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Javier Bardem emerged in Spain in the 1990s as a different kind of movie star. Scion of a notable acting family, his privilege and experience manifested in supremely confident leading roles in crossover hit “Jamon, Jamon” (1992) and Almodóvar’s “Live Flesh” (1997).

With his appealing features and compelling screen presence, there was little doubt Hollywood came calling, and indeed, in the new millennium, he has joined Antonio Banderas and his equally talented wife, Penélope Cruz, as the industry’s most prominent Latin imports. He was daring in “Before Night Falls” (2000), for which he received his first Oscar nomination and appeared in films by Michael Mann and Miloš Forman. He would eventually rise to superstardom as the embodiment of calculating evil in “No Country for Old Men” (2007); he won the Oscar this time for one of the most chilling depictions of villainy in recent memory.

Ever since, Bardem has acted with the...

Así es: la pareja más célebre del ‘star system’ español volverá a coincidir delante de las cámaras. © Getty Images

De acuerdo con Deadline, Javier Bardem (Dune: Parte dos) y Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), pareja en la vida real que suma dos Óscars (uno cada uno), volverán a trabajar juntos como los protagonistas del thriller psicológico Bunker, del oscarizado guionista y director francés Florian Zeller (El padre), que firma aquí su tercer largometraje y ha concebido esta obra específicamente para ellos.

En Bunker, cuando un arquitecto (Bardem) acepta un proyecto moralmente ambiguo –construir un búnker de supervivencia para un magnate tecnológico–, su mujer (Cruz), con quien lleva 17 años casado, empieza a cuestionarse su matrimonio.

La película, que se venderá al mejor postor en el inminente Marché du Film de Cannes, se presenta como, palabras textuales, «un thriller que ahonda en los retos emocionales y morales a los que se enfrenta...

Pedro Almodóvar, who has had a decades-long relationship with the New York Film Festival, will receive a lifetime honor from its presenting organization next month.

The 50th annual Chaplin Award will be presented to the filmmaker April 28 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Presenters who will pay tribute to him at the gala event include performer and artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov; actress Rossy de Palma (the honoree’s longtime muse); pop star Dua Lipa; actor John Turturro; and filmmaker John Waters.

The Chaplin Award Gala is Film at Lincoln Center’s primary annual fundraising event. Proceeds benefit the nonprofit’s programs, including film series, educational initiatives, and marquee events like the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films.

The list of previous Chaplin recipients includes Jeff Bridges, Viola Davis, Robert De Niro, Barbara Streisand, Sidney Poitier, Michael Caine, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Altman, Billy Wilder and Elizabeth Taylor.

Pedro Almodóvar is ready to party with the best of ’em. The legendary auteur will be honored with the 50th Chaplin Award during a gala evening at Lincoln Center on April 28, as previously announced. Yet it’s the who’s who of eclectic presenters that has us abuzz today: IndieWire can confirm that Dua Lipa, John Waters, Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” star John Turturro, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and long-time Almodóvar muse Rossy de Palma will be on hand to toast to the internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker.

The Chaplin Award Tribute will feature excerpts from a selection of the beloved director’s work, appearances by actors, friends, and colleagues, and the presentation of the award itself. The 50th Chaplin Award Gala, presented in partnership with Rolex, will take place at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The annual gala is the premier fundraiser for Film at Lincoln Center, with proceeds...

Pedro Almodóvar is nobody’s idea of a conventional, throwback director in most ways. But among top international directors over the last 40 years, he stands if not alone but at least above anyone else until now in gaining prominence in the U.S. with subtitled films — without ever making an English-language one.

Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, François Truffaut, all of whom saw consistent success in U.S. arthouses, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, made either just one or no films outside their native languages. From the 1980s, it became common for the most successful European and Latin American directors to pursue projects in English, sometimes never returning to their native tongues. Many others, like Bong Joon Ho, Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro, have leapfrogged to English-language scripts and actors after their initial successes.

Not Almodóvar, until now. With “The Room Next Door” (Sony Pictures Classics), he...

Pedro Almodóvar is the next recipient of Film at Lincoln Center’s prestigious Chaplin Award.

The Oscar-winning writer-director will be celebrated at a gala event featuring excerpts of his work and appearances by co-stars, friends and colleagues at Lincoln Center on April 28, 2025.

The announcement was made ahead of the U.S. premiere and New York Film Festival centerpiece gala screening of Almodóvar’s first English-language feature film The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.

