After making his debut in 2003 in Chandra Chakori, he appeared in Kanti as the eponymous lead, a performance that won him the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor in 2004.

[3][4] His performance in the 2014 Kannada film Ugramm received unanimous praise and emerged as a major success.

[11][12] In Kanti set in the backdrop of the Karnataka–Maharashtra border dispute, he played the eponymous lead of a college student who, on falling in love with a Marathi girl, gets embroiled politically.

[15] After hits Chandra Chakori, and Kanti, Sri Murali could not keep up the expectations of the audiences and all of his consecutive films were flops.

[2] A. Sharadhaa of The Indian Express wrote: "This is definitely a 'comeback' film for Murali, a carefully thought-out project for him by the director.