Madhavan won positive acclaim for playing the lead role in Vikram Kumar's horror film, "Yavarum Nalam" (2009). The film, which became a commercial and critical success, prompted a reviewer from the Times of India to suggest "he carried the film on his shoulders" while he was also nominated in the Best Actor category at the Vijay Awards. His following two films, the romantic comedy "Guru En Aalu" (2009) and the action film "Sikandar" (2009) in which he played a supporting role of an army officer, both fetched mixed reviews. Madhavan then starred in Rajkumar Hirani's comedy film, "3 Idiots" (2009), alongside Aamir Khan and Sharman Joshi. Upon release, the film received positive reviews and went on to become the highest-grossing Indian film of all time, before being overtaken in 2013. Madhavan's portrayal as a young engineer with a passion for photography earned him nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor and for the IIFA Best Supporting Actor Award during 2010. Film critic Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama described the actor's performance as "incredible", while Madhavan claimed that the film changed how he was viewed as an actor in Hindi films for the better. He later turned down an offer of reprising the same role in the Tamil remake of the film helmed by Shankar. In 2010, Madhavan appeared alongside actors Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley in "Teen Patti" (2010) as a young professor, with Adarsh again rating his performance as "excellent", but the film failed at the box office. His two guest appearances in the year also received mixed feedback with his performance in the Telugu anthology film "Om Shanti" (2010) being praised, whilst a role in the John Abraham-starrer "Jhootha Hi Sahi" (2010) drew him criticism. Madhavan then collaborated again with Kamal Haasan and K. S. Ravikumar in the romantic comedy, "Manmadan Ambu" (2010), playing a wealthy businessman who hires a spy to follow his actress girlfriend on a European cruise tour. The film opened to positive reviews with Madhavan's performance being described by Rediff.com as "excellent", while Sify.com labelled him the "scene stealer".