The Room Next Door won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival and is set to open in L.A. and New York on Dec. 20 before expanding to select cities on Dec. 25 and going nationwide in January.

One of Spain’s most celebrated filmmakers, Almodóvar’s feature films include Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988); Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989); All About My Mother (1999), which won the...

Film at Lincoln Center (Flc) has announced that internationally acclaimed Spanish film director, screenwriter, and author Pedro Almodóvar is the recipient of the 50th Chaplin Award. He will be honored during a gala evening at Lincoln Center on April 28, 2025.

The announcement was made this evening by Flc President Lesli Klainberg prior to the 62nd New York Film Festival Centerpiece premiere of Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door,” which won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival and opens at Flc on December 20.

Per this evening’s official announcement, “Internationally recognized for his spirited and bold storytelling with a distinctive and colorful visual style, Pedro Almodóvar is one of Spain’s most celebrated filmmakers. His work is characterized by a blend of humor and melodrama and his ability to create resonant, emotional stories often centered around the lives of strong and fearless women. He has...

Oscar-winning Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar has made a name for himself with a series of brightly colored, delightfully kinky and unabashedly melodramatic titles, mixing comedy, drama, sex and violence to great success. He shows no signs of slowing down, with his latest outing in 2019 being the Oscar-nominated “Pain and Glory.” Let’s take a look back at all 22 of his films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1949 in Spain, Almodovar came to prominence during La Movida Madrilena, a cultural renaissance that blossomed at the end of Francoist Spain. Staring with his filmmaking debut “Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom” (1980), the openly gay director showed an affinity for oddballs and outsiders, populating his films with transvestites, transexuals and homosexuals, all of whom had previously been relegated to the closet. He also showed a talent for working with women, and throughout his 40 year career has placed actresses such as Penelope Cruz,...

In The Return, a soldier comes home after being away for many years at war, looking haggard and exhausted. His friends don’t recognize him, he has a difficult time readjusting to society and even his wife doesn’t seem to know who he is. It seems a fairly familiar story, except that the main characters’ names are Odysseus and Penelope, the setting is the island of Ithaca and the war took place in Troy. Yes, this film — receiving its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival before a theatrical release later this year — is an adaptation of a section of Homer’s The Odyssey.

But don’t expect appearances by gods or goddesses or mythological creatures created by the likes of Ray Harryhausen. Rather, director/co-screenwriter Uberto Pasolini (Still Life, Nowhere Special) strips the tale to its bare essentials, resulting in a stark, solemnly paced experience that viewers...

Tilda Swinton Julianne Moore in The Room Next Door Photo: Iglesias Más Film at Lincoln Center has announced that Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton with John Turturro, Alex Høgh Andersen and Alessandro Nivola, will be the Centerpiece selection of the 62nd New York Film Festival. RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys and Steve McQueen’s Blitz are the Opening and Closing Night gala selections.

Almodóvar has a long and honoured history with the festival. Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (NYFF26) was the Opening Night selection, and he also opened NYFF with All About My Mother (NYFF37). Bad Education (NYFF42) and Volver (NYFF44) were selected as Centerpieces, and Live Flesh (NYFF35), Talk To Her (NYFF40), Broken Embraces (NYFF47), and Parallel Mothers (NYFF59) were Closing Night selections. Additional NYFF selections include The Flower Of My Secret (NYFF33), The Skin I Live In...

After just wrapping production a few months ago, Pedro Almodóvar is already putting the finishing touches on his next feature. Following Venice Film Festival’s announcement of a world premiere for The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, it’s now been unveiled as the Centerpiece selection for the 62nd New York Film Festival, making its U.S. premiere at Alice Tully Hall on October 4.

Here’s the synopsis: “Ingrid (Julianne Moore), a best-selling writer, rekindles her relationship with her friend Martha (Tilda Swinton), a war journalist with whom she has lost touch for a number of years. The two women immerse themselves in their pasts, sharing memories, anecdotes, art, movies—yet Martha has a request that will test their newly strengthened bond. Pedro Almodóvar’s finely sculpted drama, his first English-language feature, is the unmistakable work of a master filmmaker, a hushed and humane portrayal of...

Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, will receive its U.S. premiere as the centerpiece selection for the 2024 New York Film Festival on Oct. 4.

The film, an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, marks Spanish auteur Almodóvar’s first English-language feature and follows best-selling writer Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton) as they rekindle their friendship after losing touch. As they immerse themselves in past memories, anecdotes, art and movies, Martha makes a request that will test their renewed bond.

