The film tells the story of Harsha Vardhan (Mahesh Babu), a young man who inherits a business empire from his father Ravikanth (played by Jagapati Babu). Urged by his friend Charuseela (Haasan) to learn about his and his father's ancestral roots in a remote village named Devarakota, Harsha adopts the village and spends some time trying to improve the standard of living of the local people and the infrastructure of the village. His efforts anger the local crime boss Sashi (played by Sampath Raj) and his brother Venkata Ratnam, a politician (played by Mukesh Rishi).

Srimanthudu was initially going to be produced by UTV Motion Pictures, but the company backed out, citing differences with Siva. In addition to directing the film, Siva also wrote the screenplay. Devi Sri Prasad composed the score, and R. Madhi was the cinematographer. Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao edited the film. Production began on 11 August 2014 at Ramanaidu Studios in Hyderabad. Principal photography began on 7 November 2014 in Pune, and lasted till mid-June 2015. Though most of the film was shot in and around Hyderabad, a few portions were filmed in Tamil Nadu and Malaysia.

Srimanthudu and its Tamil dubbed version, titled Selvandhan, were released simultaneously worldwide on 7 August 2015 in around 2500 screens. It opened to positive critical reception and was a commercial success, grossing nearly ₹2.0 billion globally on a budget of ₹400–700 million and becoming the third highest grossing Telugu film of all time. After the film's release, many actors, bureaucrats and politicians announced plans to develop the backward villages and encouraged the adoption of villages in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The film went onto win three Nandi Awards (including Best Popular Feature Film), three Filmfare Awards South, six IIFA Utsavam awards, five South Indian International Movie Awards, and four Santosham Film Awards.