8 crore (US$7.45 million) nett in its second weekend to take its total to around ₹233.1 crore (US$36.34 million) nett in ten days. The Hindi version grossed over ₹39.5 crore (US$6.16 million) nett in the Mumbai circuit. The film collected around ₹20 crore (US$3.12 million) in its first day from the international markets. The film opened on the ninth spot for its weekend, collecting around US$3.5 million with a per-screen average of $15,148. The film debuted in the ninth position for the US and Canadian box office collecting $4,630,000 for three days and $3,250,000 for the weekend of 10–12 July 2015. Baahubali: The Beginning grossed £66,659 from its Telugu version in United Kingdom and Ireland and A$194,405 from its Tamil version in Australia in until its second weekend (17 – 19 July 2015). The film also grossed MYR 663,869 in Malaysia from its Tamil version. The film grossed US$540,000 on its opening weekend in China. It has grossed a total of CN¥7.49 million(₹77.8 million) in the country. The film totally earned $10.94 million at the overseas box office.

Baahubali: The Beginning is one of the films featured in BBC's documentary on 100 Years of Indian Cinema directed by Sanjeev Bhaskar. Post the success of the film, a film movement was started, i.e. Pan-Indian films. In 2016, Thagubothu Ramesh plays a character named Kattappa in Selfie Raja. In 2017, Kattappava Kanom (transl. Kattappa is missing), which was named after the character of Kattappa from the film, was released. In 2018, Netflix announced that they had ordered a streaming television prequel series called Baahubali: Before the Beginning. Sathyaraj is referred to as Kattappa in a scene from Kanaa (2018).