“I am delighted that The Room Next Door will be the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival,” said Almodóvar. “This festival has been my bridge to New York audiences for decades, so it only felt natural that the two protagonists go see a film at the Alice Tully Hall in one of the scenes of the movie. It...

A bio-series about iconic ranchera singer Chavela Vargas starring “La Reina del Sur” lead Kate del Castillo is in the works. Colombia’s Caracol Televisión and indie Miracol Media are co-producing “Chavela,” which will trace the tumultuous life and career of the legendary singer.

Del Castillo will transform into Vargas, the mythical woman in the red poncho, who boldly rejected the conventions of her time, paving the way for a unique and groundbreaking journey in the landscape of Mexican popular music.

Her internal battle with personal demons, heartbreak, and alcoholism propelled her to become a trailblazer, stepping onto the stage to sing Mexican songs in a jorongo, the traditional Mexican poncho, and pants. With a guitar pressed against her heart, a tequila in hand, and a pistol holstered on her belt, she mesmerized audiences, captivating both men and women alike.

“I came out of hell, but I did it singing,...

Bardem's versatility shines through in his roles, from villains like Raoul Silva in Skyfall to heroes like Ramon Sampedro in The Sea Inside. Bardem's charm and magnetic charisma keep audiences engaged even in movies like Mondays in the Sun that could feel directionless. Bardem's exceptional performances and distinctive voice make him a standout in films like Before Night Falls, where he portrays the struggles of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas.

Javier Bardem has enjoyed a remarkable career in both Spanish and English-language films, and his best movies showcase many sides to his talent as an actor. Bardem is well-known as a villain in several movies. Bardem plays the villain in Skyfall, No Country for Old Men, Collateral, and many more movies. He is able to tap into a distinctly menacing presence in these roles, and his intimidating stare and deep voice are great advantages for him. But he is far more than just a villain-type,...

Spike Lee and Pedro Almodóvar are the first honourees announced for this year’s TIFF Tribute Awards. ‘Do the Right Thing’ director Spike, 66, will receive the TIFF Ebert Director Award, which recognises filmmakers who have “exemplified greatness in their careers”. ‘Live Flesh’ filmmaker Pedro, 73 – who won the best original screenplay for his 2022 movie ‘Talk to Her’ – will receive the Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media presented by Participant, which recognises “leadership in creating a union between social impact and cinema”. Cameron Bailey, CEO of TIFF, said about Spike, who won the adapted screenplay Oscar for his ‘BlacKkKlansman’ film: “A foremost storyteller of our era… Spike has inspired audiences and made a lasting impact on the art of filmmaking.” He added about Pedro – one of the most renowned international auteurs of his generation: “It’s a true thrill to acknowledge Pedro Almodóvar as the distinguished recipient of the Jeff Skoll Impact...

Penélope Cruz Depositphotos

Penélope Cruz Sánchez, born on April 28, 1974, is a renowned Spanish actress. She has made a name for herself in various film genres, particularly in Spanish-language films, and has received numerous awards and nominations for her exceptional performances. These accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, four Golden Globe Award nominations, and five Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

Cruz embarked on her acting career at a young age, signing with an agent at 15. She made her television debut at 16 and her first appearance in a feature film the following year in Jamón Jamón (1992). Her notable roles include Belle Époque (1992), Open Your Eyes (1997), Don Juan (1998), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000), and Woman on Top (2000). She is particularly recognized for her collaborations with acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar in films such as Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Volver...

In a bid to give more opportunities to women directors and boost the romcom genre, Sony Pictures International has teamed up with Maria Ripoll’s Cahuenga Filmmakers and transatlantic production shingle El Estudio to launch The Love Collection, a series of romantic comedy features to be written and helmed by women.

Ripoll, best known for her romcom “Ahora o nunca,” the highest-grossing femme-directed film in Spain, will serve as executive producer on all the titles, and will direct the first in the collection, “Yo no soy esa,” (roughly translated to “I’m Not That One” or “I’m Not Her”) starring Verónica Echegui. El Estudio’s Enrique López Lavigne will serve as producer on all the titles.

In “Yo no soy esa,” Susana (Echegui) wakes up after a 20-year coma. Stuck in a grown woman’s body but emotionally and psychologically still a teenager, Susana must learn to navigate an unfamiliar world and rediscover herself.

Quad Cinema has announced that “Boundless Bardem,” a retrospective on Javier Bardem’s acting career tied to the release of his upcoming film “The Good Boss,” will run at The Quad in New York City from August 19th – 25th.

