Tanikella Bharani (born 14 July 1954) is an Indian actor, screenwriter, poet and playwright who works predominantly in Telugu cinema.

He is a religious Hindu who is known for singing devotional songs in praise of Sri Shiva and Devi Parvati, and propagates to his fellow Hindus to not just read the Bhagavad Gita but to follow what it teaches.

Tanikella did stage plays in the mid 70s and during this time he made the acquaintance of Rallapalli, a Tollywood actor.

He started his career as a dialogue writer for Kanchu Kavachum in 1984 and has written dialogues for various movies like Ladies Tailor (1985), Sri Kanaka Mahalakshmi Recording Dance Troupe (1987), Varasudochhadu (1988), Chettu Kinda Pleader (1989), Swara Kalpana (1989), Shiva (1989) and Seenu Vasanthi Lakshmi (2004).

He has acted in more than 750 movies starting with Ladies Tailor (1985) & Sri Kanaka Mahalakshmi Recording Dance Troupe (1987) in which he was seen as Dora Babu.

After 2000, he started playing more mature roles in movies like Manmadhudu (2002), Okariki Okaru (2003), Samba (2004), Malliswari, Godavari (2006), and Happy (2006).