I'll talk only with respect to Kannada industry was excellent before 2006.
Hindi audiences, Malayalis, Tamilians, Bengalis, Marathigas don't have any knowledge on Kannada film industry and it's history. The problem lies with themselves only , they have watched very few handful of recent kannada movies. The reason being poor popularity and poor promotion of kannada films outside Karnataka.
They are only recently identifying kannada movies with cringe movies like Kgf, Yash movies, Kantara, Darshan movies, Sudeep movies, Shetty movies etc. These movies lack story and content.
Sandalwood or Kannada film land also had a lot of quality movies.However their popularity and audiences are only restricted to Karnataka and kannada audiences. This is main reason why kannada film land is giving a lot of off beat movies that have gone unnoticed.
Kannada film industry has given some of the greatest movies ever in Indian Film Industry. Some of them are very unique and out of box. There is no dearth of good realistic movies in Kannada Film industry.
The list goes below:
Upendra (1999) - The first kannada film to be released in Japan in Yubari International Film Festival, Tokyo. It is regarded as the most weirdest movie ever in not just Indian Film industry but in World cinema. It is one of the greatest kannada movie I have seen.
Accident (1984) - Fantastic thriller by Konkani director Shankar Nag.
Etu Eduretu (1981) - Battle between a black magician and a tantrik in modern setting.
Eddelu Manjunatha (2009) - a fantastic movie starring legend Navarasa Nayaka Jaggesh.
Accident (2008) - fantastic mystery thriller by Ramesh Arvind.
Uppi-2/ Upendra - 2 (2015) - Brilliant Psychological thriller.
Babruvahana (1977)
Ade Kannu (1985) - Thriller
Kasturi Nivasa (1971) - very sad movie that shows the value of humans.
Tabarana Kathe(1986) - national award movie
A(1998) - unique love story
UI (2024)
Matha(2006) - Navarasa Nayaka Jaggesh’s masterpiece movie
Shhh!!(1993) - fantastic horror-mystery thriller
Kannada film industry was dominated by lot of wonderful senior talented actors - Dr Rajkumar, Sundar Krishna Urs, KS Ashwath, Srinath, Musuri Krishnamurthy, TN Balakrishna, Vajramuni, etc
Legendary Veteran actor Rajkumar dominated Kannada film industry for decades and often was called the face of Kannada Film industry.
Another blow to Kannada film industry is death of Dr Rajkumar, one of the greatest Indian actor Under Construction 2006 after the death of legendary actor Dr Rajkumar ( not to be mistaken with Hindi actor Raajkumar of the same name) whole Kannada film industry collapsed.
Since 2006 after demise of Dr Rajkumar Karnataka is dominated by non-kannada movies.
Sadly now Kannada film industry is spoiled by Tulu nadu artists and less talented overrated artists like Yash, Darshan , Sudeep, Dhruva Sarja, Ganesh and others.
Kannada audiences have changed a lot now they're liking mass overaction commerical movies of overrated actors like Yash, Darshan, Sudeep Ganesh,etc.
Kannada audiences don't support realistic movies nowadays