The films in the retrospective are Julian Schnabel’s “Before Night Falls“ (35mm); Bigas Luna’s “Golden Balls” (35mm) and “Jamón Jamón” (35mm); Pedro Almodóvar’s “Live Flesh” (35mm); Bond film “Skyfall” (4K); Asghar Farhadi’s “Everybody Knows”; Ethan and Joel Coen’s “No Country for Old Men,” Fernando León de Aranoa’s “Loving Pablo” and “Mondays in the Sun”; Álex de la Iglesia’s “Perdita Durango”, Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!”; and Alejandro Amenábar’s “The Sea Inside.”

The screening series will be co-produced with the Consulate General of Spain in New York.

“One of the most exciting moments of my work as a Cultural Consul are the times when we...

Festival scheduled to run from March 4-13.

Penélope Cruz, Oscar-nominated for Parallel Mothers, will receive receive the 39th Miami Film Festival’s Precious Gem Icon Award on March 12.

Cruz will take part in a virtual award tribute and conversation as part of the Awards Ceremony programme that includes the closing night screening of Panamanian shortlisted international feature Plaza Catedral. The festival is scheduled to run from March 4-13.

The Spanish star and longtime Pedro Almodovar collaborator earned a best lead actress Goya Award nomination for Parallel Mothers, in which she plays a photographer involved in a maternity ward mix-up who...

Penelope Cruz just earned her fourth Oscar nomination for her nuanced performance in “Parallel Mothers,” the latest film from her frequent collaborator, Pedro Almodovar. The actress plays Janis, a photographer who comes to realize her baby was switched at birth.

Cruz recently spoke with Gold Derby senior editor Denton Davidson about her working relationship with Almodovar, how her maternal instincts lend themselves to so many of his films and her memories of winning an Oscar for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” in 2009. Watch the exclusive interview above and read the complete transcript below.

SEEOscars 2022: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are 6th married actors nominated in the same year, but that’s not the only eerie ‘Parallel’

Gold Derby: Penelope, I want to start by asking about your relationship with Pedro because you’ve collaborated with him on so many great projects. This is, I believe, your eighth film together. Can you...

by Cláudio Alves

Since they started working together, Penélope Cruz has always been a mother figure in Pedro Almodóvar's cinema. He calls her the epitome of Spanish motherhood, resilient and sensual. It's an archetype she has represented, in some way, in all their collaborations – from 1997's Live Flesh to this year's Parallel Mothers. Indeed, their latest partnership feels like a culmination, the maximum manifestation of the auteur's ideas on motherhood. It's also the most complicated role he's ever given his current muse, an extreme of melodrama paralleled by political reflections. The actress is asked to go to extremes of emotion while also holding back. She must be outwardly demonstrative, crystalline clear, naked in sentiment and expression. However, the part also demands internalization, reticence, secrets that burn. All in all, it's a monumental challenge…...

Penélope Cruz first met Pedro Almodóvar when she was cast in his 1997 film, “Live Flesh.” Almodóvar had originally wanted her to star in “Kika,” but Cruz was too young for the role. The director promised her he would write a character for another movie, and he did. It would mark the beginning of their many collaborations, the most recent of which is “Parallel Mothers.”

“He told me about it 18-20 years ago when we were doing press for ‘All About My Mother,'” but he never talked about it again,” Cruz says. When the pandemic hit, the actress got a call from Almodóvar, who said he was writing the story for her. Almodóvar didn’t recall their earlier conversation, but Cruz did. “I don’t forget anything he shares with me,” she laughs.

Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast recently spoke with Cruz about “Parallel Mothers,” working with Almodóvar and much more.

“I always want more,” admits Oscar winner Penelope Cruz when asked about her frequent collaborations with Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. Cruz stars in the Oscar-winning writer and director’s latest film, “Parallel Mothers,” which received a nine-minute standing ovation after its world premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in September. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

“To me he’s a genius,” Cruz continues. “We can safely call him a genius. I met him when I was 18. That’s the first time he called me. I felt an incredible connection with him from day one. I was too young for that movie, but he told me he would call me later. Two years later he offered me ‘Live Flesh’ and we started this relationship. This collaboration that really works. We know each other, we trust each other. I just keep learning and being surprised by him. This [relationship with Pedro] is...

