For his debut film, he managed to handpick Balu Mahendra, Thotta Tharani, B. Lenin, and Ilaiyaraaja, leading craftsmen in their respective fields. As his career progressed, he worked with his childhood friend P. C. Sreeram and continued his collaborations with him until "Geethanjali". In 1991 for his film "Thalapathi", he chose Santosh Sivan and Suresh Urs—both newcomers to the Tamil film industry—to do cinematography and editing respectively. Both would later go onto become a part of his regular crew. While working on "Raavan", Santosh Sivan noted "any cameraman can hone his skills just working with [Mani]" and described Mani Ratnam's films as difficult to film. From his debut project till "Thalapathi", Ilaiyaraaja was his regular composer. For his next film "Roja" (1992), he collaborated with debutant A. R. Rahman, who has been his regular composer for all his films till date. Among cinematographers, he has also worked with Madhu Ambat, Rajiv Menon, Ravi K. Chandran, V. Manikandan and Ravi Varman while switching between Sreeram and Santosh Sivan otherwise. Since "Alaipayuthey", Sreekar Prasad has been his regular film editor. Mani is well recognized outside India with a retrospective of his films held at various film festivals around the world such as Toronto International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Tokyo Filmex and Birmingham International Film Festival. His films are being screened regularly at many film festivals such as Venice Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Montreal Film Festival and Palm Springs International Film Festival. The Government of India honoured Mani with Padma Shri in 2002. He has won several National Film Awards, Filmfare Awards, Filmfare Awards South and state awards. Apart from these awards, many of his films have been screened at various film festivals and have won numerous accolades. "Geethanjali", directed by him won the Golden Lotus Award for Best Popular Film at the 37th National Film Awards. Other films like "Mouna Ragam", "Anjali", and "Kannathil Muthamittal" have won the Best Regional Film awards at the National Film Awards. Two of his films, "Roja" and "Bombay" have won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration.