"Thiruvilaiyadal" was released on 31 July 1965 to critical praise for its screenplay, dialogue, direction, music and the performances of Ganesan, Nagesh and Balaiah. The film was a commercial success, running for over twenty-five weeks in several theatres and becoming a silver jubilee film. It was also responsible for a resurgence in devotional and mythological cinema, since it was released when Tamil cinema was primarily producing social films. "Thiruvilaiyadal" received the Certificate of Merit for the Second-Best Feature Film in Tamil at the 13th National Film Awards and the Filmfare Award for Best Film – Tamil. A digitally-restored version was released in September 2012, and was also a commercial success.