Since the 1980s Alberto Iglesias has created beautiful, thrilling music for the screen working broadly throughout his native Spain and Hollywood and with a versatile array of directors and genres—underpinned by his iconic collaborations with Pedro Almodóvar. Iglesias' film suites are fashioned with lucious jazz and emotive orchestral poetry. He beautifully balances the tension of theatrical melodrama with voyages into memory and the vibrancy of inner-city life, with its sophisticated glamour and debauched underbellies. This mix provides a healthy dose of Iglesias collaborations with Almodóvar, from their early years with films such as The Flower of My Secret (1995) and Live Flesh (1997) to this year’s Parallel Mothers and The Human Voice (where Igelsias’s key focus was to riff on his Almodóvar themes of the past). Julio Medem’s Sex and Lucia (2001) defines the 2000s moment of contemporary Spanish cinema’s bursts on the global sphere, soundtracked by that early millenium “Igelsias” sound.

Something strange happened to Penélope Cruz as she rehearsed on the set of “Parallel Mothers.” Whenever the crew would come to collect the doll she was using as a stand-in for a flesh-and-blood baby, Cruz tensed up. She became combative. It didn’t matter that it was only a toy — she refused to surrender her child.

“It freaked me out,” remembers Cruz. “When the prop department would take the doll, I went psycho. It was my baby. I felt something deep in myself that was like if you take the fucking doll from me, I’m going to hit you.”

That primal instinct and protective flame would serve Cruz well when it came to putting “Parallel Mothers,” the story of two women whose children are switched at birth, on the screen. The film, which marks her eighth collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar, is one of the most psychologically rich and surprising of their partnerships,...

Pedro Almodóvar is back in fine form with his latest melodrama, “Parallel Mothers,” which stars his muse Penélope Cruz and breakout Milena Smit as a magazine photographer and a teenager whose newborns are switched at birth. In the movie, which is the closing night selection of the New York Film Festival, Cruz found herself reuniting with her longtime director, while Smit landed in the film as a discovery off Instagram. But according to Cruz at the New York Film Festival press conference on Friday morning, “Parallel Mothers” is actually a long-gestating film, as its genesis dates back more than 20 years ago, from around the days of 1999’s Oscar-winning “All About My Mother.”

“The first time he shared with me something about this story, we were here in New York, and doing press for ‘All About My Mother,'” said Cruz, who in the film forms a fascinating bond, via an erotic twist,...

Penelope Cruz first fell in love with director Pedro Almodovar at the age of 16, when she snuck in — then too young to see an R-rated film — to watch 1989’s “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!”

Since then, they’ve worked together on seven projects, and she’s served as his muse in everything from 1997’s “Live Flesh” to 1999’s “All About My Mother” and 2006’s “Volver.”

Their latest project, “Parallel Mothers,” premieres as the opening night movie at the 78th annual Venice Film Festival on Wednesday. Before the film’s gala, Cruz and Almodovar appeared at a press conference together at the Palazzo Del Casino, where they talked about their 24-year working relationship.

Cruz said that she doesn’t lobby Almodovar for new parts, but waits to see if he envisions a role for her after he’s done with a script.

“I respect him too much to bombard him with requests,...

Pilar Bardem, the mother of Javier Bardem and mother in law of Penelope Cruz has passed away, with the news being confirmed in a joint statement from Javier and his siblings, Carlos and Monica, on Saturday via Carlos' Twitter account. The actress' children then followed up with a joint tribute to their mother, who died following complications from a non-Covid related lung disease. The Goya Award winner was 82 years old and has appeared in a variety of Spanish language movie and TV roles in her career.

"We want to share the news that Pilar Bardem, our mother, our example, has died," Carlos shared via his Twitter account in Spanish. "She departed in peace and without suffering, surrounded by the love of her family. We know the love and admiration many felt for her, both in Spain and beyond, for her work as an actress and as a fighter who always stood in solidarity.

Spanish actress and activist Pilar Bardem—mother of actors Monica, Carlos, and Javier Bardem—died on Saturday at the Ruber Hospital in Madrid because of complications from lung disease not related to Covid-19. She was 82.

The Goya Award-winning actress (the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar) appeared in a variety of film, theater, and TV projects throughout her career in her native Spain. Her most highly lauded project is 1995’s Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (Nobody Will Speak of Us When We’re Dead), which earned 8 Goya awards, including Bardem’s Best Supporting Actress nod.

“We want to share the news that Pilar Bardem, our mother, our example, has died,” Carlos shared via Twitter in Spanish. “She departed in peace and without suffering, surrounded by the love of her family. We know the love and admiration many felt for her, both in Spain and beyond, for her work as...

Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks Int’l has scooped up worldwide rights to Paraguayan filmmaker Simon Franco’s “Charlotte,” a dramedy starring the grande dame of Spanish cinema, Angela Molina.

“Charlotte” is produced by Franco’s Paraguay-based Lemon Cine, along with Argentina’s Pelicano Cine and Fam Contenidos.

In addition, Lemon Cine has acquired the remake rights to Chilean comedy “Sin Filtro” from FilmSharks subsidiary The Remake Company, to make a Paraguayan version.

Shot mostly in Paraguay, the titular Charlotte, played by Molina, is an actress past her prime who sets off from her home in Argentina to Paraguay to chase down a director who’s prepping a film that she believes is just the tonic to revive her flagging career.

The official trailer and poster of the Paraguayan-Argentine co-production bow exclusively in Variety.

In the trailer, Charlotte/Molina finds out that the director who launched her career is planning to shoot his swan song in Paraguay.

Titles include Pathé’s entire Pedro Almodóvar library.

Streaming service Mubi has secured a deal with Pathé that will see more than 20 titles added to its platform in the UK and Ireland.

The agreement covers Pathé’s entire Pedro Almodóvar library including Pain And Glory, which was nominated for two Oscars and saw Antonia Banderas win the best actor prize at Cannes last year.

Other notable directors with films in the deal include Steve McQueen, François Ozon, Jane Campion and Ava DuVernay. Mubi will make Pain And Glory available exclusively on its platform from Friday (June 19).

The move bolsters Mubi...

Pedro Almodovar celebrates his 70th birthday on September 25, 2019. The Oscar-winning Spanish auteur has made a name for himself with a series of brightly colored, delightfully kinky and unabashedly melodramatic titles, mixing comedy, drama, sex and violence to great success. He shows no signs of slowing down, with his latest outing in 2019 being the critically acclaimed “Pain and Glory.” But where does it fall with the rest of his filmography? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at all 21 of his films, ranked worst to best.

SEEPenelope Cruz movies: 15 greatest films ranked worst to best

Born in 1949 in Spain, Almodovar came to prominence during La Movida Madrilena, a cultural renaissance that blossomed at the end of Francoist Spain. Staring with his filmmaking debut “Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom” (1980), the openly gay director showed an affinity for oddballs and outsiders, populating his films with transvestites,...

“In terms of dramatic creativity there are three Spanish icons,” says academic and critic Maria Delgado. “Miguel de Cervantes, Federico García Lorca and Pedro Almodóvar.” But while Cervantes has been dead for over 400 years, and Lorca over 80, at the age of 79, the filmmaker from La Mancha continues to represent his homeland at the highest level, as this year he returned to the Cannes Competition with his 22nd feature film Pain and Glory, the semi-autobiographical tale of a director in decline (played by Antonio Banderas), ruminating on his life choices.

For Almodóvar, the last 40 years have been nothing but extraordinary. Back in the late ’60s he was working as an admin assistant for a Spanish telecom company, but when he clocked off at three in the afternoon he entered a secret and flamboyant world that would have shocked his drab, grey workmates.

Earlier in the decade, the country’s ruler-dictator General...

8 May 1998: The Spanish director talks about plunging into the depths of Franco’s reign in his new film, Live Flesh

Pedro Almodóvar is not in the fluffiest of moods. The normally effervescent Spanish wunderkind, the director who gave expression to the feeling of liberation that swept through Spain following the death of Franco, is, it seems, rather bored.

Almodóvar is in London to talk about his new and most accomplished film to date, Live Flesh. A loose adaptation of a Ruth Rendell story, Almodóvar’s 12th film has been received with rapture by critics throughout Europe. In a further accolade, it is set for a wide release in America following MGM’s decision to push its new Goldwyn art-house line with the film.

Penelope Cruz had met Donatella Versace occasionally over the years, and she felt “affection and admiration” for her, so she felt it was important to get the famous fashion designer’s blessing before playing her in the FX limited series “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.” Cruz explains, “We had a long conversation, and she said to me, ‘If somebody’s going to do it, I prefer that it’s you’ … So that’s what I did. It was my personal homage to her.” Watch our exclusive video interview with Cruz above.

Playing Donatella was a technical challenge. Cruz is Spanish, so not only did she have to learn to portray her “unique way of communicating” and her “rock-and-roll” style and personality, she also had to do it in English with an Italian accent.

