After his astounding streak of 10 wins in the first 10 grands prix of 2014, Marquez had only won once in the following six races, and crashed in three of them.
He finally put that right in Malaysia, though only after a first-corner brush with Lorenzo that dropped him to eighth.
Lorenzo had made a good start to put his Yamaha between Honda duo Dani Pedrosa and Marquez as they approached Turn 1, where contact between the two champions sent both wide.
While Marquez dropped all the way to eighth, Lorenzo pulled back onto the line in third place, and then swiftly overtook both fast-starter Andrea Dovizioso's Ducati and Pedrosa to lead at the end of the opening lap.
Pedrosa then fell from second place at the final corner on lap two, but there was little respite for Lorenzo as Valentino Rossi and the recovering Marquez were soon on his tail.
The lead trio spent the first half of the race covered by just a few tenths as they ran in a very tense three-bike train.
After many, many attempts under braking, Rossi finally got ahead of Lorenzo at half-distance.
Marquez followed the Italian soon afterwards, with Lorenzo - who was running a harder front tyre than his rivals - then falling away in third place.
Rossi held on a little longer before Marquez made it past, although it took the final two laps of the race for the Honda to shake the Yamaha off completely.
Marquez's win draws him level with Mick Doohan for the record of 12 premier class victories in a single season, and he can now break that mark in the season finale at Valencia in a fortnight.
Rossi's second place increases his advantage over Lorenzo in the battle for the championship runner-up spot. This is now an all-Yamaha affair with Pedrosa out of contention after crashing for good when back up to 13th place.
Dovizioso developed a problem in the closing laps and tumbled right back to eighth place, which meant Stefan Bradl and Bradley Smith ended up battling for fourth, with the German coming out on top.
Pol Espargaro bravely rode to sixth despite breaking a bone in his foot in a Saturday practice crash and having some very close calls with Yonny Hernandez, who finished seventh.
Attrition levels were high again: in addition to Andrea Iannone non-starting due to arm injuries from a Friday clash with Marquez, Aleix Espargaro and Alvaro Bautista collided early on, and Cal Crutchlow parked his Ducati from sixth with a mechanical problem.
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