But Cruz also wanted to better understand the artistic and familial relationship between Gianni and Donatella, so...

by Nathaniel R

Pedro Almodóvar has begun shooting his next film which is called Pain & Glory, so we can expect it in 2019. This will be Penelope Cruz's sixth collaboration with one of the world's greatest directors. Antonio Banderas will also co-star, marking his 7th Pedro film. Other Almodóvar regulars appearing will be Kiti Mánver (6th time) and Julieta Serrano (5th time). Though Pedro pictures are usually all about the actresses occassionally he throws gorgeous men into the mix. And this looks like one of those times. In addition to Banderas in what we assume will be the lead role (?), we've got: Raúl Arévalo from I'm So Excited, Leonardo Sbaraglia (Wild Tales) and Asier Etxeandia (Ma Ma).

The movie will also be the feature debut for a young popular singer named Rosalía. She posted the following picture on her instagram...

Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on global star Penélope Cruz, who’s delivering lauded performances on multiple platforms, in English and her native Spanish.

Bottom Line: Cruz is a Goya and Oscar-winner (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”) who chases challenging material around the globe. This year she and husband Javier Bardem not only opened Cannes with Asghar Farhadi’s Spanish mystery drama “Everybody Knows” (Focus Features) — which went on to rack up over $6.5 million in France — but Cruz transformed herself into blonde Italian fashion icon Donatella Versace for her first-ever foray into television. Ryan Murphy’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” (FX) scored 18 Emmy nominations last week including Supporting Actress in a Limited series for Cruz. Next, she’ll play her sixth role with mentor Pedro Almodovar, playing his mother...

Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on global star Penélope Cruz, who’s delivering lauded performances on multiple platforms, in English and her native Spanish.

Bottom Line: Cruz is a Goya and Oscar-winner (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”) who chases challenging material around the globe. This year she and husband Javier Bardem not only opened Cannes with Asghar Farhadi’s Spanish mystery drama “Everybody Knows” (Focus Features) — which went on to rack up over $6.5 million in France — but Cruz transformed herself into blonde Italian fashion icon Donatella Versace for her first-ever foray into television. Ryan Murphy’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” (FX) scored 18 Emmy nominations last week including Supporting Actress in a Limited series for Cruz. Next, she’ll play her sixth role with mentor Pedro Almodovar, playing his mother...

Project will start shooting in July, produced by Almodóvar’s company El Deseo.

Pedro Almodóvar is working on his new film, Dolor Y Gloria (which translates as ’Pain And Glory’). Shooting will start in July and two of his favourite actors will be in the cast: Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz.

Dolor Y Gloria is about “a film director in the twilight of his career” and his reflections on life and work, said Almodovar via a statement from hs Madrid-based production company El Deseo, which he runs with brother Agustin. “First loves, second loves, his mother, mortality, an actor who...

Live Flesh: Minter’s Perverts the Shadows in the Cave with Delirious Debut

Director Emiliano Rocha Minter (who was the still photographer on Gerardo Naranjo’s 2011 film Miss Bala) becomes the latest in a growing wave of Mexican filmmakers prizing Grand Guignol wrapped social commentary with his debut We Are the Flesh, a cannibalistic incest film set almost entirely in cave with all the soft ambience of a rock hewn sex club.

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With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Always Shine (Sophia Takal)

With the excess of low-budget, retreat-in-the-woods dramas often finding characters hashing out their insecurities through a meta-narrative, a certain initial resistance can occur when presented with such a derivative scenario at virtually every film festival. While Sophia Takal‘s psychological drama Always Shine ultimately stumbles, the chemistry of its leads and a sense of foreboding dread in its formal execution ensures its heightened view of...

Sony Pictures Classics has set a Dec. 21 theater release for Pedro Almodóvar’s 20th film “Julieta,” and acquired the remainder of his film library. The new acquisitions include “Pepi, Luci, Bom;” “Labyrinth of Passion;” “Dark Habits;” “What Have I Done to Deserve This?;” “High Heels” and “Kika.” The full library also includes “Matador,” “Law of Desire,” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” “The Flower of My Secret,” “Live Flesh,” “All About My Mother,” “Talk to Her,” “Bad Education,” “Volver,” “Broken Embraces,” “I’m So Excited!” and “The Skin I Live In.” “Julieta” premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

After scooping up Best Screenplay and Best Actor honors for The Salesman at the Cannes Film Festival, Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi has swiftly landed two more international prizes for his next film: Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem. The Oscar-winning couple reuniting onsceen is only the half of it; as previously announced last year, they join producers Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar for Farhadi’s first Spanish-language project. If you place the emphasis on the first word in “cinematic universe,” this is the sort of continent-crossing collaboration of which one dreams. As the superheroes behind A Separation, Volver, No Country for Old Men, All About My Mother, and Wild Tales coalesce and move towards production, we can’t wait to see what kind of direction they take the project.

While Cruz, Bardem, and the brothers Almodóvar have all collaborated with one another in some form before – recently, Broken Embraces, Vicky Cristina Barcelona; not so recently,...

After premiering at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival in the Galas Program, via Cohen Media, the double 40th César Award nominated The New Girlfriend received a limited theatrical release a year later for a meager box-office take just under one hundred and fifty thousand. Based on a novel by Ruth Rendell, Francois Ozon’s playful subversion of gender dynamics hinges on camp, recalling a legion of vintage queer classics from decades ago (as well as Ozon’s own darker, challenging early filmography when the auteur was referred to as a terrible enfant). As politically correct agendas continue to be applied to queer characters, engulfing deliberations of appropriate representation, items such as Ozon’s film have become a rarity in the English language market. But there’s a perverse mixture of dark comedy and psychological unrest portrayed here, and Ozon gleefully captures a neglected energy of queer cinema once again relegated to the periphery of good taste.

The Spanish maestro will receive the Writers Guild Of America, West’s Jean Renoir Award for Screenwriting Achievement.

Almodóvar will collect his honour at Wgaw’s 2015 Writers Guild Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on February 14.

Career highlights include Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Live Flesh, All About My Mother, Talk To Her and Volver.

The Skin I Live In: Ozon’s Exquisite New Exploration of Gender Subversion

For his most playful and delightfully creepy film in years, Francois Ozon adapts crime writer Ruth Rendell’s short story for his latest, The New Girlfriend. Rendell has long supplied a bevy of European filmmakers with some of their most memorable titles, including Claude Miller’s Alias Betty (2001), Pedro Almodovar’s Live Flesh (1997), and perhaps, most notably, Claude Chabrol’s La Ceremonie (1994) and The Bridesmaid (2004). An excellent purveyor of strange and complicated relationships that often involve sublimated identities and tendencies that often lead to deadly scenarios, Rendell serves as an excellent template for Ozon with material that recalls the sexually transgressive explorations of his early career.

Claire (Anais Demoustier) and Laura (Isild Le Besco) have been inseparable friends since childhood. They’ve followed nearly the same life trajectory as well, both marrying handsome young men and what not.

In a development that feels more inevitable than surprising, Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are in talks to get back into the Bourne business. The two had sent mixed messages over the years, ever since Jason Bourne disappeared in the murky East River at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, with the major roadblock being Damon’s insistence that a reluctant Greenglass direct, while Universal handed the franchise over to writer-turned-director Tony Gilroy. But with Gilroy’s Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner, failing to live up to the original three Bourne films at the box office, and Damon’s recent non-Bourne projects,...

The seductive mystery fiction of British writer Ruth Rendell has proven highly adaptable source material for a number of non-Anglo European filmmakers, among them Claude Chabrol in La Ceremonie and The Bridesmaid, Claude Miller in Alias Betty and Pedro Almodovar in Live Flesh. Francois Ozon joins the list with The New Girlfriend, spun from a 1985 short story by Rendell into a delectable riff on transformation, desire and sexuality that blends the heightened reality of melodrama with mischievous humor and an understated strain of Hitchcockian suspense. Ozon has carved a career out of scratching beneath the cool surface of the

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Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies who have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Alex Angulo (1953-2014) - Spanish Actor. He is best known here for playing the doctor in Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (see below). His other movies include the 2006 Gary Oldman starrer The Backwoods, Pedro Almodovar's Live Flesh and Alex de la Iglesia's The Day of the Beast, Accion Mutante and Dying of Laughter. He died in a car accident on July 20. (El Pais) Paul Apted (1967-2014) - Sound Editor. He worked on the...

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I hope someone in Madrid is dimming the lights on the Schweppes sign; that would be a fitting tribute to one of its best actors. Álex Angulo, star of films such as The Day of the Beast, Live Flesh, and Pan's Labyrinth, has died in a traffic accident in his native Spain. Likely best known to film audiences through his work with Álex de la Iglesia, this is a tremendous loss for Spanish cinema.Born in the Basque country, Angulo got his start in local theatre before moving to film in 1981 with Escape to Segovia (directed by Imanol Uribe). But it was his film with de la Iglesia that brought him to greater prominence. First, as one half of conjoined twins in Mutant Action, who...

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